Summary. This section contains three further arguments in favor of the thesis that justice is an artificial, and not a natural, virtue. The first argument hinges on the fact that property must be defined in terms of the justice of action, and not vice-versa. This means that if justice were a natural virtue, we would naturally approve of actions based merely on features of possession. But we do not. The second argument is based on the fact that natural virtues are subject to gradation. But the justice of actions is based on an absolute notion of property, so that justice does not come in degrees. The third argument highlights the inflexibility of the laws of nature, which conflicts with the contextual and interest-specific flexibility of moral judgments.

1. The author summarizes the conclusions of the earlier sections of Part II. There are “three fundamental laws of nature,” concerning the stability of possessions, the transferrence of possessions, and the keeping of promises. There rules are necessary for human society, in that they provide the security needed for stable social interactions. And human society is necessary for the well-being of human beings. The laws of nature restrain the passions of men, but they are the at the same time the products of those passions, “and are only a more artful and more refin’d way of satisfying them. Nothing is more vigilant and inventive than our passions; and nothing is more obvious, than the convention for the observance of these rules.” Nature did not implant in the human mind “any peculiar original principles” to direct our conduct in this way. The rules can be accounted for entirely on the basis of “the other principles of our frame and constitution.” In what follows, new arguments will be given for this conclusion, that justice is an artificial, invented virtue.

2. Argument 1: from the “vulgar definition of justice.” Justice is ordinarily defined in terms of allegedly more basic notions, as “a constant and perpetual will of giving every one his due.” The supposedly more basic notions are those of right and property, which “wou’d have subsisted, tho’ men had never dreamt of practicing such a virtue” as justice. The author has already observed (Book III, Part 2, Section 2, Paragraph 11) that this opinion is fallacious, and he continues his observations here.

3. The quality called property resembles the qualities of the peripatetic (Aristotelian) philosophy, [such as substantial forms]. These qualities are imaginary, not real. The quality property “vanishes upon a more accurate inspection into the subject, when consider’d apart from our moral sentiments.” Because the sensible qualities of a body can remain the same while the quality of property varies, the latter is not based entirely on sensible qualities. So property must be a relational quality, relating the object said to be property to some thing. As before, the property can change while the object’s relation to all external and inanimate objects stays the same, so the thing to which property is related has to be something else. “’Tis, therefore, in some internal relation, that the property consists; that is, in some influence, which the external relations of the object have on the mind and actions.” This influence on the mind and actions is what makes first possession the basis of property. First possession does not have any relation to objects, but only influences the mind, “by giving us a sense of duty in abstaining from that object, and in restoring it to the first possessor.” This kind of action is what is called justice, and the nature of property depends on the virtue justice, and justice does not depend on the relational quality, property.

4. Since justice does not depend on property, anyone defending the claim that it is a natural virtue must establish that our approval of those actions we call ‘just’ stems from a “natural beauty or deformity, and causes an original pleasure and uneasiness,” independently of any notion of property, right or obligation. So nature must have annexed these sentiments to actions involving first or long possession, even were there no such thing as property. But it is “sufficiently evident, in this dry and accurate consideration of the present subject, that nature has annex’d no pleasure or sentiment of approbation to such conduct.” Nonetheless, the author will advance further considerations to confirm this.

5. First, if the sentiment were so natural, it would be evident that the mere consideration of these actions involving possession bring on a pleasurable or disagreeable sentiment. But we find no such thing. Further, we would not fallaciously begin by using the concept of property to define justice, and then turn around and define property in terms of justice. “This deceitful method of reasoning is a plain proof, that there are contain’d in the subject some obscurities and difficulties, which we are not able to surmount, and which we desire to evade by this artifice.”

6. Secondly, there are no marks of natural origin in the rules by which we define just actions, but there are many marks “of artifice and contrivance.” “They are too numerous to have proceeded from nature: They are changeable by human laws: And have all of them a direct and evident tendency to public good, and the support of society.” There are two notable aspects of the tendency of the laws to produce public good. 1) Even though the public good is the “natural tendency” of the laws, this does not make the laws themselves natural, “as being purposely contriv’d and directed to a certain end.” 2) Even if people are naturally endowed with a regard for public good, narrow self-interest keeps people from being motivated by it. “So that the laws of justice arise from natural principles in a manner still more oblique and artificial.” To be sure, they arise ultimately from “self-love,” which comes into conflict with the self-love of others. The artificial result of this conflict is that “these several interested passions are oblig’d to adjust themselves after such manner as to concur in some system of conduct and behavior.” The advantage to the public, which “of course” results from the agreement to obey the rules, is still only a by-product of self-interest.

