2. Its connection with the general theory of morals. Ideal goodness
is to do good for its own sake: but there must be acts considered
good on other grounds before they can be done for the sake of their
goodness
3. When, however, the ideal comes to be recognised as the ideal, the
lower interests and rules must be criticised and revised by it
4. The criticism of interests will yield a 'theory of moral
sentiments'; that of rules will relate (1) to positive law, (2) to
the law of opinion
5. As moral interests greatly depend on recognised rules of conduct,
and those again on positive law, it is best to begin by considering
the moral value of existing civil institutions
6. The condition of morality is the possession of will and reason,
and it is realised in a personal character in which they are
harmonised
7. Civil institutions are valuable so far as they enable will and
reason to be exercised, and so far they answer to 'jus naturae'
8. The essential questions as to the 'law of nature' are, (1) Are
there rights and obligations other than those actually enforced? (2)
If so, what is the criterion of them?
9. While rejecting the theory of a 'state of nature,' we may still
use 'natural' of those rights which _ought_ to be, though they
actually are not
10. Such 'natural law' is (as admitting _enforcement_) distinct from,
but (as implying a _duty_ to obey it) relative to, the moral law
11. Hence two principles for the criticism of law, (1) only external
acts can be matter of obligation proper, (2) the ideal of law must be
determined by reference to the moral end which it serves
12. Observe _(a)_ that in confining law to 'external actions,' we
mean by 'actions' _intentions_, without which there is properly no
'action'
13. _(b)_ That by 'external' we mean that law, though it does supply
motives to action, looks merely to whether the action is done, not to
whether it is done from a particular motive
14. Law then _can_ only enjoin or forbid certain acts; it _cannot_
enjoin or forbid motives
15. And the only acts which it _ought_ to enjoin or forbid are those
of which the doing or not doing, _from whatever motive_, is necessary
to the moral end of society
16. The principle of 'natural law,' then, should be to enjoin all
acts which further action from the highest motive, and no acts which
interfere with such action
17. This principle would condemn much legislation which has tended,
e.g., to weaken religion, self-respect, or family feeling
18. This, and not the principle of 'laissez-faire,' is the true
ground of objection to 'paternal government'
19. The theory of political obligation (i.e. of what law ought to
be, and why it ought to be obeyed) is not a theory _(a)_ as to how
existing law has come to be what it is
20. Nor _(b)_ as to how far it expresses or is derived from certain
original 'natural' rights
21. 'Natural' rights (like law itself) are relative to moral ends,
i.e. they are those which are necessary to the fulfilment of man's
moral vocation as man
22. This however is not the sense in which political obligation
was based on 'natural rights' in the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries, previously to utilitarianism
23. The utilitarian theory so far agrees with that here advocated
that it grounds existing law, not on a 'natural' law prior to it, but
on an end which it serves
24. The derivation of actual rights from natural (i.e. more
primitive) rights does not touch the real question, viz. how there
came to be _rights_ at all
25. The conception of a moral ideal (however dim) is the condition of
the existence of rights, and conversely anyone who is capable of such
a conception is capable of rights
26. Thus the consciousness of having rights is co-ordinate with the
recognition of others as having them, the ground of both being the
conception of a common good which _ought_ to be attained
27. Rights then can only subsist among 'persons,' in the _moral_
sense of 'persons,' i.e. being possessed of rational will
28. Though the moral idea of personality is later in formulation than
the legal, and this again than the actual existence of rights
29. Rights which are directly necessary to a man's acting as a moral
person at all may be called in a special sense 'personal'
30. Nor is there any objection to calling them 'innate' or 'natural,'
if this means 'necessary to the moral development of man' in which
sense 'duties' are equally 'natural'
31. Without a society conscious of a common interest there can be
only 'powers,' no 'rights'.