CONNATURAL RIGHTS
Chapter 2
Do connatural rights exist in human beings?
29. If `connatural rights' means rights whose subject is a faculty innate in human nature, we need to ask whether the word `connatural', attributed to these rights, is to be taken in a proper or metaphorical sense.
30. It cannot be denied that there are innate powers in human nature. But these would constitute only the first element of right, which I have placed in a faculty or activity of the subject considered physically.(12) How then can we show that in the new-born there is also moral power or activity, which is the second element of right?
31. The following argument against the existence of such rights could obviously be made with some semblance of truth: `The moral nature of right has the same origin in us as moral duty.'
It is our reason which indicates in different beings what belongs to them. By means of this information our reason becomes aware on the one hand of the duty to avoid anything that harms the dignity of these known beings, and on the other is left free to do all those actions which do not infringe on what is due to those beings.
If the moral nature of right therefore depends on this judgment, there will indeed be a physical power without the judgment, but never a moral faculty of action. There will be action, but not action that we can call `just'; a fact exists, not a right. Human beings who lack the knowledge to do what is lawful cannot exercise a right. This explains why we said previously that purely animal instincts and actions are not exercises of right, and that animals could never be the subject of right.
32. Moreover, the faculty of knowledge does not operate unless the spirit is acted on by some activity different from the spirit. Hence, if we are to feel obligation and acquire rights and duties, the object of rights and duties must first be presented to us. It does not seem possible therefore for rights to be innate; they must be posterior to the acts of the powers of knowing and willing.(13)
33. If, in order to exercise my right, I need to reflect on what I do, and judge it free of every injustice, not only are innate rights lacking (for lack of innate reasonings), but we must also affirm that rights are suspended every time the use of reason is suspended, as in the case of babies, the insane, drunkards, etc.
34. This is what we must say in effect if we accept sensist systems. According to all these systems the reason and will are a sort of later acquisition, an importation, so to speak, from sensation.
35. But the ideological system I have proposed argues quite differently. I have shown that in human nature there is always a light of reason which from the first moments of existence is used by human nature.(14) I have also shown in the moral-anthropological system that the will is moved to its acts even before it has knowledge of itself, and does this as soon as the human being exists.(15) I have shown that morality consists solely in a relationship of the will with the law (direct knowledge), even though the will does not yet exercise bilateral freedom.(16) A full reply to the objection will be found in these teachings.
36. My reply therefore is that the human being is unceasingly a moral, rational being, to whom rights can always be due.
37. Rights appertain to human dignity, a dignity residing in the essential act of human intelligence,(17) which constitutes human nature.
38. This universal act of intelligence is spontaneous and essential in human beings.
39. To it, as to its principle, belongs the intellective spontaneity that inclines us to good in general, to being, which ceaselessly shines before us, spontaneously informing and inclining us to itself. The insane, the drunkard, the baby, all possess this act, and also some use of reason. People as unfortunate as these do not cease to be human. Their defect consists solely in a weak, disordered and false conjunction of ideas and in the reception of defective perceptions and feelings. This fact itself shows that they have ideas, perceptions, and feelings which they unite in some way. Thus, they are already using their reason and their will uprightly.(18) Human beings therefore always have a general and appropriate right to the conservation and use of their faculties, just as they have a right to good in general which they will essentially, with an upright, essential, necessary and fundamental volition.
40. The above reasoning is valid only for duty and cannot be correctly applied to right. There is certainly no duty where there is no knowledge of having a duty. But this is not true for right. Right must be respected in itself; the possessor does not have to know the respect due to it. It is sufficient that the duty of respect is known by those who must practise it, that is, other human beings, not the subjects themselves of right.(19)
41. For a human being therefore to have the general right to be respected as an end, only the powers of reason and will, considered simply as powers capable of suffering and enjoyment, are required. As we have said, the activity necessary to constitute a right is simply the activity present in the passivity of feelings.(20) The case would be different if we were talking about the right to certain determined acts. Relative to these, we cannot say human beings have an essential, fundamental right, because such acts are accidental and ephemeral; they are not innate.
