Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligation: Reprinted from Green's Philosophical Works, vol. II., with Preface by Bernard BosanquetGreen, Thomas Hill
Philosophy
Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligation: Reprinted from Green's Philosophical Works, vol. II., with Preface by Bernard Bosanquet
Green, Thomas Hill
Liberty; Natural law; Political obligation
249. As the kind of moral duties (in distinction from those
obligations which are correlative to rights) which relate to the
maintenance of free society and the disposition to fulfil those
duties should form a special object of inquiry, so another special
kind would be those which have to do with the management of property,
with the acquisition and expenditure of wealth. To respect the
rights of property in others, to fulfil the obligations correlative
to those rights, is one thing; to make a good use of property, to
be justly generous and generously just in giving and receiving, is
another, and that may properly be treated as a special kind of virtue
which appears in the duly blended prudence, equity, and generosity
of the ideal man of business. Another special kind will be that
which appears in family relations; where indeed that merely negative
observance of right, which in other relations can be distinguished
from the positive fulfilment of moral duties, becomes unmeaning. As
we have seen, there are certain aggravations and perpetuations of
wrong from which husband or wife or children can be protected by law,
but the fulfilment of the claims which arise out of the marriage-tie
requires a virtuous will in the active and positive sense--a will
governed by unselfish interests--on the part of those concerned.
250. What is called 'moral sentiment' is merely a weaker form of
that interest in social well-being which, when wrought into a man's
habits and strong enough to determine action, we call virtue. So far
as this interest is brought into play on the mere survey of action,
and serves merely to determine an approbation or disapprobation, it
is called moral sentiment. The forms of moral sentiment accordingly
should be classified on some principle as forms of virtue, i.e. with
relation to the social functions to which they correspond.
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