The elements of social justice / by L.T. Hobhouse.

  • Hobhouse, L. T. (Leonard Trelawny), 1864-1929.
Date:
[1922]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The elements of social justice / by L.T. Hobhouse. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    is now the duty of statesmanship; but in the meantime the principle of community has been represented, with the imperfections and inconsistencies that we are observ¬ ing, by organized bodies—States, Churches, associations of all kinds. When we speak of “ the ” community in any relation, e.g. as exercising a power or holding property, we mean the community which is appropriate to the function that is in question. We are apt to think that the appropriateness is to be judged in the end by the joint operation of all the functions in the life of the State. That is not so. The functions of the State and its appro¬ priateness as the organ which is to perform them are themselves to be judged in their relation to the life of humanity. The whole conception of sovereignty fuses two forms of constraint which it is the first duty of social philosophy to keep distinct—the constraint of power and the constraint of moral obligation. The medium of the fusion is the normal duty of obeying the law. Political organization is in general a condition of well¬ being, and our obligation to serve the general well-being carries with it, as a consequence, the duty of paying regard to the law. But political obligation is a secondary and derivative duty, and the supreme moral authority is not temporal but spiritual. For the conception of a number of independent sovereign States claiming absolute allegiance and enforcing it by absolute power, we must therefore substitute a spiritual principle embracing all humanity, and finding organized expression imperfectly in various forms. Each such form has the value which belongs to a means, and the authority which legitimately attaches to an organization which is actually in being, and which we have no right to destroy or impede unless we are sure that it is doing positive harm, or at lowest that the same thing can be done, and done better, in another way. All these different functions require adjustment, and it is claimed for the State that the final word in adjustment is precisely its function, But this is not universally true, for the State