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carry with them simply necessity. They are not moral law. The word right as applied in each case has the common meaning of the conformity of action to law; but right in its ethical sense denotes distinctively the conformity of the action of a rational being with law by his own free choice of ends and determination of actions.

Law and Right have moral or ethical significance only as applied to rational beings determining by free will their own ends and actions. Reason knows itself as regulative of all power. In respect to rational free-agents reason knows itself as having authority to give law, to command obedience, to impose obligation.

35. The Ethical Significance of Right and Law.

I. The ethical idea of right and law arises in the rational intuition that I ought to act reasonably, that is, in accordance with the truths of reason; or, more generally formulated, "A rational being ought to obey. reason," or, "what is true to the reason is a law to the will." In this intuition the person comes to the knowledge of a new reality which is expressed in the word ought and to which the nouns corresponding are obligation, duty, law. This new reality is that he exists under law; that the universal principles and the necessary inferences from them, which he knows as truths, are laws which he is under obligation to obey. Like other intuitions, this one is practically operative on his action before he formulates it in reflective thought or even recognizes it as a judgment. But as he reflects he finds that what he knows as true to his reason he knows to be a law to action; he finds himself saying I ought, and learns the significance of obligation and duty; he finds himself approving some actions because conformed to principles which he knows as true; and this common quality of these acts he calls right, and the contrary quality he calls wrong. Thus the ideas of right and wrong rise directly from rational intuition. Without rational intuition man could never have known the difference of right and wrong or had any idea of law, duty and obligation.

II. Significance of ethical terms.

1. Ought, obligation, duty. Like all words designating knowledge given directly in intuition, these terms cannot be analytically defined. They can be understood only by intuitively knowing them. It is a sphere of reality entirely unique and no definition or explanation can give any idea of it to a being who is incapable of rational intuition. Ethical terms can be explained only by referring to the consciousness of those who have ethical knowledge.

I have already explained the three words, as far as it is possible, in indicating their origin.

2. Right. Ought expresses the relation between a rational being acting freely and the truth of reason. Right, as an adjective, is predicated of action or character which is 'conformed to the truth of reason. The Right, as a noun, is the name of this common and essential quality of such character or action; it means the conformity of action or character to the truth of reason, known as law to action.

Holiness and sin, virtue and vice, as denoting character and action, are properly predicated of persons. The man is virtuous or vicious. Right and wrong are more properly predicated immediately of character and action; as, virtue is right, vice is wrong. We sometimes say, however, the man is right, meaning right in character or action; for right and wrong have no ethical significance except as related to the action or character of a rational free agent.

Right is also used in a different application, as correlative with duty. If I owe five dollars, it is my duty to pay it to my creditor and his right to receive it. The rights of one are correlative to the duty of another. No man has rights in respect to others any farther than they owe duties to him. If all men did all their duties, all men would have all their rights. Selfishness inflames a man to loud declaration of his own rights, while he thinks little of his own duties. Christ puts it the opposite way. He requires universal love; he would right human wrongs by teaching men to think first of their own duties rather than of their own rights.

3. Law is truth considered as that to which rational beings are under obligation to conform their characters and action. When I know myself under obligation to conform my action to truth I know the truth as a law to my action. Law is correlative to obligation.

4. Authority is the right to declare and enforce law. The right of an individual to receive payment of a debt or any service due, is a right derived from the law to which both parties are subject; it is not the right to declare and enforce law. This belongs only to a government and is called authority.

*

The reason, as it reveals itself in the consciousness of an individual, reveals itself as having authority to command. Hence Bishop Butler recognizes authority as the distinctive characteristic of the conscience. But while the individual's conscience has authority to command him, it does not command others, nor give the individual the right to do so. He must indeed see that what is a universal truth to reason is a law to all men; he may instruct others as to their duty to obey it. But he has no right to command or to en

* Sermons on Human Nature, IL.

force obedience. That right is called authority. That authority rests only in a government.

5. Government, in its primary meaning, is the action of will in the light and by the authority of reason, declaring the truth of reason as law and enforcing obedience by the punishment of transgressors. This is the most abstract definition of government possible.

Law which is the truth of reason, is distinguished from government which involves the action of will. Law being of the reason, will can neither create, change nor annul it. Law is above will; will is always subject to law. It is not the function even of government to create law, but only to discover, declare and enforce the laws which are truths of reason; and in so doing government itself must obey the unchanging laws of reason. The authority of government, or its right to govern rests on the reason. The theory of popular government, as Judge McLean expressed it in one of his opinions, is that law is supposed to declare "the collective reason of the people." The authority of government rests ultimately in God, the Supreme and Absolute Reason.

We must distinguish law, considered as the eternal principles of right, from statutes or enactments, in which government declares how these principles are to be applied to particular cases. Government must enact statutes to meet particular circumstances and change or annul them as changing circumstances require. But even here it must use its best wisdom to make enactments accordant with truth and righteousness.

