BOOK II CHAPTER II OF JUSTICE Extent and meaning of justice.-Subject of justice: mankind.- Its distribution by the capacity of its subject.- by his usefulness.- Self-love considered.-Family affection.-Gratitude.-Objections: from ignorance-from utility. An exception stated.-Remark.- Degrees of justice.-Application.-Idea of political justice. FROM what has been said it appears, that the subject of our present inquiry is strictly speaking a department of the science of morals. Morality is the source from which its fundamental axioms must be drawn, and they will be made somewhat clearer in the present instance, if we assume the term justice as a general appellation for all moral duty. That this appellation is sufficiently expressive of the subject will appear, if we examine mercy, gratitude, temperance, or any of those duties which, in looser speaking, are contradistinguished from justice. Why should I pard...
Its Nature, Object, and Destiny
The Revolution of February raised two leading questions: one economic, the question of labor and property; the other political, the question of government or the State. On the first of these questions the socialistic democracy is substantially in accord. They admit that it is not a question of the seizure and division of property, or even of its repurchase. Neither is it a question of dishonorably levying additional taxes on the wealthy and property-holding classes, which, while violating the principle of property recognized in the constitution, would serve only to overturn the general economy and aggravate the situation of the proletariat. The economic reform consists, on the one hand, in opening usurious credit to competition and thereby ... (From : proudhonlibrary.org.)