Society And its Purpose
Book 4 - Psychological Laws and the End of Civil Societies
CHAPTER 9
Common errors about the total good existing in a given society
586. If it were true that human existence pure and simple had an infinite value, it would be sufficient to total the individuals composing a society to know the total good of that society. The population itself would be the definitive measure of public prosperity. A population census would also indicate accurately the total human good present in a social body if 1. only equal good could be accumulated in individuals and 2. the real existence of each individual had equal value. But both methods of calculation are wrong. In the calculation of human good, 1. only a minimum value can be given to pure existence, and 2. real existence can vary indefinitely in value from one individual to another.
This last truth gives us the extraordinary consequence that `a single individual can possess a moral and eudaimonological good greater than the good in many individuals, even in the whole human race.' A great error therefore is made by those who calculate the total good in a society solely on the datum of population. A similar error is made by those who indicate the amount of good in a society by restricting themselves to enumerating well-off people or those who live at a certain level of prosperity. Some observations about both these mistaken calculations will be helpful.
587. The first calculation is clearly seen as mistaken today because it has lost even the appearance of truth. But not the second; it has a seductive ring, especially now that the simplistic teachings of Bentham and other radical doctrines have become almost generally accepted, in the way the populace understands them.
588. However, a few words about the first mistake will not be out of place. Note that human beings can be considered from two points of view: in themselves or relative to society. Considered in themselves, the real good they possess and enjoy as individuals is included in the calculation; considered relative to society, we are dealing with their value as a useful means or instrument for the preservation and increase of the mass of good of every citizen.
589. Political theorists who make population the measure of public prosperity usually begin from two erroneous principles, of which the consequences themselves can only be erroneous. The principles are: 1. the calculation must be made not according to the value of human beings in themselves but according to their value relative to society, that is, as mere instruments for the preservation and increase of the mass of good of every citizen; 2. the most helpful thing for the preservation and the mass of social good is the greatest possible population without limit.
590. The first of these erroneous principles contains a sophism of great harm to human dignity: it evaluates the means but denies any value to the end. If human beings are valued solely for their utility to the State, they are debased to the condition of things and stripped of the characteristic of persons - considered like this, they could have less value than a flock of sheep. This kind of calculation can be made only where slavery flourishes. It is extraordinary, therefore, to see that supporters of this error are sometimes those who declare themselves very much in favour of liberal institutions. But we entirely reject such a pernicious, ignoble doctrine! Human beings are not only citizens; before being citizens, they are human beings, an imprescriptible title of nobility and font of freedom. This natural human dignity makes them greater than all the material things that compose the universe.
591. If however we compare human beings among themselves, I repeat that a single human being can have an intrinsic, moral and eudaimonological value exceeding that of hundreds of other human beings. Hence we must not calculate them according to their number but according to their importance, taking account of their moral excellence, the level of their virtue and consequently the level of their happiness.
592. Furthermore, we have seen how immorality and its consequent unhappiness have caused such great evil in humans that no other evil can be compared with it. Existence would not be beneficial to a great number of human beings if they were so degenerate that all of them together were not worth a single person who might exist in their place; life would not be beneficial to a great number of wicked and unhappy people, or to many who, because of their shameful, unhappy state, would prefer not to exist. We all know that multitudes of destitute people often lack the most necessary objects of life, suffering deficiencies and deformation in their physical and moral development. This part of the human race either dies early, or grows up in abject hopelessness, disease, squalor, degradation and, worse, in degrading, brutalising vice. Not every population therefore must be given equal value; the same number of people can present a very different sum of good and evil.
593. The same conclusion obtains if we consider the population from the point of view of usefulness to the State. For example, an increase in infant mortality means a comparable decline in the number of educated people available to the State. But we know that destitution greatly increases the number of deaths under twenty years of age.(280) The State therefore cannot expect support from the poor equal to that of the same number of well-off people. It follows that the State's concern should be the quality, not the size of the population. The same observation was made even by Necker:
| No one need be anxious about the state of the population if the number of births exceeds the number of deaths. But we must always bear in mind that the composition of the population influences the prosperity and strength of the State. In a country where the majority of inhabitants scarcely enjoy what is necessary, but are perhaps drawn by the pleasure of the senses, the same number of babies are born as in a prosperous society. People make an effort to rear them, but because poverty prevents adequate nutrition and health care, most of the children die before their fourth birthday. In a country of this kind the number of babies will be constantly disproportionate to the number of adults or mature individuals. Hence a million individuals would not have the same strength or capacity for work as the same number in a kingdom where the people were less poor. |
In France, figures showed that those over twenty years of age were nine-twentieths of births; in England, according to an English writer, only seven-twentieths lived beyond twenty years of age. Thus, out of ten million births in France there were a million people above twenty years old - more than in England. Certainly, neither humanity nor society can have the same appreciation for babies who die without any chance of development (they are, after all, only a burden to society) as they have for children who grow up to acquire virtue (much more important than mere growth) and enjoy its rewards.
It is clear therefore that a State's prosperity does not increase simply in proportion to the population but depends rather upon quantity and quality in a population proportioned to the means of subsistence and education, and endowed with moral and eudaimonological good.
Notes
(280) The statistics for the population movement of Paris from 1817 to 1821, compiled for the Academy of Sciences by Villot, head of the office of statistics for the department of Seine, show that destitution is the most influential cause in mortality, which is consistently larger in poor rather than wealthy environments, despite the fact that the number of marriages and births is smaller in the former. Consequently, although the difficulty of maintaining children restrains marriage to some degree, it is not sufficient to reduce marriages and lower infant mortality. Remedying this great evil becomes far more difficult as people become accustomed to suffering and lose the energy of will to avoid it.