us, thus classing the case as one of gratitude; both of which are
acknowledged cases of justice. Wherever there is a right, the case is
one of justice, and not of the virtue of beneficence: and whoever does
not place the distinction between justice and morality in general where
we have now placed it, will be found to make no distinction between them
at all, but to merge all morality in justice.
Having thus endeavoured to determine the distinctive elements which
enter into the composition of the idea of justice, we are ready to enter
on the inquiry, whether the feeling, which accompanies the idea, is
attached to it by a special dispensation of nature, or whether it could
have grown up, by any known laws, out of the idea itself; and in
particular, whether it can have originated in considerations of general
expediency.
I conceive that the sentiment itself does not arise from anything which
would commonly, or correctly, be termed an idea of expediency; but that,
though the sentiment does not, whatever is moral in it does.
We have seen that the two essential ingredients in the sentiment of
justice are, the desire to punish a person who has done harm, and the
knowledge or belief that there is some definite individual or
individuals to whom harm has been done.
Now it appears to me, that the desire to punish a person who has done
harm to some individual, is a spontaneous outgrowth from two sentiments,
both in the highest degree natural, and which either are or resemble
instincts; the impulse of self-defence, and the feeling of sympathy.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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