Ethics is the science of law both as unchanging principles and as regulative of conduct in specific cases; both as unchangeable principles in the reason, and as declared and enforced by government. Jurisprudence also discusses the principles of right and their application to conduct, but is confined to the authority and enactments of civil government. Thus Austin begins his "Jurisprudence" with a discussion of the grounds of the authority of government and law and of the obligation to obedience. It is one of the ablest vindications of the erroneous theory of Utilitarianism. Jurisprudence is a branch of ethics. Austin recognizes this; but uses the phrase "positive law" in the sense of enactment or statute: "The science of ethics consists of two departments, one relating specially to positive law, the other relating specially to positive morality. The department which relates to positive law is commonly styled the science of legislation; the department which relates specially to positive morality is commonly called the science of morals."* III. Ethical ideas and moral distinctions, being known by rational intuition, are of the highest certainty.

*Jurisprudence, Vol. i. p. 115.

The objection against the validity of our knowledge of moral distinctions is stated by Hume: "In every system of morality which I have hitherto met with the author proceeds for some time when of a sudden I am

in the ordinary way of reasoning; surprised to find that instead of the usual copula of propositions, is and is not, I meet with no proposition that is not connected with an ought or an ought not. This change is imperceptible, but is, however, of the last consequence. For as this ought or ought not expresses some new relation or affirmation, it is necessary that it should be observed and explained; and at the same time a reason should be given for what seems altogether inconceivable, how this new relation can be a deduction from others which are entirely different from it. But as authors do not commonly use this precaution, I shall presume to recommend it to readers; and am persuaded that this small attention would subvert all the vulgar systems of morality, and let us see that the distinction of vice and virtue is not founded on the relations of objects nor is perceived by the reason." This objection is already answered. It is true that the idea expressed in the ought and the ought not is different from that expressed in the is and is not; and it is a unique idea different from all others. It is also true that it cannot be deduced from any other idea, though it presupposes the knowledge of principles or truths of reason. But it is not true that philosophers surreptitiously introduce it without declaring its distinctive significance and its origin. It originates in rational intuition. And I have already demonstrated that rational intuitions are of the highest certainty, that on their validity as knowledge all reasoning and all science depend, and that they are constituent elements of all rational intelligence. In these our knowledge of moral distinctions is rooted deep in our constitution as rational beings and ramified beneath the entire outgrowth of knowledge.

Besides it must be noticed that Hume's objection recoils on himself. Since human thought cannot escape using the ought and the ought not, and there is nothing in his philosophy which can account for this, the true inference is that his philosophy is contrary to reason and false, not that moral distinctions are unfounded.

36. Moral Law Universal, Immutable, Imperative. I. Law is universal, immutable and imperative because it is the universal and immutable truth of Reason known as law to action.

It is essential in the idea of law that it be universal and unchangeable, the law for all times and all places. I refer to law in its principles, not to the rules for applying those principles to determine

* Treatise of Human Nature, B. iii. Part i. Section 1.

the right or wrong of outward acts under changing circumstances. But in determining what is duty in these details there must be appeal to universal and immutable principles or we can never determine the right or wrong of particular actions, just as reasoning however ramified must be regulated by universal principles, or it can never conclude in a true inference.

It is equally essential in the idea of law that it be imperative. It is not advice or persuasion but command. It does not tell us what is agreeable or profitable, but what is obligatory and right. It is the supreme and final standard of right from which there is no appeal and which excludes all right to question or disobey. If there is any dif ference between right and wrong there must be a law universally, unchangeably, suprentely right.

This universality, immutability and imperativeness are essential in law because law is universal and immutable truth recognized as law to action. It is either some primitive principle known in rational intuition or some truth inferred from it. Private opinion does not constitute the law of right. A particular fact does not. If I know that a particular course of action leads me into the fire, that fact is not a law forbidding me to go into the fire; for it may be a martyr-fire. But universal truth, whenever it bears on the will's determination, is a law to the will; and the law is as universal and as immutable as the truth. It is also imperative; for law is nothing else but truth recognized as imperative to will. The it is of a fact can issue only in an unregulated I will. It is only the must be of universal truth which resolves into I ought.

II. The law as universal, immutable and imperative implies the existence of God, the Supreme and absolute Reason in whom the Law is eternal. We have seen that this is implied in the idea of the True. It is implied also and even more impressively in the idea of the Right; for in this the voice of the Supreme lawgiver speaks in every man's consciousness uttering a law transcending him and imperative on him. As a universal truth of reason known as law to action, he knows it as law, not to himself alone, but to all rational beings; yet he is conscious that he is not its author and has not authority to enforce obedience on others. There must then be a lawgiver above all men and having authority to command all. The truths and laws recognized by man's reason are without significance and reality as universal truths and laws except as they are truths and laws eternal in a Reason absolute and supreme, and thus regulative of all thought and energy and dominant throughout the universe.

The Absolute Being, however, is not a merely speculative Reason, seeing in itself all truth, law, perfection and good, but an energizing

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