The Online Library of Liberty

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• Translator’s Preface.
• Bibliographical Note.
• Prefatory Explanations.
• Prolegomena. General Introduction to the Metaphysic of Morals.
• I.: The Relation of the Faculties of the Human Mind to the Moral Laws.
• II.: The Idea and Necessity of a Metaphysic of Morals.
• III.: The Division of a Metaphysic of Morals.
• General Divisions of the Metaphysic of Morals.
• I.: Division of the Metaphysic of Morals As a System of Duties Generally.
• II.: Division of the Metaphysic of Morals According to Relations of Obligation.
• IV.: General Preliminary Conceptions Defined and Explained.
• Introduction to the Science of Right.
• General Definitions and Divisions.
• A.: What the Science of Right Is.
• B.: What Is Right?
• C.: Universal Principle of Right.
• D.: Right Is Conjoined With the Title Or Authority to Compel.
• E.: Strict Right May Be Also Represented As the Possibility of a Universal Reciprocal Compulsion In Harmony With the Freedom of All According to Universal Laws.
• F.: Supplementary Remarks On Equivocal Right.
• Division of the Science of Right.
• A.: General Division of the Duties of Right.
• B.: Universal Division of Rights.
• C.: Methodical Division of the Science of Right.
• The Science of Right. Part First. Private Right. the System of Those Laws Which Require No External Promulgation.
• Private Right. the Principles of the External Mine and Thine Generally.
• Chapter First. of the Mode of Having Anything External As One’s Own.
• Private Right: Chapter Second. the Mode of Acquiring Anything External.
• First Section. Principles of Real Right.
• Second Section. Principles of Personal Right.
• Third Section. Principles of Personal Right That Is Real In Kind.
• The Rights of the Family As a Domestic Society.
• Title First. Conjugal Right. (husband and Wife.)
• Rights of the Family As a Domestic Society.: Title Second. Parental Right. (parent and Child.)
• Rights of the Family As a Domestic Society.: Title Third. Household Right. (master and Servant.)
• Systematic Division of All the Rights Capable of Being Acquired By Contract.
• Episodical Section. the Ideal Acquisition of External Objects of the Will.
• Private Right.: Chapter Third. Acquisition Conditioned By the Sentence of a Public Judicatory.
• Transition From the Mine and Thine In the State of Nature to the Mine and Thine In the Juridical State Generally.
• The Science of Right. Part Second. Public Right. the System of Those Laws Which Require Public Promulgation.
• Public Right. the Principles of Right In Civil Society.
• Public Right.
• I.: Right of the State and Constitutional Law.
• Constitutional and Juridical Consequences Arising From the Nature of the Civil Union.
• Public Right.
• II.: The Right of Nations and International Law.
• Public Right.
• III.: The Universal Right of Mankind.
• Conclusion.
• Supplementary Explanations of the Principles of Right.
• Objection As to the Faculty of Desire.
• Apologia. Kant’s Vindication of His Philosophical Style.

A.

General Division of the Duties of Right.

(Juridical Duties.)

In this Division we may very conveniently follow Ulpian, if his three Formulæ are taken in a general sense, which may not have been quite clearly in his mind, but which they are capable of being developed into or of receiving. They are the following:—

• 1. Honeste vive. ‘Live rightly.’ Juridical Rectitude, or Honour (Honestas juridica), consists in maintaining one’s own worth as a man in relation to others. This Duty may be rendered by the proposition, ‘Do not make thyself a mere Means for the use of others, but be to them likewise an End.’ This Duty will be explained in the next Formula as an Obligation arising out of the Right of Humanity in our own Person (Lex justi).
• 2. Neminem læde. ‘Do Wrong to no one.’ This Formula may be rendered so as to mean, ‘Do no Wrong to any one, even if thou shouldst be under the necessity, in observing this Duty, to cease from all connection with others and to avoid all Society’ (Lex juridica).
• 3. Suum cuique tribue. ‘Assign to every one what is his own.’ This may be rendered, ‘Enter, if Wrong cannot be avoided, into a Society with others in which every one may have secured to him what is his own.’—If this Formula were to be simply translated, ‘Give every one his own,’ it would express an absurdity, for we cannot give any one what he already has. If it is to have a definite meaning, it must therefore run thus, ‘Enter into a state in which every one can have what is his own secured against the action of every other’ (Lex justitiæ).

These three classical Formulæ, at the same time, represent principles which suggest a Division of the System of Juridical Duties into Internal Duties, External Duties, and those Connecting Duties which contain the latter as deduced from the Principle of the former by subsumption.