After having thus expounded the innumerable precautions which society has taken, out of respect for human life, touching the persons of criminals, Pascal continues as follows:
“Behold in what way, in the order of justice, the life of man is disposed of; let us see now how you dispose of it.[16] In your new laws there is but one judge, and this judge is the offended party. He is at the same time judge, accuser, and executioner. He seeks himself the death of his enemy; he commands it, he executes him on the spot; and, without respect for either the body or soul of his brother, he kills and damns him for whom Christ died; and all this to avenge an affront, or slander, or an insulting word, or other similar offences for which a judge, although clothed with legal authority, would be considered a criminal if he should condemn to death those who had committed them, because the laws themselves are very far from condemning them.”
Finally, gathering into one word all the evils which homicide comprises, Pascal ends by saying “homicide is the only crime which at the same time destroys the State, the Church, nature, and piety.”
25. The right of self-defense.—None of the foregoing principles would present the shadow of a difficulty to any except those who are nearer the brute than man, if it were not for an apparent exception to the rule, which is the case of legitimate self-defense. To understand properly the solution of this question, it is necessary to examine carefully the nature of the relations which bind men to each other.
Every man is a moral person; that is to say, a free being, and for that very reason inviolable in his dignity and in his rights. He is, as Kant says, an end to himself, and should not be treated as a means. The things of nature are to us but means to satisfy our wants; we may therefore mutilate and destroy them, not as our whims may dictate, but as our wants require. Thus can we cut the finest trees of a forest to make fire of, or for furniture. We even claim a similar right over animals, although it may, perhaps, not be so evident. But we have no such right over man. We can neither mutilate nor destroy him for our use.
And, in fact, to destroy or mutilate through sheer force a member of humanity, is to apply to him the law of compulsion, which is the law of physical nature, and which without reserve governs all physical phenomena: it is to make of man a thing of nature, to see in him the body only, and ignore the soul.
The consequence of such conduct is evident: it is that whosoever employs against another the law of compulsion means thereby that he does not recognize between himself and other men any other law but that. Treating them as if they were purely physical agents, he gives us thereby to understand that he recognizes himself, and expects to be treated, as such; he means to take advantage of his strength as long as he is the strongest, but gives us to understand thereby that he is satisfied to submit to strength if he is the weaker.
It is here that the right of self-defense comes in. He who is violently attacked, has the right to oppose to violence just as much strength as there is employed against him. Otherwise, in allowing himself to be knocked down by strength, he would consent to the abasement, to the suppression of his own personality; he would in some respect be the accomplice of the violence he is made to suffer. Some Christian sects, straining this point, go so far as to condemn absolutely the right of self-defense; they do not see that this would infallibly bring with it the triumph of brute force, and the suppression of all justice. Such sects may, to a certain extent, manage to exist in civilized societies; but the principle is self-destructive, since not to resist violence is in some respect to be its accomplice.
Yet, whilst admitting the right of self-defense, it is necessary to recognize its limits. “This agent,” says M. Renouvier, “whom the right of self-defense treats as a brute, this being is a man, nevertheless, or has been one, or may become such. Hence the doctrine of conscience is to admit this right only when necessary, and not beyond what is necessary.” (Moral Science, Ch. LVI.) This is, to begin with, a natural consequence of the duties towards one’s self, since it is already a surrender of one’s dignity to be obliged to act in the capacity of a physical agent, and renounce one’s character of a moral person; it is also a duty towards humanity in general, which is represented by every man, even the most violent and the most uncultivated.
26. Problems.—The right of legitimate self-defense gives rise to a certain number of problems relative to the law of homicide. M. Jules Simon[17] reduces them to five: homicide in case of self-defense, penalty of death, political assassination, duel, and war. In the first case it is implied in what precedes, that legitimate self-defense may go so far as to deprive another man of life; but only in case of absolute necessity.