JUSTICE Being a Summary of Part IV. of Mr. Herbert Spencer’s “ Principles of Ethics.”
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SUPPLEMENT TO “THE LITERARY GUIDE" OCTOBER, 1898.
W h i l e the degrees of justice which prevail throughout the animal world often bear little relation to individual efficiency, as measured by the power of maintaining and prolonging life, we find that, as organization becomes higher, the relation becomes more decided. In proportion as the animal possesses keen senses and high endowments, its continued life is less endangered by accidents against which it cannot guard. Among gregarious creatures in particular, the relation between services and benefits appears to be perceived, and forms the basis of a rude notion of justice. With human beings we see still more clearly the law that individuals prosper in proportion as they are, or are not, adapted to the conditions of their existence; and this implies that each ought to receive the benefits or evils of his own nature and conduct. The benefits of association in communities are seen to outweigh so greatly the disadvantages that it is found necessary to punish activities which are hurtful to others. In proportion as civilization advances, the liberty o f the individual to injure his fellows is curtailed by restrictive laws. Thus the right of the individual to receive the natural consequences of his acts is subject to the restraint involved in other individuals exercising the same right. The perception of this fact constitutes the sentiment of justice. The self-subordination which, in an imperfect form, is practised by many animals in the interests of the community, as well as of offspring, is much more fully carried out in the case o f man— though, as regards war, the ethical reason for such a sacrifice ceases when war is offensive instead of defensive. The need for this subordination belongs to a transitional state, and tends to disappear as a condition of peace is approached. It is therefore a question, not of absolute, but of relative ethics.
The sentiment of justice takes its rise in the egoistic claim for a free sphere of action, in which the individual may receive the results of his nature and actions. It tends to become altruistic, partly because any encroachment on others will by them be resented, and partly from the restraints imposed by social reprobation, as well as by religious and other considerations. From this the evolution of a sympathetic spirit is natural; the conditions are established under which the altruistic sentiment of justice may be developed. Militant states of society, by checking the growth of sympathy, tend to destroy the sentiment of justice, which can only reach its full development in a permanently peaceful state.
TH E IDEA OF JUSTICE.
The sentiment of justice frequently exists while the idea o f justice is vague. Clear notions respecting the general limits of legitimate actions are only developed by a long course of experience. The right of each person to entire freedom of conduct is limited by the similar right of others, and conflict often arises between the two. Men, being unequal in their powers, receive unequal benefits— a conception proper to the militant type of society which has usually prevailed. The ancient Greeks, for example, appear to have had no difficulty in basing their ideas of justice upon the natural inequality of men. The brute element was but little mitigated by the human and sympathetic element. Modern socialistic theories reverse the conception, and carry the idea of justice to an unwise extreme. They demand an equal apportionment of all the benefits resulting from man’s activities, whether or not those activities are of equal value. Mot only is it thought that the strong and the weak should share alike, but that the foolish and the wise, the mean and the noble, should share alike also.
The true idea of justice is to be found by co ordinating these extreme views, by accepting and developing the element of truth which each contains. The equality concerns the limits within which men can work harmoniously. The inequality concerns the results which each may obtain for himself within those limits. The one applies to the bounds, the other to the benefits. *We may, consequently, express the formula of justice by saying: Every man is free to do that which he wills, provided he infringes not the equal freedom of any other man. In the early stages of society we meet with constant aggression and counter-aggression, accompanied by the idea that equality of pain should be inflicted. The true idea of justice gradually emerges from experience of the evils of the false idea.
THE RIGHT TO PHYSICAL INTEGRITY. The actions of each person must be so restrained as not to inflict bodily injury, great or small, on any other. The crime which involves the greatest possible injury is murder, since by it another’s power to act is not merely interfered with, but destroyed. Yet this perception, which seems to us so clear, has only been arrived at by slow stages. Murder has been thought honourable, as among the Fijians and the tribes who kill off their superfluous numbers— as did many of the inhabitants of ancient Germany. In Homeric times the murderer had merely to dread personal vengeance, and was usually able to compound for his offence by a cash payment. The cutting-off of a human life was not thought a very serious offence. It was the injury done to the family or clan by the loss of one of its members which had to be avenged. Among the European nations the “ benefit of clergy ” often enabled criminals to escape scot-free. It is said that in England, up to the time of the Plantagenets, the murderer who knew how to read was rarely punished. In Puritan times a great advance was made by the abolition of the benefit of clergy, as well as o f wager of battle, and by the laws which punished duelling with great severity. The crime of murder affords a good example of the way in which the idea of justice has grown. At first a private matter, a sin against the individual, it afterwards comes to be regarded as a public matter, as a sin against society at large; while the wrong done to the murdered person is also perceived with greater clearness than before. With regard to lesser injuries, it is noticeable that, while in our own time public sympathy is usually given to the injured person, the State pockets the fine, or condonation-money, payable by the guilty party, and leaves the sufferer to bear the evil as best he may. In the case of injuries caused by negligence, however, the existence of a higher conception is indicated by the fact that the sufferer does get the benefit of the compensation-money; and cases of this nature imply a recognition by the State of the individual’s right to physical integrity. We have now reached a stage in which not merely actual but potential mischiefs to others are regarded as offences against the person. Where a community is endangered by external enemies, the individual’s right to physical integrity has to be subordinated to the need of securing the integrity of the nation. We thus perceive that a continuance of a warlike state prevents the obligations of absolute ethics from being fulfilled, and causes those modifications of them which are termed relative ethics.
THE RIGHT TO FREEDOM OF MOTION.
One of man’s natural rights is that of moving at will from place to place, and the infringement of this right, whether by one person or many, is a transgression of the principle of equity. This right is greatly interfered with in the process by which nations are formed out of unorganized groups, such process being almost invariably one in which war predominates. Among savage tribes prisoners of war were originally cooked and eaten ; and when they were kept to work as slaves an improvement in their condition resulted, until the slave was treated almost as one of the family, and few restraints were imposed on his liberty. The form of slavery which existed among the Hebrews was not changed by Christianity, because the inherent right o f each person to free motion and locomotion was not recognised. Among all other ancient nations freedom, as the inalienable right of each man, had no place in either ethics or law. And in warlike nations, such as Sparta, slavery was more severe than elsewhere, and even the liberty of the slave-owner was
