Abstract
In this chapter, I will focus on the concept of justice as it emerges during the Scottish Enlightenment in the moral, social and political theories developed by the Scottish philosophers David Hume, Adam Smith, Lord Kames, and Thomas Reid. The Scottish philosophers dealt with justice as a characteristic of the individual and, paradoxically, they explained that concept as an institutionalized practice. Central to their theories was the question whether this virtue is an inherent part of human nature or whether it is artificial. In particular, I will focus on Hume’s account of justice and his main claim that it is an artificial virtue and the product of human conventions, as well as on his view that justice lies in its utility in maintaining property as a condition of a stable society, which was criticized by other notable Scottish philosophers such as Lord Kames and Thomas Reid. Reid in particular, in his criticism of Hume’s theory of justice, develops a rights-based theory arguing that justice’s utility is insufficient to distinguish it from natural virtues such as benevolence, while Adam Smith, in his criticism of Hume’s view that justice depends on utility, coupled justice with beneficence since the two virtues are directly concerned with our relationship to other people. In their theories, the Scottish philosophers were concerned with the moral virtues and jurisprudence as well as with the moral dimensions of modernization and economic improvement of their commercial or civil society and they valued justice, law, rights, and obligations since they envisaged a stable society and government in order to secure the future.
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Notes
- 1.
Raphael , David Daiches (2001) Concepts of Justice. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 1–7.
- 2.
For the developing role of justice, from antiquity till the present, see Raphael, David Daiches Concepts of Justice, op.cit.
- 3.
Haakonssen , Knud (2003) “Natural Jurisprudence and the Theory of Justice,” in The Cambridge Companion to the Scottish Enlightenment, ed. by Alexander Broadie . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 205–221, especially p. 205.
- 4.
Ibid.
- 5.
Ibid., p. 206.
- 6.
Hume , David (1978) A Treatise of Human Nature, ed., with an Analytical Index, by L. A. Selby-Bigge , revised edition by P. H. Nidditch , 2nd ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press, pp. 487ff., 586. All the following quotations will be from this edition.
- 7.
Ibid., pp. 500, 533.
- 8.
For an extensive presentation and examination of Hume’s theory of justice, see Harrison , Jonathan (1981) Hume’s Theory of Justice. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
- 9.
Smith, Adam (1976) The Theory of Moral Sentiments, ed. by D. D. Raphael & A. L. Macfie . Oxford: Clarendon Press, pp. 75–78.
- 10.
Ibid., p. 74.
- 11.
Ibid., pp. 16–23, as noted by Luigi Turco , “Moral Sense and the Foundations of Morals,” in The Cambridge Companion to the Scottish Enlightenment, p. 147.
- 12.
Raphael , David Daiches Concepts of Justice, op.cit., pp. 87–103.
- 13.
Berry , Christopher J. (reprinted 2001) Social Theory of the Scottish Enlightenment (1997). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, pp. 156ff.
- 14.
Turco , Luigi “Moral Sense and the Foundations of Morals,” in The Cambridge Companion to the Scottish Enlightenment, pp. 136–156.
- 15.
Hume, David (1998) An Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals, ed. by Tom L. Beauchamp , with an Introduction. Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press.
- 16.
Haakonssen , Knud (1989) The Science of a Legislator. The Natural Jurisprudence of David Hume and Adam Smith (1981). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 5.
- 17.
Ibid., pp. 4 and 12.
- 18.
Raphael , David Daiches Concepts of Justice, p. 92.
- 19.
Treatise, p. 517.
- 20.
David Daiches Raphael in his Concepts of Justice (pp. 91ff.) notes the impact of Hutcheson ’s An Inquiry into our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue (1725) and An Essay on the Passions and Affections. With Illustrations on the Moral Sense (1728) on Hume’s moral thought.
- 21.
Haakonssen , Knud The Science of a Legislator. The Natural Jurisprudence of David Hume and Adam Smith, op.cit.
- 22.
Treatise, p. 526. As Mackie observes, Hume interprets this definition “as protecting everyone in the pocession and use of what belongs to him and in the right to transfer his property voluntarily to someone else”. Mackie , J. L. (2001) Hume’s Moral Theory (1980). New York: Routledge, p. 77.
- 23.
In the Treatise, p. 484, the clarification of natural and artificial regarding justice is as follows: “I must here observe, that when I deny justice to be a natural virtue, I make use of the word, natural, only as oppos’d to artificial. In another sense of the word; as no principle of the human mind is more natural than a sense of justice; so no virtue is more natural than justice. Mankind is an inventive species; and where an invention is obvious and absolutely necessary, it may as properly be said to be natural as anything that proceeds immediately from original principles, without the intervention of thought or reflexion. Tho’ the rules of justice be artificial, they are not arbitrary. Nor is the expression improper to call them Laws of Nature; if by natural we understand what is common to any species, or even if we confine it to mean what is inseparable from the species.”
- 24.
Treatise, p. 483. Mackie believes that Hume ’s argument that justice is an artificial virtue is complicated and difficult, and gives an outline of it in eight steps. J. L. Mackie , Hume’s Moral Theory, pp. 76ff.
- 25.
Treatise, pp. 532–533.
- 26.
