[19] Science de la Morale, vol. I, p. 100.
The fulfilment of our duties to ourselves generally tends to fit us for fulfilling our duties to others, and the neglect of the former will lead inevitably to inability to perform these latter. Our duty to others thus involves our duty to ourselves.[[20]]
[20] The notion of self-sacrifice itself involves also, to a degree, the maintenance of self, without which there could be no self to sacrifice. History has frequently given examples of men of all types refusing to sacrifice their lives for a certain cause because they wished to preserve them for some other (and possibly better—in their minds at any rate, better) form of self-sacrifice.
Personality which lies at the root of the moral problem demands Truth and Liberty, and it has a right to these two, for without them it is injured. They are essential to a society of persons. Another vital element in society is Work, the neglect of which is a grave immoral act, for as there is in any society a certain amount of necessary work to be performed, a “slacker” dumps his share upon his fellows to perform in addition to their own share. With industrial or general laziness, and the parasitism of those whose riches enable them to live without working, is to be condemned also the shirking of intellectual work by all. Quite apart from those who are “intellectuals” as such, a solemn duty of work, of thought, reflection and reasoning lies on each person in a society. Apathy among citizens is really a form of culpable negligence. The duty of work and thought is so vital and of such ethical, political and social importance that Renouvier suggests that the two words, work and duty, be regarded as synonyms. It might, he thinks, make clearer to many the obligation involved.
Justice has been made clear in the foregoing remarks, but in view of Kant’s distinction of “large” and “strict” duties, Renouvier raises the question of the relation of Justice and Goodness. He concludes that acts proceeding from the latter are to be distinguished from Justice. They proceed not from considerations of persons as such, but from their “nature” or common humanity, and are near to being “duties to oneself.” They are of the heart rather than of the head, proceeding from sentiments of humanity, and sentiment is not, strictly speaking, the foundation of justice, which is based on the notions of duties and rights. There can be, therefore, an opposition of Justice and of Goodness (Kindness or Love), and the sphere of the latter is often limited by considering the former. Renouvier recognises the fact that Justice in the moral sense of recognition and respect for personality is itself often “constitutionally and legally” violated in societies by custom, laws and institutions as well as by members of society in their actions, and he notes that this “legal” injustice makes the problem of the relation of Justice and Charity excessively difficult.
The science of ethics is faced with a double task owing to the nature of man’s evolution and history. Human societies have been built upon a basis which is not that of justice and right, but upon the basis of force and tyranny—in short, upon war. There is, therefore, for the moralist the twin duty of constructing laws and principles for the true society founded upon an ethical basis, that is to say on conceptions of Justice, while at the same time he must give practical advice to his fellows living and striving in present society, where a continual state of war exists owing to the operation of force and tyranny in place of justice, and he must so apply his principles that they may be capable of moving this unjust existing society progressively towards the ideal society.
In our account of Renouvier’s “Philosophy of History” we brought out his insistence upon war as the essential feature of man’s life on this planet, as the basis of our present “civilisation.” Here he proclaims it again in his ethics.[[21]] War reigns everywhere: it is around us and within us—individuals, families, tribes, classes, nations and races. He includes in the term much more than open fighting with guns. The distribution of wealth, of property (especially of land), wages, custom duties, diplomacy, fraud, violence, bigotry, orthodoxy, and persecution, lies themselves, are all, to him, forms of war. Its most ludicrous stronghold is among men who pride themselves on being at peace with all men, while they force their idea of God upon other men’s consciences. Religious intolerance is one, and a very absurd kind of warfare.[[22]]
[21] Science de la Morale, vol. I, p. 332.
[22] Renouvier sums up its spirit in the words: “Crois ce que je crois moi, où je te tue” (La Nouvelle Monadologie).
The principle of justice confers upon the person a certain “right of defence” in the midst of all this existing varied warfare of mankind. It involves, according to Renouvier, resistance. The just man cannot stand by and see the unjust man oppress his fellow so that the victim is “obliged to give up his waistcoat after having had his coat torn from him.” Otherwise we must confuse the just with the saintly man who only admits one law—namely, that of sacrifice. But Renouvier will have us be clear as to the price involved in all this violent resistance. It means calling up powers of evil, emissaries of injustice. He does not found his “right of defence” on rational right; it is to misconceive it so to found it. We must recognise the use of violence and force, even in self-defence, as in itself evil, an evil necessitated by facts which do not conform to the rules of peace and justice themselves. It is to a large degree necessary, unfortunately, but is none the less evil and to be frankly regarded as evil, and likely to multiply evil in the world, owing to the tremendous solidarity of wickedness of which Renouvier has already spoken in history. It is the absence of the reign of justice which necessitates these conflicts, and we have to content ourselves with a conception of actual “right,” a conception already based on war, not with one of “rational right” or justice.