from moral disapproval. This may seem strange considering that “right” is commonly looked upon as positive and “wrong” as its negation. But we must remember that language and popular conceptions in these matters start from the notion of a moral rule or command. It is a matter of paramount importance that such modes of conduct as are apt to arouse moral indignation should be avoided. People try to prevent them by prohibitions and injunctions, often emphasised by threats of penalties for the transgressors. The whole moral and social discipline is based upon commands; customs are rules of conduct, and so are laws. It is natural, then, that the notion of a command should figure uppermost in popular conceptions of morality. Obedience to the command is right, a breach of it is wrong. But the fact which gives birth to the command itself is the indignation called forth by the act which the command forbids, or by the omission of that which it enjoins.
I have spoken here of “right” as an adjective. Used as a substantive, to denote a right, it also, in whatever sense it be used, expresses a concept which is rooted in the emotion of moral disapproval. To have a right to do a thing is to be allowed to do it, either by positive law, in the case of a legal right, or by the moral law, in the case of a moral right; in other words, to have a moral right to do a thing means that it is not wrong to do it. But generally the concept of “a right” means something more than this. From the fact that an act is allowable, that it is not wrong, it follows, as a rule, that it ought not to be prevented, that no hindrance ought to be put in the way of its performance; and this character of inviolability is largely included in the very concepts of rights. That a man has a right to live does not merely mean that he commits no wrong by supporting his life, but it chiefly means that it would be wrong of other people to prevent him from living, that it is their duty not to kill him, or even, as the case may be, that it is their duty to help him to live. And in order to constitute a right in him, the duty in question must be a duty to him. That a right belonging to A is not merely a duty incumbent on B, but a duty to A incumbent on B, will become evident from an example. To kill another person’s slave may be condemned as an injury done to the slave himself, in which case it is a duty to the slave not to kill him; or to kill another person’s slave may be condemned on account of the loss it causes to the master, in which case it is deemed a duty to the master not to kill the slave. In the latter case we can hardly say that the duty of not killing the slave constitutes a right to live in the slave—it only constitutes a right in the master to retain his slave alive, not to be deprived of him by an act causing his death.
So commonly does the conception of a right belonging to a person contain the idea of a duty which other persons owe him, that it seems necessary to point out the existence of rights in which no such idea is involved. A man’s right to defend his country, for instance, does not intrinsically imply that it is wrong of the enemy to disable him from doing so. But, on the other hand, there are rights which are nothing else than duties towards those who have the rights. A right is not always a person’s right to a certain activity, or to abstaining from a certain activity; it may have exclusive reference to other people’s acts or omissions. That a man has the right to be rewarded by his country only means that his country is under an obligation to reward him. That a father has a right to be obeyed by his children only means that it is a duty incumbent on his children to obey him. That a person has the right of bodily integrity only means that it is wrong to inflict on him a bodily injury. These rights may, no doubt, if violated, give rise to certain rights of activity: a man may have a right to claim the reward which is due to him, a father to exact from his children the obedience which they owe him, a person who is wronged to defend himself. But the rights of claiming a reward, of exacting obedience, of resisting wrong, are certainly not identical with the rights of being rewarded, of being obeyed, of not being wronged.
It is commonly said that rights have their corresponding duties. But if this expression is to be used, it must be remembered that the duty which “corresponds” to a right, as a matter of fact, is either included in that right or simply identical with it. The identity between the right and the duty, then, consists in this, that the notion of a right belonging to a person is identical with the notion of a duty towards him. Rights and duties are not identical in the sense that it is always a duty to insist on a right, though this has been urged.19 If anybody prevents me from making use of my right it may no doubt be deemed a duty on my part not to tolerate the wrong committed against me, but nothing of the kind is involved in the concept of a right. And the same may be said with reference to the assertion that a right to do a thing is always, at the same time, a duty to do it—an assertion which is a consequence of the doctrine that there is nothing morally indifferent and nothing that goes beyond duty; in other words, that all conduct of responsible beings is either wrong or obligatory. Even if this doctrine were psychologically correct—which it is not—even if there were a constant coincidence between the acts which a person has a right to perform and acts which it is his duty to perform, that would not constitute identity between the concepts of rights and duties. According to the meaning of a right, A’s right may be B’s duty towards A, but A’s right cannot be A’s duty towards B or anybody else.
19 Alexander, op. cit. p. 146 sq.
Closely connected with the notions of wrongness and rightness are the notions of injustice and justice. Injustice, indeed, is a kind of wrongness. To be unjust is always to be unjust to somebody, and this implies a doing of wrong to somebody, a violation of somebody’s right. “Justice,” again, is a kind of rightness. It involves the notion that a duty to somebody, a duty corresponding to a right, is fulfilled;20 we say that justice “demands” that it should be fulfilled. As an act is “right” if its omission is wrong, so an act is “just,” in the strict sense of the word, if its omission is unjust. But, like the adjective “right,” the adjective “just” is also sometimes used in a wider sense, to denote that something is “not unjust.” As non-obligatory acts that are “not wrong” can hardly be denied to be “right,” so non-obligatory acts that are “not unjust” can hardly be denied to be “just,” although they are not demanded by justice.
20 According to the Institutiones of Justinian (i. 1. 1) “justice is the constant and perpetual will to render to each one his right,”—“justitia est constans et perpetua voluntas jus suum cuique tribuens.”
At the same time, “injustice” and “justice” are not simply other names for violating or respecting rights. Whenever we style an act “unjust,” we emphasise that it involves partiality. We do not denominate murder and robbery unjust, but wrong or criminal, because the partiality involved in their commission is quite obscured by their general wrongness or criminality; but we at once admit their gross injustice when we consider that the murderer and robber indulged their own inclinations with utter disregard of their neighbours’ rights. And we look upon “unjust” as an exceedingly appropriate term for a judge who condemns an innocent man with the intention to save the culprit, and for an employer who keeps for himself a profit which he ought to share with his employees. Again, when we style an act “just,” in the strict sense of the term, we point out that an undue preference would have been shown to somebody by its omission. It is true that, as Adam Smith observes, “we may often fulfil all the rules of justice by sitting still and doing nothing,”21 and that the man who barely abstains from violating either the person or the estate or the reputation of his neighbours so far does justice to them; but in such a case we hardly apply the epithet “just,” simply because there is no reason for emphasising the partiality involved in the opposite mode of conduct. On the other hand, we say it is just, or, more emphatically, that justice demands, that the innocent should not suffer in the place of the guilty, or that the employer should give his employees all their dues.
21 Adam Smith, Theory of Moral Sentiments, p. 117.