The Utility of the sense of justice

Society requires the virtue called Justice which is sustained by the utility afforded by society

¹⁵ It is thus that man, who can subsist only in society, was fitted by nature to that situation for which he was made. Everyone in society needs each other’s assistance and protection. The society flourishes and is happy if the necessary assistance is reciprocally afforded from love, gratitude, friendship, and esteem. All its members are:

• bound together by love and affection, and
• drawn to one common centre of mutual good offices.

¹⁶ Society will not necessarily be dissolved if:

• the necessary assistance does not come from such generous and disinterested motives, and
• there were no mutual love and affection among its members.

However, it will be less happy and agreeable. Society may subsist among different men, as among different merchants, from a sense of its utility, without any mutual love or affection. In such a case, no one would owe any obligation or be bound in gratitude to any other. Society may still be upheld by a mercenary exchange of good offices according to an agreed valuation.

¹⁷ However, society cannot subsist among those who are always ready to hurt one another. The moment that injury begins and mutual animosity take place:

• all the bands of it are broken apart, and
• its members are dissipated and scattered abroad by their discordant affections’ violence and opposition

A society of robbers and murderers must at least abstain from robbing and murdering one another. Therefore, beneficence is less essential to society’s existence than justice. Society may subsist without beneficence, though not in the most comfortable state. But the prevalence of injustice must utterly destroy it.

¹⁸ Nature exhorts mankind to acts of beneficence, by the pleasing consciousness of deserved reward. However, she has not thought it necessary to enforce beneficence by the terrors of punishment if it were neglected.

Beneficence is the ornament which embellishes the building, not the foundation which supports it. Therefore, it was sufficient to recommend, but not necessary to impose.

Justice, on the contrary, is the main pillar that supports the building. If it is removed, the great, immense fabric of human society must crumble into atoms. That fabric which raises and supports us in this world was the peculiar and darling care of Nature. To enforce the observation of justice, Nature has implanted in the human breast as the great safeguards of society:

• that consciousness of demerit and
• those terrors of punishment

Men are naturally sympathetic. But they feel so little for those they have no particular connection with, compared to what they feel for themselves.

The misery of a person, that they do not know, is of so little importance to them compared to their own small convenience. They can even hurt him and may have had many temptations to do so. Like wild beasts, they would always be ready to fly on him if this principle did not:

• stand up within them in his defence, and
• overawe them to respect his innocence.

A man would enter an assembly of men as he enters a den of lions.

The Means Are Naturally Adjusted For The Ends

¹⁹ In every part of the universe, we observe that the means are adjusted nicely to the ends which they are intended to produce. A plant or animal body is contrived to advance nature’s two great purposes:

1. The support of the individual
2. The propagation of the species

But we still distinguish the effect from the ultimate cause. Digestion, blood circulation, and the secretion of the juices drawn from it, are necessary operations for the great purposes of animal life.

Yet we never:

• separate those purposes from their ultimate causes
• imagine that the blood circulates or that food digests of its own accord merely to circulate or digest

The gears of the watch are all adjusted for its end purpose of pointing the hour. All its motions conspire to produce this effect, as if those wheels had a desire in themselves to show the hour. Yet we always ascribe such a desire or intention to the watch-maker and never to the gears.

Similarly, in accounting for the operations of bodies, we always distinguish the effect from the ultimate cause.

But in accounting for the mind’s operations, we usually confound cause with effect. An enlightened reason naturally leads us to advance the two ends of support and propagation. We conclude that the cause of that reason is our feelings.

We imagine this cause to be the wisdom of man, which in reality is the wisdom of God. Superficially, this cause seems enough to produce those two effects. The system of human nature is more simple and agreeable when all its operations are deduced from a single principle.

²⁰ Society cannot subsist unless the laws of justice are tolerably observed. No social intercourse can happen between men who always injure each other. It has been thought that this necessity led to law enforcement. It has been said that man:

• has a natural love for society, and
• desires that the union of mankind should be preserved for its own sake, even if he derives no benefit from it.

