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CHAPTER V: Of Real Adventitious Rights and Property. - Francis Hutcheson, Philosophiae moralis institutio compendiaria with a Short Introduction to Moral Philosophy [1747]

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Philosophiae moralis institutio compendiaria with a Short Introduction to Moral Philosophy, edited and with an Introduction by Luigi Turco (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2007).

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Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.


CHAPTER V

Of Real Adventitious Rights and Property.

I. The adventitious rights constituted by some human deed or institution are either real or personal. The real terminate upon some certain definite goods: the personal terminate upon some person{, not peculiarly respecting one part of his goods more than any other}. <About these we will say more elsewhere.>

The principal real right is property; the spring [the source and cause] of which is this [we have to explain.], First the external senses and appetites of men naturally lead to the use of external things for the preservation of life: and the like senses <and appetites> in brute animals (who have no superior faculties which could controll these senses and appetites) lead to the same: this sufficiently shews that God has graciously created things inanimate for the use of <a pleasing and rich> animal-life: now man is plainly the chief animal in this earth. Reflection confirms the same; since all these {curious}1 vegetable forms must soon perish of their own accord, and therefor could be intended for no other use, so worthy of the divine goodness <and wisdom>, as that of supporting animal life agreeably, and chiefly human life.

II. There’s indeed implanted in men a natural kindness and sense of pity, extending even to the Brutes, which should restrain them from any cruelty toward them which is not necessary to prevent some misery of mankind, toward whom we must still have a much higher <concern and> compassion. But men must soon discern, {as they increase in numbers,}2 that their lives must be exceedingly toilsome and uneasy unless they are assisted by the beasts fitted for labour. They must also see that such beasts of the gentler kinds and easily tameable, whose services men need most, cannot be preserved without the provident care of men; but must perish by hunger, cold, or savage beasts: nor could men unassisted by work-beasts, and over-burthened in supporting themselves, employ any cares or labour in their defence. Reason therefor will shew, that these tractable creatures fitted for labour are committed to the care and government of men, that being preserved by human care, they may make a compensation by their labours. And thus a community or society is plainly constituted by nature, for the common interest both of men and these more tractable animals, in which men [animals endowed with reason] are to govern, and the brute animals to be subject.3

Such tractable [speechless] animals as are unfit for labours, must make compensation to men for their defence and protection some other way, since their support too requires much human labour; as they must have pastures cleared of wood, and be defended from savage creatures. Men must be compensated by their milk, wool, {or hair,} otherwise they could not afford them so much of their care and labour.

III. Nay, if upon the increase of mankind they were so straitened for food, that many must perish by famine, unless they feed upon the flesh of brute animals; Reason will suggest that these animals, slaughtered speedily by men for food, perish with less pain, than they must feel in what is called their natural death; and were they excluded from human protection they must generally perish earlier and in a worse manner by hunger, or winter-colds, or the fury of savage beasts. There’s nothing therefor of unjustice or cruelty, nay ’tis rather prudence and mercy, that men should take to their own use in a gentler way, those animals which otherways would often fall a more miserable prey to lions, wolves, bears, dogs, or vultures.

Don’t we see that the weaker tribes of <speechless> animals are destined by nature for the food of the stronger and more sagacious? Were a like use of inferior animals denied to mankind, far fewer of these animals fit for human use would either come into life or be preserved in it; and the lives of these few would be more exposed to danger and more miserable. And then, the interest of the whole animal system would require that those endued with reason and reflection, and consequently capable of higher <and more lasting> happiness or misery, should be preserved and multiplied, even tho’ it occasioned a diminution of the numbers of inferior animals. These considerations abundantly evidence that right of mankind to take the most copious use of inferior creatures, even those endued with life. And yet all useless cruelty toward the brute animals is highly blameable.

IV. The grounds of property among men are of a different nature. Compleat unlimited property is “the right of taking the full use of any goods, and of alienating them as we please.” Some degree of ingenuity and strength for occupying certain things, is granted by nature to every one; mankind also naturally are prone to action. Our desire of self-preservation and our tender affections excite us to occupy or acquire things necessary or useful for ourselves and those we love: every man of spirit naturally delights in such exertion of his natural powers, and applauds himself in the acquisition of what may be matter of liberality and friendliness. Our sense of right and wrong also shews, that it must be inhuman and ill-natured, for one who can otherways subsist by his own industry, to take by violence from another what he has acquired or improved by his {innocent} labours. ’Tis also obvious that the spontaneous fruits of the uncultivated earth are not sufficient to maintain the hundredth part of mankind; and that therefor it is by a general diligence and labour that they must be maintained. Whatever method therefor is necessary to encourage a general industry must also be necessary for the support of mankind;4 now without a property ensuing upon labour employed in occupying and cultivating things {fitted for the support of life}, neither our self-love, nor any of the tender affections, would excite men to industry; nay nor even the most extensive benevolence toward all; since the common interest of all requires that all should be obliged by their own necessities to some sort of industry.5 Now no man would employ his labours unless he were assured of having the fruits of them at his own disposal: otherways, all the more active and diligent would be a perpetual prey, and a set of slaves [laughing-stock], to the slothful and worthless.

Without thus ensuring to each one the fruits of his own labours with full power to dispose of what’s beyond his own consumption to such as are dearest to him, there can be no agreeable life, no universal diligence and industry: but by such ensurance labours become pleasant and honourable, friendships are cultivated, and an intercourse of kind offices among the good: nay even the lazy and slothful are forced by their own indigence, to bear their share of labour. Nor could we hope, in any plan of polity, to find such a constant care and fidelity in magistrates, as would compell all impartially to bear their proper shares of labour, and make a distribution of the common acquisition in just proportion to the indigence or merits of the several citizens, without any partial regards to their favourites.6 And could even this be obtained in fact, yet the citizens could scarce have such confidence in their magistrates wisdom and fidelity, as would make their diligence and labour so agreeable to them, as when they are themselves to make the distribution of their profits, according to their own inclinations, among their friends or families.

[1. ]“Curious” is not in the Institutio, but in System 2.6.2, vol. I, p. 310, inside a sentence almost identical; cf. note 9 to Chapt. IV.

[2. ]This addition by the translator is justified by what Hutcheson says in System 2.6.3, vol. I, p. 312.

[3. ]In De iure nat. 4.3.2–6 (Barbeyrac translation, vol. I, pp. 484–89), Pufendorf condemns any cruelty toward animals and does not take for granted man’s right to kill and eat animals, just as most ancient philosophers believed. The defense of this human right is based on the idea that there is not any right or obligation common to men and beasts; see also Carmichael, Notes on Puf., pp. 91–92. Hutcheson does his best to show that men and animals form a community, or “a well ordered complex system” (System 2.6.5, vol. I, p. 313)

[4. ]See System 2.6.5, vol. I, p. 320; Inquiry on Virtue 7.8, pp. 284–86.

[5. ]See System 2.6.5, vol. I, p. 321.

[6. ]See System 2.6.6, vol. I, p. 323, where Hutcheson refers to Plato’s and Thomas More’s “Schemes of community.”