Ibid., pp. 490–491.
- 27.
Ibid., p. 577.
- 28.
Ibid,, p. 484.
- 29.
Ibid., p. 500.
- 30.
Ibid., p. 579.
- 31.
Ibid., p. 578.
- 32.
Ibid., pp. 580, 618, 577.
- 33.
Ibid., p. 577.
- 34.
Ibid.
- 35.
Ainslie , Donald C. (1995) “The Problem of the National Self in Hume’s Theory of Justice,” in Hume Studies, v. XXI, N° 2, pp. 289–313.
- 36.
Ibid., p. 289.
- 37.
Miller , D. (1976) Social Justice. Oxford: Oxford University Press. For recent discussions on the concept of desert, see Sher, George (1989) Desert, Studies in Moral, Political, and Legal Philosophy. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
- 38.
Raphael , David Daiches Concepts of Justice, op.cit., pp. 88–89.
- 39.
Baier , Annete C. (2010) The Cautious Jealous Virtue. Hume on Justice. Cambridge, Mass./London: Harvard University Press.
- 40.
Treatise, p. 499.
- 41.
Enquiry, Appendix III, pp. 304–306. Rawls , John (1972) A Theory of Justice. Oxford: Clarendon Press, pp. 3ff.
- 42.
Treatise, p. 498.
- 43.
Haakonssen , Knud The Science of a Legislator, p. 36.
- 44.
Ryan , Alan (ed.) (1993) Oxford Readings in Politics and Government. Oxford: Oxford University Press, Introduction, pp. 10–11.
- 45.
Raphael , David Daiches Concepts of Justice, op.cit., pp. 104ff.
- 46.
McCosh , James (1966) The Scottish Philosophy. Hildesheim: Geog Olms, p. 192.
- 47.
Haakonssen , Knud “Natural Jurisprudence and the Theory of Justice,” in The Cambridge Companion to the Scottish Enlightenment, p. 208.
- 48.
Reid, Thomas (1967) Essays on the Active Powers of Man, in The Works of Thomas Reid, ed. by Sir William Hamilton . Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlagsbuchhandlung, II, p. 650b. All quotations are from this edition.
- 49.
Ibid., p. 590a–b.
- 50.
Ibid., p. 672b.
- 51.
Raphael , David Daiches Concepts of Justice, op.cit., pp. 104–106.
- 52.
Active Powers, p. 654b.
- 53.
Ibid., p. 656b.
- 54.
Ibid., pp. 652–653.
- 55.
Ibid., p. 643ff.
- 56.
Ibid., p. 656a.
- 57.
Ibid., p. 657a.
- 58.
Raphael , David Daiches Concepts of Justice, op.cit., p. 108.
- 59.
Active Powers, p. 659a.
- 60.
Ibid., p. 655b: “This very conception of justice implies its obligation. The morality of justice is included in the very idea of it: nor is it possible that the conception of justice can enter into the human mind, without carrying along with it the conception of duty and moral obligation. Its obligation, therefore, is inseparable from its nature, and is not derived solely from its utility, either to ourselves or to society.”
- 61.
Ibid., p. 656b.
- 62.
Ibid.
- 63.
Ibid., p. 657.
- 64.
Active Powers, p. 658b: “Every man, as a reasonable creature, has a right to gratify his natural and innocent desires, without hurt to others. No desire is more natural, or more reasonable, than that of supplying his wants. When this is done without hurt to any man, to hinder or frustrate his innocent labour, is an unjust violation of his natural liberty.”
- 65.
Cf. Mackinnon , K. (1989) “Thomas Reid on Justice ‘a Rights-Based Theory’,” in Dalgarno , M. & Matthews , E. (eds.) The Philosophy of Thomas Reid. Dordrecht/Boston/London: Kluwer Academic Publishers, “Philosophical Studies Series 42”, pp. 355–367, especially p. 360.
- 66.
Reid , Thomas (1990) Practical Ethics, ed. by Knud Haakonssen . Princeton: Princeton University Press, p. 61.
- 67.
Reid , Thomas Practical Ethics, ed. Knud Haakonssen , p. 139, as cited by Raphael , David Daiches Concepts of Justice., op.cit., p. 112.
- 68.
Reid , Thomas Practical Ethics, ed. Knud Haakonssen , p. 204ff.
- 69.
Active Powers, V.5, pp. 651a–663a, and Raphael , David Daiches Concepts of Justice, p. 236.
- 70.
Ibid., p. 244.
- 71.
Baier , Annette C. (2011) The Pursuits of Philosophy. An Introduction to the Life and Thought of David Hume. Harvard, Mass./London: Harvard University Press, p. 49.
- 72.
Diamond , Peter J. (1998) Common Sense and Improvement: Thomas Reid as a Social Theorist. Germersheim/Frankfurt am Main: Publications of the Scottish Studies of the Johannes Gutenberg Universität Mainz/Peter Lang, “Scottish Studies International, Vol. 24”, p. 335.
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Glycofrydi-Leontsini, A. (2015). Accounts of Justice in the Scottish Enlightenment. In: Fløistad, G. (eds) Philosophy of Justice. Contemporary Philosophy: A New Survey, vol 12. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9175-5_11
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