Society And its Purpose
Book 1 - Society
CHAPTER 3
The bond of ownership and dominion
50. We come now to the bond of ownership. As we said, persons bind themselves by means of this bond to things whose use can be of some advantage to them. With this act, they reserve these things to themselves, consider them as their own, begin to use them, take possession of them and persuade themselves that their use of them will be perpetual. In all these actions by which persons assign things to their own use, not the least thought is given to the good of the things. We think only of our own good; we simply wish to extract the most we can for ourselves from things.
51. An important observation must be made here: all beings are things, but some of these things are persons. It follows that all persons are things, but not all things, persons. Every person therefore can be considered under the two aspects of thing and person. It may be objected that it is completely absurd for the same being to have two kinds of relationship (one proper to things and one proper to persons) and two kinds of bond (that of ownership and that of society). If, in such a being, the quality `thing’ and `person’ were so totally indistinct that the being could never be considered `thing’ without its being considered simultaneously and necessarily `person’, only one kind of relationship would be possible with it and therefore only one kind of bond: a personal bond, of which the social bond is a species. Such a being would be God; it would not be a human being, because the human, personal principle does not constitute the whole being but only the best element and highest point of human nature in the being.
52. What really is `person’? I have defined it elsewhere as `a substantial individual in so far as it contains a supreme, incommunicable, intelligent and active principle.’(10) This definition clearly shows the difference between an individual and the element constituting the individual’s personship. An individual in a given nature is called `person’ only because of a sublime interior element through which he `acts with intelligence and will’. However, this does not prevent the presence of other elements in the individual which constitute his nature, not his person. These elements are `personal’ not in themselves but through their connection with the personal element to which they adhere and by which they are dominated. In a word, the personal element in the human being is his intelligent will, through which he becomes author of his own actions.
53. The dignity of this personal element, which must always be considered as an end in itself, not a means, consists properly speaking in the fact that it is the element by which the individual can adhere with his total self to truth, that is, to being, contemplated objectively in all its fullness. As a result of this real adhesion to objective, unlimited being the person acquires a new nobility, fulfilment, bliss and completion.
54. An intelligent principle able to adhere unlimitedly to being is called personal precisely because of this power and natural ordering. But if it passes from simply being able to actually adhering to, and fulfilling itself in, the whole of being, we have to say that its personship has been increased and completed. And in this completion of the person are found moral good, moral virtue, final personal dignity and even beatitude.
55. Respect for the person therefore means doing nothing contrary to personal dignity either relative to the part of personship already obtained or relative to the part which person seeks to obtain. It means neither impeding this possession nor destroying any part of it, nor doing anything that of its nature attempts to destroy or impede it.
56. Having defined in this way the duty to respect person as end, we easily see that human beings can be united by the two bonds we have mentioned without either bond necessarily harming the other. Human nature is manifold; it has both a personal and a non-personal element. Hence it takes on both relationships: the relationship of thing and the relationship of person. In other words, under one aspect human beings can be considered as things, under another, as persons. They are beings with the power to offer advantages to their fellows just as irrational things do. But they have another, much more sublime power: the power as persons to receive these advantages and freely dispose of them.
57. It may be objected: `But isn’t there a contradiction here’? Can human beings be joined together both by person-to-person bonds and by bonds between things and persons? Can we draw advantages from our fellows in the same way as from irrational things?. Would this not mean debasing ourselves and them?
58. I reply that there is no contradiction in the concept itself: human beings can certainly bind themselves by bonds proper both to persons and to things. As I have just said, human nature is not totally and in every respect personal; it has a part which is not personal, that is, not always and necessarily personal.
59. We must be careful here — we may not deduce from this that we can use others in exactly the same way as we use things. There is an immense difference between the way we use things and the way we use our fellows considered as things. We use a thing unlimitedly, without any regard for the thing itself. In using it, whether it deteriorates or perishes, we think only of our own advantage, and if we keep it, we do so only for our own sake. We can also use our fellow human beings for our own advantage, and in doing so, we use them as things. But we cannot use them unlimitedly; we have to impose some limit, and in doing so we consider them as persons. We can use our fellow human beings in so far as the real element present in their nature allows us to do so, but no more. In other words, we can use them provided we respect the personal element present in their nature, and do not impede or disturb their progress in moral perfection by the use we make of them. In this perfection lies the moral dignity of persons, their freedom, and that infinite excellence which cedes to nothing and is subservient to nothing.
60. Although human beings can draw advantage for themselves both from the use of things and from the use of persons (bond-servants) — here, persons are considered in their relationship as things — the use of things differs essentially and infinitely from the use of persons. The use of things is unlimited and left to the good pleasure of the user; the use of persons is always limited and restricted to the law of personal respect which must continually accompany the use. Nevertheless, true use is present in both cases; in both cases the thing used is considered as means, and the user as end. The relationship and bond is real, not personal; pertaining to means, not to end.
61. Although human beings can sometimes be used in the same way as things, and be considered as things in an abstract sense, different words had to be used to indicate the bond of unlimited ownership which human beings have with things and the bond of limited ownership they have with persons. The limit, essential to the latter bond, constitutes a very notable difference. Consequently, the word `ownership’ was generally reserved for the power of unlimited, absolute disposal(11) which we have over our own things, while the meaning of `dominion’ and `seigniory’ was restricted to the limited power, accompanied by moral respect, which we have in the use of persons belonging to us. It is indeed quite unacceptable that a human being should have ownership of another human being. On the other hand, we are not offended if someone has dominion or seigniory over others.