Society’s order is agreeable to him. Its disorder and confusion, on the contrary, is disagreeable. Man is sensible too that:

• his own interest is connected with society’s prosperity, and
• the happiness, and perhaps his existence, depends on its preservation.

Therefore, man abhors whatever can destroy society.

Every appearance of injustice, therefore, alarms him and so he runs to stop the progress of injustice. If he cannot restrain it gently then he must beat it down by force.

Hence they say:

²¹ We naturally confirm the propriety of punishment when we reflect how necessary it is to preserve society. This is true when:

• the terror of punishment breaks the violator’s injustice,
• the violator ceases to be feared and instead begins to be pitied by the humane.

The thought of the violator’s suffering extinguishes the resentment in the humane for the sufferings that he has caused. These then prompt them to forgive him and to ask for the consideration of society. The society then counterbalances the impulse of this weak and partial humanity with the dictates of a more comprehensive humanity. They reflect that mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent. They oppose the compassion for the violator with the larger compassion for mankind.

²² Sometimes too we defend the general rules of justice by their necessity to society. We frequently hear the young and licentious ridiculing the sacred rules of morality. This rouses our indignation which makes us eager to refute and expose their detestable principles. But we do this without knowing why. We just think that they should be hated just because they are the natural objects of hatred. We think that the society’s disorder will result from the prevalence of licentious practices.

²³ All licentious practices tends to destroy society. But this seldom animates us initially against them. Everyone, even the most stupid and unthinking, abhors fraud, perfidy, and injustice. But few men have reflected on the necessity of justice no matter how obvious that necessity may be.

²⁴ We are originally interested in punishing crimes to protect ourselves and not to preserve society.

We are concerned about a person’s loss because we are concerned about him, and not because he is a member of society.

We are concerned for the loss of a single guinea because we are concerned about it, and not because that guinea is a part of 1,000 guineas.

This concern does not necessarily include any love, esteem, and affection that we have for our friends.

• It arises from our fellow-feeling.

We even sympathize with an odious person when he is injured wrongly.

In this case, our disapprobation of his ordinary character does not prevent our fellow-feeling with his natural resentment. Though it is damped with those who are not used to the rules of justice.

²⁵ Sometimes, we approve of punishment merely for society’s general interest.

• This is true for the breaches of civil police or military discipline.

Such crimes do not immediately nor directly hurt anyone.

• But their remote consequences might produce a great disorder in society.

For example, a sentinel who falls asleep on his watch can be executed according to the laws of war.

• This is because such carelessness might endanger the whole army.
• This severity might appear just and proper.

When an individual’s preservation is inconsistent with the multitude’s safety, then the many should be preferred to the one.

Yet this punishment always appears to be excessively severe.

• The natural atrocity of this crime seems so small, but the punishment seems so great.
• This makes it very difficult for us to reconcile to it.

The sentinel’s carelessness appears very blamable. Yet it does not naturally excite enough resentment for us to take revenge. A man of humanity must exert his whole firmness and resolution before he can inflict it or let it be inflicted by others.

However, he does not look on the just punishment of an ungrateful murderer in this way.

He would be very enraged if his crime escaped unpunished. A wise man’s very different feelings on those different punishments is a proof that his rejection of the one is based on different principles from his approbation of the other. He looks on the sentinel as an unfortunate victim who must be devoted to the safety of many. But he would still be glad to save him.

He is only sorry that the interest of the many opposes it. But he would be very angry if the murderer escapes punishment. He would call on God to avenge that crime in another world

²⁶ We are unable to think how injustice can be punished in this life. This is why Nature teaches us to hope that it will be punished in a life to come. Religion authorises us to expect this.

Our sense of its demerit pursues it even beyond the grave. However, we still think that God’s justice still requires that He should avenge the injuries of the widow and the fatherless who are so often insulted with impunity.

Accordingly, every religion and superstition has a Tartarus and an Elysium, which are places for:

• the punishment of the wicked, and
• the reward of the just.