The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• Introduction
• A Note On the Text
• Abbreviations
• Preface
• The Elements of Universal Jurisprudence By Samuel Pufendorf Book I
• Definition I: By Human Actions Are Meant the Voluntary Actions of a Man In Communal Life Regarded Under the Imputation of Their Effects.
• Definition II: By the Object of Moral Actions Is Meant All That With Which They Deal.
• Definition III: Status Is a Suppositive Moral Entity In Which Positive Moral Objects, And, Above All, Persons, Are Said to Be.
• Definition IV: A Moral Person Is a Person Considered Under That Status Which He Has In Communal Life.
• Definition V: A Moral Thing Is a Thing Regarded In Respect of Its Pertinence to Persons.
• Definition VI: A Title Is a Moral Attribute By Which Distinctions Are Marked Among Persons In Communal Life According to Their Esteem and Status.
• Definition VII: Authority Is an Active Moral Power By Which Some Person Legitimately and With a Moral Effect Is Able to Perform a Voluntary Action.
• Definition VIII: Right Is an Active Moral Power, Belonging to a Person, to Receive Something From Another As a Matter of Necessity.
• Definition IX: Esteem Is the Value of Persons In Communal Life In Accordance With Which They Are Fit to Be Placed Upon an Equality With Other Persons, Or to Be Compared With Them, and to Be Rated Either Above Or Below Them.
• Definition X: Worth Is the Moral Quantity Or Value of Merchandise Or Things, and of Actions That Are Good For Man In Communal Life, In Accordance With Which They Are Fit to Be Compared One With Another.
• Definition XI: Principles of Human Action Are Those Things From Which It Springs and Upon Which It Depends, and By Which a Human Action Is Brought to Completion.
• Definition XII: Obligation Is an Operative Moral Quality By Which Some One Is Bound to Furnish, Allow, Or Endure Something.
• Definition XIII: A Law Is a Decree By Which a Superior Binds One Subject to Him to Direct His Actions According to the Command of the Superior.
• Definition XIV: Authority Is an Active Moral Power By Which Some Person Legitimately and With a Direct Moral Effect Can Perform an Action. 1
• Definition XV: The Affections of a Voluntary Action Are the Modes Through Which It Is Denominated Or Defined In a Certain Manner.
• Definition XVI: A Good Action Is One Which Agrees With Law; a Bad Action Is One Which Disagrees With the Same.
• Definition XVII: A Just Action Is One Which of Free Moral Choice Is Rightly Directed to That Person to Whom It Is Owed.
• Definition XVIII: The Quantity of Moral Actions Is the Estimative Measure By Which They Are Said to Be of a Certain Degree.
• Appendix to Definition Xviii In Which the Moral Sphere Is Explained
• Definition XIX: By the Effect of a Moral Action Is Meant That Which Is Produced By It.
• Definition XX: Merit Is an Estimative Moral Quality Resulting to a Man From an Action Which He Is Not Bound to Perform, In Accordance With Which There Is Owed Him an Equivalent Good On the Part of the One In Whose Favour That Action Was Undertaken.
• Definition XXI: Demerit Is an Estimative Moral Quality Resulting to a Man From a Bad Action Through Which He Is Under Obligation to Make Amends For the Injury Done to a Second Person Thereby.
• The Elements of Universal Jurisprudence By Samuel Pufendorf Book Ii
• Axiom I: Any Action Whatsoever That May Be Directed According to a Moral Norm, Which Is Within a Man’s Power to Do Or Not to Do, May Be Imputed to Him. And, On the Contrary: That Which Neither In Itself Nor In Its Cause Was Within a Man’s Power May Not
• Axiom II: Any Person Whatsoever Can Effectively, Or With the Obligation to Perform Them, Enjoin On Someone Subject to Himself Those Things to Which His Authority Over the Other Extends Itself.
• Observation I: A Man Can Judge Properly of Things Apprehended By the Power of His Intellect.
• Observation II: From an Internal Principle a Man Can Move Himself to Undertake Or to Leave Undone a Certain Action.
• Observation III: A Man Is Destined By Nature to Lead a Social Life With Men.
• Observation IV: Right Reason Dictates That a Man Should Care For Himself In Such a Way That Human Society Be Not Thrown Into Disorder.
• Observation V: The Law of Nature Alone Is Not Directly Sufficient to Preserve the Social Life of Man, But It Is Necessary That Sovereignties Be Established In Particular Societies.

DEFINITION XX

Merit is an estimative moral quality resulting to a man from an action which he is not bound to perform, in accordance with which there is owed him an equivalent good on the part of the one in whose favour that action was undertaken.

• No merit results from an action which was owed.
• But merely from one which was not owed.
• What is a reward, and what a premium?

1. The foundation and, as it were, the fountain head of merit, is the performance of a work not owed, or, in other words, to receiving which at our hands the other person, for whose sake the deed was done, had no just claim. For, if I furnish the other person merely that which I am thoroughly bound to furnish, so that he has the authority to demand the same from me, it is perfectly patent, that, by the very act of furnishing the thing in question, I am merely meeting a debt and my obligation, and in the action itself there is nothing superabounding, as it were, wherefrom merit can arise for me. Hence it is well established that a mortal cannot have any merit at all towards God, even if we should grant that he can fulfil perfectly the divine law, and so God cannot in any way be man’s debtor, except on the faithfulness of a gratuitous promise, which, however, itself confers no right upon man. Thus, also, other actions which are enjoined upon us by men in virtue of their command [imperio], cannot directly produce for us merit towards the one who made the injunction, although God as well as men who are able to obligate one completely, are apt very frequently to provide definite good things and to confer them upon those who have fulfilled their commands, so as to excite promptitude in obedience. But they are not bound to furnish these because of merit on the part of the agent, or as though on the basis of a contract, but by the force of a generous promise. And so these good things are listed under the designation, not of a reward or premium, but of a gift or gratuitous premium.

2. For the acquisition of merit towards men there remain, therefore, those actions which were not owed them, whether it be that there was absolutely no binding obligation to furnish these, or nature, indeed, commanded or urged that those same actions be undertaken, the application, however, to individual cases having been left to our free choice; or else they were not commanded by a civil law, at least. The reason for this is that what I owe completely to a second person, he himself now has a right over, so that if I render it, properly speaking nothing is lost to me from that to which I myself have a right at the present moment, since, forsooth, if I am going to keep back or deny the same, I shall be doing an injury to the other party. This makes it clear enough that the thing is now his and no longer mine at all, and so there is left to me no place for merit in giving it over to him. But, in truth, when I perform something for another beyond a complete obligation, assuredly that matter, since it is lost to me, and accrues to him, leaves with me a perfect or an imperfect right to have from the second person, upon whom it was bestowed, that which will equal it in worth. And this very thing is merit.

3. When we expressly stipulate for the satisfaction of merit, it is properly called reward. But when the satisfaction of merit in all that concerns manner, time, and amount, is left to the free choice and equity of the second person, it is called premium. Now this is either a corporeal thing, as money, land, house, &c., and incorporeal, as the concession of immunities, privileges, and definite rights; or moral, as honour, praise, &c.; or else notional, as statues, inscriptions, crowns, and the like.