62. Hence the bonds of society and seigniory are generally found as mixed in various actual human societies, although, as we said, they are very different in their intimate nature.
63. In the reality of a particular society, the difficulty of determining the role of seigniory and sociality can be solved only by applying the titles of fact constituting the right of each, that is, the seigniorial and the social right. In my opinion, although legists have so far neglected this, it will certainly have to be done if we wish to unravel the tangled mass of human laws.(12) I will deal elsewhere with the great need to separate the two relationships and two bonds mentioned above,(13) so that some light and order may be given to the chaos of various human legislations [App., no. 1]. For the moment I will summarise what has been said.
64. I have said that if an individual human being intentionally binds himself with other human beings solely for his own advantage, he will draw from them what he draws from his own things, or from things in his use; in this case he will not consider other humans as persons.
65. Such a person is isolated and alone, and in this state profits from all the objects around him. Whether the objects are things or persons is accidental and indifferent to him. What is essential and most important in his use of them is the good he seeks to obtain for himself; provided he achieves his own good, he is unconcerned whether things or persons realise it for him. If in fact he prefers persons to things, he does so in the same way as he would prefer better things to inferior things. In all this there is not the slightest hint of society: on the contrary, the law constituting society is that `many individual persons are joined together in such a way that they form a single moral person’.
66. To be called society, a union of human beings must be composed of many persons as persons. Society cannot be any union where a sole person is end, and all others appear with the quality and relationship of means from which he alone draws the profit he desires for himself. Society exists when all the individuals are united with a single common end, in the way that all our bodily limbs have the well-being of our whole body as their end, and the whole body has as its end the well-being of the limbs.
67. A so-called society of servitude and seigniory is not therefore true society, although it may be called such to express the limit of the seigniorial-servant bond rather than the bond itself. This moral limit gives rise to an obligation for masters and servants not to be content with the relationship of seigniory and servitude but always to accompany this relationship with some sort of society and mutual benevolence. I grant that one person’s rights of seigniory over others can be legitimate and just, but in my opinion do not provide the notion of society; they contain only the concept of a human being who possesses things, among which are certain rights over persons.
68. Moreover, as we said, it is necessary that, if these rights over persons are to be true rights, persons be seen as things without offence to their personship. In other words, they must not be prevented from achieving virtue and the supreme good that comes from virtue. In human beings we have to distinguish between the work they effect and their personship. In so far as they work and provide service, they are seen as things and can be possessed by others. But, I repeat, the work must not offend their personal dignity, which remains essentially free from all servitude. Right over personship does not exist; it is an absurdity, a wicked, rash dream of humanity which, in its pride, debases and torments itself.
69. Finally, although seigniory over persons can, as I have explained, be just, we cannot deny that of itself it has a kind of unsocial nature; there is a division between those who are related as master and servant (if we remove every other mitigating relationship). One is person, the other, thing, so opposite in nature that they cannot form a single moral body.
70. For this reason the Legislator of humanity, in his desire to unite all human beings into a completely universal society, excluded entirely the concept of dominion and seigniory from the human race, reserving and referring all domination to God alone. To those upon whom he imposed the responsibility of founding on earth a pure and perfect society, he consigned this constitutive law: `The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them; and those in authority over them are called benefactors. But not so with you; rather let the greatest among you become as the youngest, and the leader as one who serves.’(14)
Notes
(10) Cf. Anthropology as an Aid to Moral Science, 769.
(11) Hence jurisprudents generally define ownership as `the right to enjoy and dispose of things in the most absolute way, provided the use is not forbidden by laws or regulations.' Cf. Codice civile per gli Stati di S. M. il Re di Sardegna, §439.
(12) As an example of the need to distinguish seigniorial from social right, let us consider the question so much discussed by publicists: `Do the citizens of a State have the right to emigrate?' It is clear that this question can be solved only when treated in two ways, that is, by applying first the principles of social right and then the principles of seigniorial right. When we examine the question to this extent, it becomes four different questions, two of which appertain to pure right, that is, to the theory of right, and two to applied right. The first two are:
1. Does social right always give the government of a society the faculty to prevent the emigration of its members? Or: when does it do this, and with what limits?
2. Does seigniorial right always give the masters possessing this right the faculty to prevent their subjects from emigrating? Or when does it do so, and with what limits?
The second two questions concern application:
1. In a particular real civil society do the titles of fact exist which
give the government the faculty to prevent the members from emigrating? And
with what limits?
2. In a particular real seigniory do the titles of fact exist which give
the master the faculty to prevent his subjects from emigrating? And with what
limits?
It is obvious that if all these questions are not first resolved in a particular nation, it is impossible to establish a clear legislation on the right of emigration. And even if it were decided that the right of emigration existed according to social right, the right could cease to exist or be limited by force of seigniorial right. These rights therefore have to be clearly distinguished if legislation is to attain its highest point of perfection.
(13) According to my definition, the bonds are simply realised relationships, that is, actually posited in really existing societies. Philosophical right divides naturally into two parts: pure right, which deals with both seigniorial and social relationships, and right applied to real societies, which deals with both seigniorial and social bonds.
(14) Lk 22: [25–26].