Rights in Civil Society - Section Two
Part Three
Appendix To The Philosophy Of Right —
The Better Construction Of Civil Society
Chapter 3
An outline of the regular construction of civil society — The first condition: justice
2586. The first and most elementary duty of those who rule is to preserve society. Societies exist, and it is sufficient to preserve and better them. Our first endeavour in the Philosophy of Politics was, therefore, to investigate the summary reason for the stability or downfall of human societies. We then considered the principle governing their preservation. According to us, this consists in a force (whose nature can be determined later) which in every society, and in every period of society, prevails over all the other forces. Governmental wisdom has to 1. distinguish this force from all others which contemporaneously impinge upon society, 2. take possession of it and 3. make it the aim of all its provisions. It does this to prevent the force perishing through neglect or slipping from its hand. Our investigation furnished us with the following comforting conclusion: in our age, the prevalent force in European civil societies is located in respect for justice in all the extension and sublimity of this word.(457)
2587. Civil society, however, has its nature determined by its end in such a way that it is no longer civil when it abandons its end. We have to say, therefore, that government denatures society to the extent that through its work it has weakened its intention of preserving society's existence. And the more it turns society away from its end, the more it denatures it. We then endeavoured to determine the nature and end of civil society. This brought us to the same conclusion as that of the preceding investigation. We recognised with total evidence that justice, morality, religion (the supreme human goods, which alone are capable of making human beings happy) constitute the final end to which governments must direct and make serve the proximate end of civil society, that is, the acquisition of social goods and pleasures. Thus, the teaching on the end and the teaching on the prevalent force, taken together, provided us with a single, simple conclusion with which we established the principle and supreme criterion of the Philosophy of Politics.(458)
2588. According to the summary table placed at the end of the Preface to the Philosophy of Politics, which shows the outline and distribution of the work, the treatise on the end of civil society should be followed by that on the natural construction of civil society. It is at this point that Right and political science, although in perpetual alliance, are most strongly distinguished from one another, and take forms proper to the two teachings. This will become more clear if we imagine a nation that has decided to give itself the best possible form of government and, with the consent of all who are interested in the public good, chooses a commission of wise, just men whose duty it is to compose the new constitution. In our hypothesis all the fathers take part per compromissum, with their natural and domestic rights safeguarded. Whatever constitution is proposed by the assembly of wise men, provided it is conscientiously dictated, would be just. Injustice cannot be present if all the persons interested give their consent.
Nevertheless, it still remains to see if it is prudent. As we said, society can be founded on equable but imprudent conventions (USR, 346-366). The aim of the Philosophy of Politics, therefore, is to assist the work of these wise men. It has to answer the question: `Granted a just, civil constitution (`just' because legitimate and already constituted), how can this constitution be prudent?' The prudent constitution will be that which organises a society in the way most natural to that society. This is what we call its regular constitution; all other constitutions are irregular. We shall now outline this constitution as a kind of preface to the part of the Philosophy of Politics which will serve as a continuation of what we have already published.
Notes
(457) SC, 127-147.
(458) SP.