The resistance which is opposed to any hindrance of an effect is in reality a furtherance of this effect and is in accordance with its accomplishment.Now, everything that is wrong is a hindrance of freedom, according to universal laws; and compulsion or constraint of any kind is a hindrance or resistance made to freedom.
Consequently, if a certain exercise of freedom is itself a hindrance of the freedom that is according to universal laws, it is wrong; and the compulsion of constraint which is opposed to it is right, as being a hindering of a hindrance of freedom, and as being in accord with the freedom which exists in accordance with universal laws.Hence, according to the logical principle of contradiction, all right is accompanied with an implied title or warrant to bring compulsion to bear on any one who may violate it in fact.
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.
This proposition means the right is not to be regarded as composed of two different elements- obligation according to a law, and a title on the part of one who has bound another by his own free choice to compel him to perform.But it imports that the conception of right may be viewed as consisting immediately in the possibility of a universal reciprocal compulsion, in harmony with the freedom of all.
As right in general has for its object only what is external in actions, strict right, as that with which nothing ethical is intermingled, requires no other motives of action than those that are merely external; for it is then pure right and is unmixed with any prescriptions of virtue.A strict right, then, in the exact sense of the term, is that which alone can be called wholly external.Now such right is founded, no doubt, upon the consciousness of the obligation of every individual according to the law; but if it is to be pure as such, it neither may nor should refer to this consciousness as a motive by which to determine the free act of the will.For this purpose, however, it founds upon the principle of the possibility of an external compulsion, such as may coexist with the freedom of every one according to universal laws.Accordingly, then, where it is said that a creditor has a right to demand from a debtor the payment of his debt, this does not mean merely that he can bring him to feel in his mind that reason obliges him to do this; but it means that he can apply an external compulsion to force any such one so to pay, and that this compulsion is quite consistent with the freedom of all, including the parties in question, according to a universal law.Right and the title to compel, thus indicate the same thing.
The law of right, as thus enunciated, is represented as a reciprocal compulsion necessarily in accordance with the freedom of every one, under the principle of a universal freedom.It is thus, as it were, a representative construction of the conception of right, by exhibiting it in a pure intuitive perception a priori, after the analogy of the possibility of the free motions of bodies under the physical law of the equality of action and reaction.Now, as in pure mathematics, we cannot deduce the properties of its objects immediately from a mere abstract conception, but can only discover them by figurative construction or representation of its conceptions; so it is in like manner with the principle of right.It is not so much the mere formal conception of right, but rather that of a universal and equal reciprocal compulsion as harmonizing with it, and reduced under general laws, that makes representation of that conception possible.But just as those conceptions presented in dynamics are founded upon a merely formal representation of pure mathematics as presented in geometry, reason has taken care also to provide the understanding as far as possible with intuitive presentations a priori in behoof of a construction of the conception of right.The right in geometrical lines (rectum) is opposed, as the straight, to that which is curved and to that which is oblique.In the first opposition, there is involved an inner quality of the lines of such a nature that there is only one straight or right line possible between two given points.In the second case, again, the positions of two intersecting or meeting lines are of such a nature that there can likewise be only one line called the perpendicular, which is not more inclined to the one side than the other, and it divides space on either side into two equal parts.After the manner of this analogy, the science of right aims at determining what every one shall have as his own with mathematical exactness; but this is not to be expected in the ethical science of virtue, as it cannot but allow a certain latitude for exceptions.But, without passing into the sphere of ethics, there are two cases- known as the equivocal right of equity and necessity- which claim a juridical decision, yet for which no one can be found to give such a decision, and which, as regards their relation to rights, belong, as it were, to the "Intermundia"of Epicurus.These we must at the outset take apart from the special exposition of the science of right, to which we are now about to advance; and we may consider them now by way of supplement to these introductory explanations, in order that their uncertain conditions may not exert a disturbing influence on the fixed principles of the proper doctrine of right.
F.Supplementary Remarks on Equivocal Right.
(Jus Aequivocum).
