Argument 2: Property, Right, And Obligation Do Not Admit of Variations

All kinds of vice and virtue run insensibly into each other. They may approach so imperceptibly that it will be very difficult to determine when the one ends and the other begins. With regard to all kinds of vice and virtue, rights, obligations, and property only have two outcomes. A man: either has a perfect property, or none at all, and either is entirely obliged to perform any action, or has no obligation. The perfect and imperfect dominions from civil laws arise from a fiction which: is not founded in reason, and can never enter into our notions of natural justice and equity. A man that hires a horse for a day, has as full a right to use it for that time, just as its proprietor can use it on any other day. The use of the horse might be bound in time or degree. But the right to use the horse is not susceptible of any such gradation. It is absolute and entire. Accordingly, this right arises and perishes in an instant. A man entirely: acquires the property of any object by occupation, or the consent of the proprietor, and loses the property by his own consent. This is the case with regard to property, rights, and obligations. How does it stand with regard to justice and injustice? You will run into inextricable difficulties however you answer this question. If you reply that justice and injustice run insensibly into each other, you expressly contradict the foregoing position, that obligation and property are not susceptible of such a gradual variation. Obligation and property depend entirely on justice and injustice and follow them in all their variations. Where the justice is entire, property is also entire. Where the justice is imperfect, property must also be imperfect. Vice versa, if property admits no such variations, they must also be incompatible with justice. If you assent to this last proposition and assert that justice and injustice are not susceptible of degrees, you assert that they are not naturally vicious or virtuous. Since vice and virtue, moral good and evil, and all natural qualities: run insensibly into each other, and are undistinguishable on many occasions.

The position that property, right, and obligation do not admit of degrees, is established by:
    abstract reasoning, and
    the general maxims of philosophy and law.
Yet in our common and negligent way of thinking, we:
    find great difficulty to entertain that opinion, and
    even secretly embrace the contrary principle.
An object must either be in the possession of one person or another.
An action must either be performed or not.
    The necessity is in choosing one side in these dilemmas.
    The impossibility is often in finding any just medium.
This obliges us to acknowledge that all property and obligations are entire.
On the other hand, we find that the origin of property and obligation depend on:
    public utility, and
    sometimes on the imagination's propensities.
We naturally imagine that these moral relations admit of an insensible gradation.
    In references, the parties' consent leaves the referees as the entire masters of the subject.
    The referees commonly discover so much equity and justice on both sides.
        It induces them to strike a medium and divide the difference between the parties.
    Civil judges do not have this liberty and are obliged to give sentence on one side.
        They are:
            often at a loss how to give judgment, and
            compelled to proceed on the most frivolous reasons.
        Half rights and obligations seem so natural in common life.
            These are perfect absurdities in their tribunal.
            This is why civil judges are often obliged to take half arguments for whole ones, to terminate the affair one way or other.

Argument 3: General Rules Must Be Inflexible

If we consider the ordinary course of human actions, we shall find that the mind does not restrain itself by any general and universal rules.
    Its actions are usually determined by its present motives and inclination.
Each action is a particular individual event.
    It must proceed from:
        particular principles, and
        our immediate situation:
            within ourselves, and
            with respect to the rest of the universe.
When we make general rules for our own actions, we see that they are flexible and allow many exceptions.
But the laws of justice are universal and perfectly inflexible.
    We may thus conclude that the laws of justice can never be:
        derived from nature, nor
        the immediate offspring of any natural motive.
No action can be morally good or evil, unless there is some natural passion or motive to:
    impel us to it, or
    deter us from it.
Morality must be susceptible of all the same variations natural to that passion.
Two persons dispute for an estate.
    One is rich, a fool, and a bachelor.
        He my enemy.
    The other is poor, a man of sense, and has a big family.
        He is my friend.
    I must be induced to do my utmost to procure the estate to the latter, whether I am actuated:
        by a view to public or private interest, or
        by friendship or enmity.
    If I only acted through natural motives, the considerations of right and property would not be able to restrain me.
All property depends on morality.
    All morality depends on the ordinary course of our passions and actions.
    Our passions and actions are only directed by particular motives.
    Such a partial conduct:
        must be suitable to the strictest morality, and
        could never be a violation of property.
Men would usually conduct themselves by particular judgments if they were free to act with regard to the laws of society.
    They would consider:
        the characters and circumstances of the persons, and
        the general nature of the question.
    This would produce an infinite confusion in human society.
    Men's avidity and partiality would quickly bring disorder into the world, if not restrained by some general and inflexible principles.
Men have established those principles with a view to this inconvenience.
    Men have agreed to restrain themselves by general rules, which are unchangeable by:
        spite and favour, and
        particular views of private or public interest.
    These rules, then:
        are artificially invented for a certain purpose, and
        are contrary to the common principles of human nature.
            These common principles:
                accommodate themselves to circumstances, and
                have no invariable method of operation.

I do not see how I can be mistaken in this matter.
    When any man imposes on himself general inflexible rules in his conduct with others, he considers certain objects as their property.
    He supposes those objects to be sacred and inviolable.
But property is perfectly unintelligible without first supposing justice and injustice.
    These virtues and vices are as unintelligible, unless we have motives independent of the morality, to:
        impel us to just actions, and
        deter us from unjust ones.
    Those motives must:
        accommodate themselves to circumstances, and
        admit of all the variations human affairs are susceptible of.
    They are consequently a very improper foundation for such rigid inflexible rules as the laws of nature.
        These laws can only be derived from human conventions, when men have perceived the disorders that result from following their natural and variable principles.

This distinction between justice and injustice have two different foundations:
    Interest
        This happens when nen observe that it is impossible to live in society without restraining themselves by certain rules.
        Men's voluntary convention and artifice makes the first interest take place.
            Therefore, those laws of justice are to be considered as artifrial.
    Morality
        This happens when this interest is observed and men get:
            a pleasure from actions that tend to the peace of society, and
            an uneasiness from actions that are contrary to peace.
        After that interest is established, the sense of morality in observing these rules follows naturally and of itself.
        It is also augmented by a new artifice.
        We are given a sense of honour and duty in the strict regulation of our actions with regard to the properties of others by:
            the public instructions of politicians, and
            the private education of parents.