Chapter 2.
6. Person and right (1)
In his theory of education Rosmini illustrates principles governing relationships between teacher and pupil. He shows how one person intervenes in the life of another in order to assist with the great work of primary formation (the formation of the person), to which all other kinds of formation are subordinate. In his study of right as the basis of all human rights he throws the net wider as he examines the relationships that must exist between human beings as such. These relationships are constituted by duties and rights which must be situated in their source in order to be understood. Only the knowledge of the essence of duty and rights can provide a solid foundation for the philosophy of right and the adequate study of human rights.
Rosmini turns, therefore, to justice as the root and essence of all morality, and expresses its self-evident obligation as follows: 'Acknowledge in practice every being in its order'. A careful analysis of this precept reveals its presuppositions:
1) the activity of an intelligent subject, in so far as the subject is
capable of acknowledging in practice what he knows;
2) the activity of a person, that is of the supreme active force within an
intelligent subject;
3) good activity, that is, good for the person exercising it;
4) lawful activity, that is, action in harmony with the moral law;
5) activity self-evidently protected by the moral law itself.
These five characteristics constitute the essence of right which Rosmini defines as: 'A faculty to act as one pleases, protected by the moral law which demands respect for this faculty from others' (2). In other words, the individual's obligation to be just ensures for him the right to act within the limits of justice. His duty to act in accordance with justice imposes on others the duty to respect this obligation.
Duty and right are thus co-related in the sense that there can be no right in one person without a corresponding duty in others to respect that right. My duty, for example, to worship God gives rise to my right to worship God, a right which others have a duty to respect. On the other hand, the concept of duty is anterior to that of right and as such does not necessarily give rise to rights in others. For example, my duty to worship God does not necessarily imply that others' rights are violated if I do not worship God as I should.
Individual right
The personal activity constituting the essence of right can be exercised in various ways: a human being can act as an individual or as a member of different societies. These two great divisions of personal activity give rise to two divisions of right made by Rosmini: individual and social right. Each is capable of being exercised when 'a person has dominion over something', because it is his own. This sphere of personal ownership (understood not simply in a material sense, but in the broadest meaning of the word, that is, as 'proper to me, the person') establishes the state of juridical freedom within which the person is free and must be left free. 'What is mine (what I own) constitutes a sphere whose centre is the person. Within this sphere no one can enter' (3).
But the way in which anything becomes a person's own also provides a foundation for divisions of activity: if what he possesses is his by nature (innate, inborn), his rights are natural, or rational (they are his because he is what he is); if personal ownership is acquired during the course of life, rights are called positive (they are his because of what he does). A complete examination of right would, therefore, have to deal with the following divisions: natural individual right; positive individual right; natural social right; positive social right.
The essential, connatural individual right is the human person because person is the 'supreme principle of activity in an intellective being'. In the case of human beings, this supreme activity is brought about by the innate, infinitely dignified light of being which, shining before the human mind, constitutes and establishes it as an active force of intellect and will. It is important to notice that 'person' does not possess right, but - because formed by the light of being - is right itself; does not possess freedom, but is freedom itself. Every attempt to deprive a person of his supreme activity and thus interrupt the relationship between the human subject and the object which enlightens him intellectually, is an act of violence against the person and consequently an attempt to damage his right as person. All violence against the person as right consists in efforts made to divide the person from truth, virtue and happiness.
The first thing proper to human persons is their nature. Within the sphere constituted by this nature, the person has the right not to be impeded in the decent development of his natural faculties, provided such development does not presume to invade the zone of freedom or juridical dominion proper to others.
The development of natural faculties leads very quickly to the acquisition of natural goods through actions by which persons rightfully take things different from themselves, but not belonging to others, as their own, and use them for their own purposes.
The enjoyment of personal activity and the capacity for ownership, in the sense explained, are rights embodied in the moral law, every infraction of which is itself moral evil. No circumstances can be envisaged relative to what is rightfully owned and to the owning subject which can change such moral evil into good, although there are circumstances, such as lack of use, which dissolve the relationship of ownership and thus leave the field open to other would-be possessors. For Rosmini, therefore, membership of a society, such as the State, does not and cannot annul these preceding rights even though new relationships do spring from membership of society. The State, for example, cannot absorb the inalienable rights proper to persons, nor can it be considered as more than its individual members in such a way that persons can be sacrificed for the sake of society: 'Let civil society perish ... or be dissolved if this is needed for the salvation of individuals' (4). Person constitutes the foundation of society, but society is not essential to person.
Social right
Social right arises from the bonds that unite the human being with his neighbour. The bonds themselves are present to form society when a number of people place determined goods in common in order to reach a determined end. Amongst the infinite number of possible societies, three are necessary if human beings are to arrive at perfection on earth and attain their immortal destiny. Rosmini calls them respectively 'theocratic', 'domestic' and 'civil', and restricts his study of social right to them.
Theocratic or divine society is that which God wishes to establish with the human race. It is the first society, and as such the basis and foundation of the others. It forms the natural society of the human race, begins with the creation of mankind, and draws its life from the relationships which necessarily unite the creature to God, the supreme Being and absolute Lord of his creatures. Human beings, simply because they are human beings, form a society whose members hold in common truth, virtue and happiness. But God, who is Truth, the Principle of Being, and absolute Good, is the final end of each human being and places in common with his creatures the Good which is himself. The deity acquires a new title of right which he expresses through positive laws, the government of the world, the communication of himself and the sending of ministers who indicate his will.
