Elements of Morals. Paul Janet
is tempted to take advantage. On the contrary, it is a duty, not only to respect the liberty of others, but also to encourage it, to develop it, to enlighten it through education.
6. Duties relating to friendship.—All the preceding duties are the same towards all men. There are others which concern more particularly certain men, those, for example, to whom we are attached either by congeniality of disposition or uniformity of occupation, or a common education, etc., those, namely, whom we call friends. The duties relating to friendship are: 1, to choose well one’s friends; to choose the honest, and enlightened, in order to find in their society encouragement to right-doing. Nothing more dangerous than pleasure-friends or interested friends, united by vices and passions, instead of being united by wisdom and virtue; 2, the friends once chosen, the reciprocal duty is fidelity. They should treat each other with perfect equality and with confidence. They owe each other secrecy when they mutually entrust their dearest interests; they owe each other self-devotion when they need each other’s help. Finally, they owe to each other in a more strict and rigorous a sense, all they generally owe to other men, for the faults or crimes against humanity in general assume a still more odious character when against friends.
21. Professional duties and civic duties.—Such are the general duties of men in relation to each other, when simply viewed as men. But these duties become diversified and specialized according as we view man either in the light of the private functions he fills in society, which are his professional duties, or in the light of the particular society of which he is a member, and which is called the State or the country, and these are the civic duties. (See chapters xii. and xiii.)
22. Distinction between the duties of justice and the duties of charity.—We have said above that all the social duties could be reduced to these two maxims: “Do not do unto others what you do not wish they should do to you. Do to others as you wish to be done by.” These two maxims correspond with what is called: 1, the duties of justice; 2, the duties of charity.
The first consists in not doing wrong, or at least in repairing the wrong already done. Charity consists in doing good, or at least in giving to others what is not really their due. A celebrated writer[13] has made a very subtle and forcible distinction between these two virtues:
“The respect for the rights of others is called justice. All violation of any right whatsoever is an injustice. The greatest of injustices, since it comprises all, is slavery. Slavery is the subjugation of all the faculties of a man for the benefit of another. Moral personality should be respected in you as well as in me, and for the same reason. In regard to myself it has imposed a duty on me; in you it becomes the foundation of a right, and imposes thereby, relatively to you, a new duty on me. I owe you the truth as I owe it to myself, and it is my strict duty to respect the development of your intelligence and not arrest its progress towards the truth. I must also respect your liberty; perhaps even I owe it to you more than I do to myself, for I have not always the right to prevent you from making a mistake.
“I must respect you in your affections, which are a part of yourself; and of all the affections none are more holy than those of the family. To violate the conjugal and paternal right is to violate what a person holds most sacred.
“I owe respect to your body, inasmuch as belonging to you, it is the instrument of your personality. I have neither the right to kill you nor to wound you, unless in self-defense.
“I owe respect to your property, for it is the product of your labor; I owe respect to your labor, which is your very liberty in action; and if your property comes from inheritance, I owe respect to the free will which has transmitted it to you.
“Justice, that is, the respect for the person in all that constitutes his personality, is the first duty of man towards his fellow-man. Is this duty the only one?
“When we have respected the person of others, when we have neither put a restraint upon their liberty, nor smothered their intelligence, nor maltreated their body, nor interfered with their family rights nor their property, can we say that we have fulfilled towards them all moral duties? A wretch is here suffering before us. Is our conscience satisfied if we can assure ourselves that we have not contributed to his sufferings? No; something tells us that it would be well if we should give him bread, help, consolation; and yet this man in pain, who, perhaps, is going to die, has not the least right to the least part of our fortune, were this fortune ever so great; and if he were to use violence to take a farthing from us, he would commit a crime. We shall meet here a new order of duties which do not correspond to rights. Man, we have seen, may resort to force to have his rights respected, but he cannot impose on another a sacrifice, whatever that may be. Justice respects or restores: charity gives.
“One cannot say that to be charitable is not obligatory; but this obligation is by no means as precise and as inflexible as justice. Charity implies sacrifice. Now, who will furnish the rule for sacrifice, the formula for self-renunciation? For justice, the formula is clear: to respect the rights of others. But charity knows neither rule nor limits. It is above all obligation. Its beauty is precisely in its liberty.”
It follows from these considerations that justice is absolute, without restriction, without exception. Charity, whilst it is as obligatory as justice, is more independent in its applications; it chooses its place and its time, considers its objects and means. In a word, as Victor Cousin says, “its beauty is in its liberty.”
Let us not hesitate to borrow from the Apostle St. Paul his admirable exaltation of charity:
“Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal.”
“And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.”[14]
“And though I bestowed all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.”
“Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself; is not puffed up.”
“Doth not behave itself unseemely; seeketh not her own; is not easily provoked; thinketh no evil.”
“Beareth all things; believeth all things; endureth all things.”[15]
CHAPTER III.
DUTIES OF JUSTICE—DUTIES TOWARDS HUMAN LIFE.
SUMMARY.
Division of the duties of justice.—Four kinds of duties: 1, towards the life of others; 2, towards the liberty of others; 3, towards the honor of others; 4, towards the property of others.
Duties towards human life.—Avoid homicide, acts of violence, and mutilation. Pascal and the Provinciales.
The right of self-defense.—Right to oppose force to force. Limits of this right.
Problems.—Four very grave problems are bound up in the question of self-defense: 1, the penalty of death; 2, political assassination; 3, the duel; 4, war.
The penalty of death.—The penalty of death is the right of self-defense exercised by society: it is just so far as it is efficacious.
Political assassination.—Murder is always a crime, under whatever pretext it may conceal itself.
The duel.—The duel is at the same time a homicide and a suicide; it is falsely considered justice, since it appeals to chance and skill.
War.—War is the only mode of self-defense existing among nations; it is desirable for the sake of humanity that it may some day disappear; but humanity cannot now exact this