7. Argument 2: from the difficulty in distinguishing virtue from vice in some cases. The two “run insensibly into each other, and may approach by such imperceptible degrees as will make it very difficult, if not impossible, to determine when the one ends, and the other begins.” Rights and property are absolute: “a man either has a full and perfect property, or none at all; and is either entirely oblig’d to perform any action, or lies under no manner of obligation.” In this way, then rights and property do not resemble the sentiments on which justice and injustice are based. It would seem that there is an exception to this absolute distinction in civil law, which speaks of “perfect dominion, and of an imperfect.” But this arises only from a fiction, “and can never enter into our notions of natural justice and equity.” An example is that of a man who rents a horse for a day. He has the right to use it just as if he were its owner, and though it is of limited duration and degree, “the right itself is not susceptible of any such gradation, but is absolute end entire, so far as it extends.” The whole right, (to the degree that it applies [you cannot sell the horse or kill it, for example]) arises and ceases to be in an instant. There are no insensible gradations involved. Since this holds for property, rights and obligations, it applies to the treatment of justice and injustice. If it is admitted that they admit of degree, then they are distinct from property, etc., since “these depend entirely upon justice and injustice, and follow them in all their variation.” Property would have to admit of degrees, which it does not. On the other hand, if property is absolute, as described above, then justice also does not come in degrees. Admitting this, however, has the consequence that justice and injustice are not natural virtues, “since vice and virtue, moral good and evil, and indeed all natural qualities, run insensibly into each other, and are, on many occasions, indistinguishable.” So an accurate notion of justice must be one that does not make it a natural virtue.

8. Common thinking seems to be in conflict with the “abstract reasoning, and the general maxims of philosophy” used in the last paragraph. “We find great difficulty to entertain that opinion, and do even secretly embrace the contrary principle.” The problem is that although property is something entire, it is frequently very difficult to determine whose it really is, based on the fact that there are equal claims to the public good (which is the basis of property in the first place) and conflicting “propensities of the imagination.” This is why in cases of arbitration, property which should in a sense be kept entire is divided. But in court, the property must be kept entire, and so civil judges “are often at a loss how to determine, and are necessitated to proceed on the most frivolous reasons in the world.” The notion of “half rights and obligations, which seem so natural in common life, are perfect absurdities in their tribunals.” This is why they feel the need to “take half arguments for whole ones, in order to terminate the affair one way or the other.”

9. Argument 3: from the nature of general rules. Most cases of human action can be described as based on present motives and inclinations, which call for the use of “particular principles” appropriate to our current situations. When we go further and establish general rules for the regulation of conduct, we make them flexible, allowing for many exceptions. But the laws of justice are inflexible, and so are different from the natural rules we invent. They “can never be deriv’d from nature, nor be the immediate offspring of any natural motive or inclination.” The moral goodness or evilness of an action requires that there be a natural passion that motivates us to do it (in which case it is good) or to avoid it (in which case it is bad). So “’tis evident, that the morality must be susceptible of all the same variations, which are natural to the passion.” The author illustrates this general point with an example of two persons disputing an estate. One is a rich, foolish bachelor, the other a poor, sensible family man. The rich man is my enemy, the poor man my friend. Both public and private interest, then, would favor settling the matter in favor of the poor man. “Nor wou’d any consideration of the right and property of the persons be able to restrain me, were I actuated only by natural motives, without any combination or convention with others.” If justice were a natural virtue, it would be just to favor the person to whom I am partial for both public and private reasons. “Were men, therefore, to take the liberty of acting with regard to the laws of society, as they do in every other affair, they wou’d conduct themselves, on most occasions, by particular judgments, and wou’d take into consideration the characters and circumstances of the persons, as well as the general nature of the question.” But this obviously would produce “an infinite confusion in human society” were it not for inflexible laws “which are unchangeable by spite and favour, and by particular views of private or public interest.” So the rules are artificially invented, and they are unlike natural principles, which are contextual “and have no stated invariable method of operation.”

10. How could one be easily mistaken in this matter? We find that people impose inflexible rules that regard property as “sacred and inviolable.” Property clearly depends on prior notions of justice and injustice. These qualities cannot be based on motives that are independent of morality. Whatever the motives of morality may be, they “must accommodate themselves to circumstances, and must admit of all the variations, which human affairs, in their incessant revolutions, are susceptible of.” So moral motives are a poor foundation for inflexible laws of nature, “and ’tis evident these laws can only be deriv’d from human conventions, when men have perceiv’d the disorders that result form following their natural and variable principles.”

11. The author summarizes his position for the final time. There are two foundations for the distinction between justice and injustice. One is self-interest, which moves men to form societies for their own benefit. The second is morality, which is based on the commonality of this interest to all human beings, who take a pleasure in those actions that “tend to the peace of society, and an uneasiness from such as are contrary to it.” Insofar as the first interest is the result “the voluntary convention and artifice of men,” the laws of justice must be considered artificial. But after the interest is established, it is natural that morality follows, given what has just been said. There is, though, a further element of artificiality in the moral sentiment towards justice that later develops. It can be as well furthered by “a new artifice, namely, “the public instructions of politicians, and the private education of parents.” These give rise to “a sense of honour and duty in the strict regulation of our actions with regard to the property of others.”

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