Autor: Strauss, Leo

Buch: Natural Right and History

Titel: Natural Right and History

Stichwort: Naturrecht: Sokratisch-Platonisch-Stoisch; Gerechtigkeit - Weltstaat

Kurzinhalt: In order to be truly just, civil society would have to drop this qualification; civil society must be transformed into the "world-state." ... This solution to the problem of justice obviously transcends the limits of political life ...

Textausschnitt: 146a Very roughly speaking, we may distinguish three types of classic natural right teachings, or three different manners in which the classics understood natural right. These three types are the Socratic-Platonic, the Aristotelian, and the Thomistic. As regards the Stoics, it seems to me that their natural right teaching belongs to the Socratic-Platonic type. According to a view which today is fairly common, the Stoics originated an entirely new type of natural right teaching. But, to say nothing here of other considerations, this opinion is based on neglect of the close connection between stoicism and cynicism,1 and cynicism was originated by a Socratic. (Fs)

146b To describe, then, as concisely as we can the character of what we shall venture to call the "Socratic-Platonic-Stoic natural right teaching," we start from the conflict between the two most common opinions regarding justice: that justice is good and that justice consists in giving to everyone what is due to him. What is due to a man is defined by law, i.e., by the law of the city. But the law of the city may be foolish and hence harmful or bad. Therefore, the justice that consists in giving to everyone what is due to him may be bad. If justice is to remain good, we must conceive of it as essentially independent of law. We shall then define justice as the habit of giving to everyone what is due to him according to nature. A hint as to what is due to others according to nature is supplied by the generally accepted opinion according to which it is unjust to return a dangerous weapon to its lawful owner if he is insane or bent on the destruction of the city. This implies that nothing can be just which is harmful to others, or that justice is the habit of not harming others. This definition fails, however, to account for the frequent cases where we blame as unjust such men who, indeed, never harm another but scrupulously refrain from ever helping another by deed or by speech. Justice will then be the habit of benefiting others. The just man is he who gives to everyone, not what a possibly foolish law prescribes, but what is good for the other, i.e., what is by nature good for the other. Yet not everyone knows what is good for man in general, and for every individual in particular. Just as only the physician truly knows what is in each case good for the body, only the wise man truly knows what is good in each case for the soul. This being the case, there cannot be justice, i.e., giving to everyone what is by nature good for him, except in a society in which wise men are in absolute control. (Fs)

147a Let us take the example of the big boy who has a small coat and the small boy who has a big coat. The big boy is the lawful owner of the small coat because he, or his father, has bought it. But it is not good for him; it does not fit him. The wise ruler will therefore take the big coat away from the small boy and give it to the big boy without any regard to legal ownership. The least we have to say is that just ownership is something entirely different from legal ownership. If there is to be justice, the wise rulers must assign to everyone what is truly due to him or what is by nature good for him. They will give to everyone only what he can use well, and they will take away from everyone what he cannot use well. Justice is then incompatible with what is generally understood by private ownership. All using is ultimately for the sake of action or doing; justice requires, therefore, above all, that everyone be assigned such a function or such a job as he can perform well. But everyone does best that for which he is best fitted by nature. Justice exists, then, only in a society in which everyone does what he can do well and in which everyone has what he can use well. Justice is identical with membership in such a society and devotion to such a society-a society according to nature.1 (Fs)

148a We must go further. The justice of the city may be said to consist in acting according to the principle "from everyone according to his capacity and to everyone according to his merits." A society is just if its living principle is "equality of opportunity," i.e., if every human being belonging to it has the opportunity, corresponding to his capacities, of deserving well of the whole and receiving the proper reward for his deserts. Since there is no good reason for assuming that the capacity for meritorious action is bound up with sex, beauty, and so on, "discrimination" on account of sex, ugliness, and so on is unjust. The only proper reward for service is honor, and therefore the only proper reward for outstanding service is great authority. In a just society the social hierarchy will correspond strictly to the hierarchy of merit and of merit alone. Now, as a rule, civil society regards as an indispensable condition for holding high office that the individual concerned be a born citizen, a son of a citizen father and a citizen mother. That is to say, civil society in one way or another qualifies the principle of merit, i.e., the principle par excellence of justice, by the wholly unconnected principle of indigenousness. In order to be truly just, civil society would have to drop this qualification; civil society must be transformed into the "world-state." That this is necessary is said to appear also from the following consideration: Civil society as closed society necessarily implies that there is more than one civil society, and therewith that war is possible. Civil society must therefore foster warlike habits. But these habits are at variance with the requirements of justice. If people are engaged in war, they are concerned with victory and not with assigning to the enemy what an impartial and discerning judge would consider beneficial to the enemy. They are concerned with harming others, and the just man appeared to be a man who does not harm anyone. Civil society is therefore forced to make a distinction: the just man is he who does not harm, but loves, his friends or neighbors, i.e., his fellow-citizens, but who does harm or who hates his enemies, i.e., the foreigners who as such are at least potential enemies of his city. We may call this type of justice "citizen-morality," and we shall say that the city necessarily requires citizen-morality in this sense. But citizen-morality suffers from an inevitable self-contradiction. It asserts that different rules of conduct apply in war than in peace, but it cannot help regarding at least some relevant rules, which are said to apply to peace only, as universally valid. The city cannot leave it at saying, for instance, that deception, and especially deception to the detriment of others, is bad in peace but praiseworthy in war. It cannot help viewing with suspicion the man who is good at deceiving, or it cannot help regarding the devious or disingenuous ways which are required for any successful deception as simply mean or distasteful. Yet the city must command, and even praise, such ways if they are used against the enemy. To avoid this self-contradiction, the city must transform itself into the "world-state." But no human being and no group of human beings can rule the whole human race justly. Therefore, what is divined in speaking of the "world-state" as an all-comprehensive human society subject to one human government is in truth the cosmos ruled by God, which is then the only true city, or the city that is simply according to nature because it is the only city which is simply just. Men are citizens of this city, or freemen in it, only if they are wise; their obedience to the law which orders the natural city, to the natural law, is the same thing as prudence.1 (Fs)