of rights, whether these rights themselves have a partial origin or not. A father is unjust if he gives away property to one of his children in preference to others, in case all of them are recognised to have a right to an equal share in his property, even though it be only a conditional right; and a man is unjust if he keeps for himself a profit to which another man has an equal right. But in a society which regards slavery as a morally permissible institution, a man is not necessarily deemed unjust if he beats a slave in a case where it would have been wrong to beat a freeman. However, in the case of unequal rights, justice admits of no greater difference of treatment than what the difference in rights implies. It may be just to punish a man who by a crime has forfeited that right to be protected from wilfully inflicted pain which every law-abiding citizen possesses, but it is unjust to extend the inequality between his condition and the condition of others beyond the inequality of their rights by inflicting upon him a punishment which is unduly severe.
It is the emphasis laid on the duty of impartiality that gives justice a special prominence in connection with punishments and rewards. A man’s rights depend to a great extent upon his actions. Other things being equal, the criminal has not the same rights to inviolability as regards reputation, or freedom, or property, or life, as the innocent man; the miser and egoist have not the same rights as the benefactor and the philanthropist. On these differences in rights due to differences in conduct, the terms “just” and “unjust” lay stress; for in such cases an injustice would have been committed if the rights had been equal. When we say of a criminal that he has been “justly” imprisoned we point out that he was no victim of undue partiality, as he had forfeited the general right to freedom on account of his crime. When we say of a benefactor that he has been “justly” rewarded, we point out that no favour was partially bestowed upon him in preference to others, as he had acquired the special right of being rewarded. But the “justice” of a punishment or a reward, strictly speaking, involves something more than this; as we have seen, what is strictly “just” is always the discharge of a duty corresponding to a right which would have been in a partial manner disregarded by a transgression of the duty. If it is just that a person should be rewarded, he ought to be rewarded, and to fulfil this duty is to do him justice. Again, if it is just that a person should be punished, he ought to be punished, and his not being punished is an injustice to other persons. It is an injustice towards all those whose condemnation of the wrong act finds its recognised expression in the punishment, inasmuch as their rightful claim that the criminal should be punished, their right of resisting wrong, is thereby violated in favour of the wrong-doer. Moreover, his not being punished is an injustice towards other criminals, who have been punished for similar acts, in so far as they have a right to demand that no undue preference should be shown to anybody whose guilt is equal to theirs. Retributive justice may admit of a certain latitude as to the retribution. It may be a matter of small concern from the community’s point of view whether men are fined or imprisoned for the commission of a certain crime. But it may be a demand of justice that, under equal circumstances, all of them should be punished with the same severity, since the crime has equally affected their rights.
The emphasis which “injustice” lays on the partiality of a certain mode of conduct always involves a condemnation of that partiality. Like every other kind of wrongness, “injustice” is thus a concept which is obviously based on the emotion of moral disapproval. And so is the concept of “justice,” whether it involves the notion that an injustice would be committed if a certain duty were not fulfilled, or it is simply used to denote that a certain mode of conduct is “not unjust.” But there is yet another sense in which the word “just” is applied. It may emphasise the impartiality of an act in a tone of praise. Considering how difficult it is to be perfectly impartial and to give every man his due, especially when one’s own interests are concerned, it is only natural that men should be applauded for being just, and consequently that to call a person just should often be to praise him. So, also, “justice” is used as the name for a virtue, “the mistress and queen of all virtues.”22 But all this does not imply that an emotion of moral approval enters into the concept of justice. It only means that one word is used to express a certain concept—a concept which, as we have seen, ultimately derives its import from moral disapproval—plus an emotion of approval. That the concept of justice by itself involves no reference to the emotion of moral approval appears from the fact that it is no praise to say of an act that it is “only just.”
22 Cicero, De officiis, iii. 6.
From the concepts springing from moral disapproval we pass to those springing from moral approval. Foremost among these ranks the concept good.23
23 Professor Bain, who takes a very legal view of the moral consciousness, maintains (Emotions and the Will, p. 292) that “positive good deeds and self-sacrifice … transcend the region of morality proper, and occupy a sphere of their own.” A similar opinion has been expressed by Prof. Durkheim (Division du travail social), and, more recently, by Dr. Lagerborg, in his interesting essay, ‘La nature de la morale’ (Revue internationale de Sociologie, xi. 466). Prof. Durkheim argues (p. 30) that it would be “contraire à toute méthode” to include under the same heading acts which are obligatory and acts which are objects of admiration, and at the same time exempt from all regulation. “Si donc, pour rester fidèle à l’usage, on réserve aux premiers la qualification de moraux, on ne saurait la donner également aux seconds.” But I fail to see that ordinary usage recognises regulation as the test of morality. On the contrary, terms like “goodness” and “virtue,” though having no reference whatever to any moral rule, have always hitherto been applied to qualities avowedly moral.
Though “good,” being affixed to a great variety of objects, takes different shades of meaning in different cases, there is one characteristic common to everything called “good.” This is hardly, as Mr. Spencer maintains,24 its quality of being well adapted to a given end. It is true that the good knife is one which will cut, the good gun one which carries far and true. But I fail to see that “good” in a moral sense involves any idea of an adaptation to a given purpose, and, by calling conduct “good,” we certainly do not mean that it “conduces to life in each and all.” “Good” simply expresses approval or praise of something on account of some quality which it possesses. A house is praised as “good” because it fulfils the end desired, a wine because it has an agreeable taste, a man on account of his moral worth. “Good,” as a moral epithet, involves a praise which is the outward expression of the emotion of moral approval, and is affixed to a subject of moral valuation on account of its tendency to call forth such an emotion.
24 Spencer, Principles of Ethics, i. 21 sqq.
“Good” has commonly been identified with “right,” but such an identification is incorrect. A father does right in supporting his young children, inasmuch as he, by supporting them, discharges a duty incumbent upon him, but we do not say that he does a good deed by supporting them, or that it is good of him to do so. Nor do we call it good of a man not to kill or rob his neighbours, although his conduct is so far right. The antithesis between right and wrong is, in a certain sense at least, contradictory, the antithesis between good and bad is only contrary. Every act—provided that it falls within the sphere of positive moral valuation—that is not wrong is right, but every act that is not bad is not necessarily good. Just as we may say of a thing that it is “not bad,” and yet refuse to call it “good,” so we may object to calling the simple discharge of a duty “good,” although the opposite mode of conduct would be bad. On the other hand, no confusion of ethical concepts is involved in attributing goodness to the performance of a duty, or, in other words, praising a man for an act the omission of which would have incurred blame. To say of one and the same act that it is right and that it is good, really means that we look upon it from different points of