42. Hence, anyone who recognises a rational and volitive principle in human beings but denies them innate rights, errs by supposing the following two things as essential to the constitution of right: 1. that the one who has a right, is conscious he has it; and 2. that he knows the moral nature of the right.
43. We say, however, that a right exists `whenever a person exists capable of at least experiencing pain. If so, other persons have the moral duty not to cause him any suffering.'
All this exists in human beings from the moment of their birth, because the person exists in them together with the faculty of reasoning and will, which lies deep in the essence of their soul; moral dignity exists, springing, as it does, from the intuition of being and their inclination towards it. The faculty of will is, by its nature, always moral, even before it acquires the habit of deliberating, because whatever human beings will is always in harmony or disharmony with reason which shines before them. The moral nature of this activity may be unknown to the human being, but ignorance does not affect it.
The rights connatural to human beings cannot therefore be denied.
Notes
(12) Cf. ER, 238-273.
(13) According to civil law, a donation unknown and unaccepted by the donee does not have the force of transferring the right. If however the assent of the donee is presumed, both he and the will of the donor would be harmed if the donation were kept hidden from him. The same can be said about someone who is not in a position actually to accept a gift. The harm done in this case (denying him what he would fully own as a result of his assent) is always relative to the presumed or future act or at least to the act which would be possible if the material obstruction were removed. This is a consequence of human dignity, a consequence dependent upon the nature of mankind, as I will explain more clearly later.
(14) Cf. OT, 1008, where it is shown that in the power of reason itself there is a first universal act of knowledge from which are generated all posterior acts.
(15) Cf. AMS, 605-611.
(16) Cf. PE, 193-227; CS, bk. 1.
(17) I have already noted that this act of intelligence, essential to human nature, is recognised by common sense. Languages, which are the deposit of common sense, also recognise it. The ancient use of the word `intelligence' meant an act, a first act of the understanding. Aristotle and the Scholastics understood it in this way. Cicero gave it the same meaning when he defined it as that by which the mind sees BEINGS, a definition taken from the Greeks: Intelligentia est, per quam animus ea perspicit, QUAE SUNT (De invent., 2, 53). The very inflection of the word `intelligence' expresses an act. But this act also names the faculty of understanding. We see here how language expresses what we want to say and how the same word is used to signify both the faculty of understanding and its act. We are obviously persuaded therefore that the faculty is simply the first, universal act which contains in potency all subsequent acts.
(18) To maintain that babies and the insane do not have some kind of rights would be contrary to common sense. We can deduce from this fact that common sense is implicitly drawn to see in the human being a moral, reasoning being, even when the external signs of reasoning are not so obvious. - One of the improvements which do great honour to modern times and clearly indicate progress is the way in which the insane are now treated and cared for. The maxim which has emerged is to see at last human beings in the insane, and to treat them as human beings like ourselves. The same progress, worthy of the highest accolade, is taking place in the education of children. The age of reason is being recognised at an earlier and earlier age. I have no doubts that we will eventually discern a flash of intelligence in the first smile a baby gives its mother. In this way we will greatly perfect the valuable art by which the child's and the adult's reaso n can communicate with each other. A common language will be attained for mutual understanding between adult and baby. All this progress means the death of sensism.
(19) Thomas (Dottrina della scienza del diritto, Frankfurt am Main, 1803) denies innate rights. He thinks there cannot be rights where there cannot be duties, as in new-born babies. We grant the dependence of right on duty, but observe that the duty corresponding to a right exists in some other person, not in the person with the right; right is simply `an activity protected by the moral law'. On the other hand, although there are no duties in the new-born arising from a formulated law, the baby's activity, both in itself and in its tendency, is moral and has a moral value. - Cf. what I have said about the existence of some morality prior to conscience in CS, bk. 1.
(20) Cf. ER, 239.