However, theocratic society arising from creation as such is a rudimentary society. The truth, virtue and happiness that human beings share with God are natural goods, not God himself. Gradually this society is brought to perfection as God reveals himself more and more clearly. Eventually it reaches its perfection in the Incarnation of Jesus Christ, through whom it becomes Church, with its characteristics of unity, holiness and universality. Aggregation to the Church comes about freely through baptism. Constituted through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, the Church has certain connatural rights - to existence, recognition, free action, and growth - which all must respect. The Church is destined to realise the design of God who wishes all human beings to be united under a single Pastor.
Domestic society is divided into conjugal and parental society. In the former, every good possessed by human beings is put in common, including that of their animal origin. To spiritual goods such as truth, virtue and happiness are added the complementary good that man and woman can offer one another for their mutual enjoyment as a result of their psychological and somatic structure. It is this union of persons of different sex that forms the essence of conjugal society. 'Husband and wife are two human beings who unite in the fullest way possible as man and woman, according to right reason. This is the true concept of marriage' (5).
Rosmini's view of marriage draws attention to two characteristics. Sexual union, either as a right to be exercised or as actually exercised, constitutes the special aspect of marriage, which must be a full union. In other words, marriage requires and presupposes for the sexual union which marks it out, every other possible union, spiritual and animal, between persons. Moreover, because sexual union demands and perfects every other union between man and woman, it is not and cannot be a merely physical gesture. For Rosmini, sexual union is an act undertaken by the whole human being and constitutes a total, mutual communication at a spiritual level. The outward, physical act is a sign, on the level of sense, of this communion which in its turn entails 1) exclusive love between the spouses, 2) monogamy, 3) the indissolubility of marriage and 4) the need to hold everything in common. In the Church, the marriage bond, already indissoluble by nature, is strengthened by the presence, through grace, of God himself.
With the arrival of children, conjugal society gives rise to parental society in which the parents provide the human nature of their children while the person, the divine image and likeness, is grounded in God himself. As a result, parents' rights extend to the nature of their children, but not to their persons, whose rights are inalienable. And as these persons gradually come to control the exercise of their natural faculties, parental rights begin to decrease and finally cease.
Civil society is for Rosmini the communion desired by several families who wish to entrust the preservation and the regulation of their rights to a single or collective mind called 'government'. This society, therefore, does not have as its end the personal and natural rights of theocratic and conjugal society, but exists simply to oversee the exercise or modality of these rights. Relative to the other two societies, civil society is simply a means to an end; it is not an end in itself.
Two further points about Rosmini's views on civil society must be emphasised even in a brief summary of his work. Both are connected with present-day attitudes to the State. The first reiterates and emphasises what has already been declared about the relationship of civil society to the persons composing it; the second is proper to the government of civil society and raises problems about relating Rosmini's views to the practical requirements of the modern State.
According to Rosmini, the State, despite its universal regulation of the modality of rights, its supremacy over more particular societies, and its stability, has no power to create or destroy human rights. These are already present in the persons composing the State, which exists for the purpose of safeguarding these rights and indeed of enhancing their exercise in so far as this is compatible with the common good (the good of all), the public good (the good of the social body) and private good. Such a position gives the lie to any pretext for totalitarian power on the part of the State.
On the other hand, and this is the second point, Rosmini is decisively opposed to modern notions of democracy. 'One man, one vote' has no place in his view of the establishment of government over the modern State. His practical suggestions in this respect need not delay us here, but the principle on which they are founded is of great interest. For him, a voice in the establishment of government would depend upon the possible contribution made by the members to the well-being of the State. The electoral vote should in some way be proportioned to the interest and responsibility of the citizen in the State. If, for example, we are to accept that there should be no taxation without representation, it would seem logical to require that representation should be in proportion to taxation. The difficulties of such a position were immediately obvious to Rosmini (and are perhaps even more clear to us as taxation, for example, has passed from a merely personal to an impersonal level), but they were not considered as great as the inevitable despotism of the majority which, according to Rosmini, is the ultimate conclusion of 'irresponsible' voting.
Finally, Rosmini's suggestions for the implementation of the art of government are of compelling worth: essential interest, he says, should never be sacrificed to non-essential interests; the totality of utilitarian good, which can never exclude moral good, is to be the ultimate object of government even if this means that sectional interests suffer; expectations should never be greater than the probability of satisfying them; limited well-being, such as economic well-being, should not be given pride of place over total well-being. If this should happen, the inevitable result will be the eventual loss of limited well-being as well as the destruction of civil society as a whole. But it is clear that such suggestions must be considered ultra-utopian as long as there is no system for ensuring that the electoral vote is as far as possible compatible with responsibility for the welfare of the actual State. Voting should never be the expression of a theory or ideology about how the State ought to attain its well-being. Civil society, which bears within itself a natural instinct for improving itself in circumstances as they really are, will never be ruled satisfactorily by the external imposition of any kind of perfectionist theory. In this sense, the pragmatist government that begins from the actual state of society and moves from this point to contributing to the greatest possible genuine satisfaction of its citizens is far more commendable than the facile absolutism associated with ideological government.
Notes
(1). Cf. Filosofia del diritto (Philosophy of Right) [1841-43] EN, Padua 1967-69.
(2). Ibid. vol. 1, part 1, p. 107.
(3). Ibid, vol. 1, p. 160.
(4). Ibid, vol. 2, no. 1660.
(5). Ibid, vol. 3, no. 997.