1790

                              THE SCIENCE OF RIGHT

                                by Immanual Kant

                            translated by W. Hastie
INTRODUCTION

            INTRODUCTION TO THE SCIENCE OF RIGHT.

             GENERAL DEFINITIONS, AND DIVISIONS.

              A. What the Science of Right is.

  The Science of Right has for its object the principles of all the
laws which it is possible to promulgate by external legislation. Where
there is such a legislation, it becomes, in actual application to
it, a system of positive right and law; and he who is versed in the
knowledge of this system is called a jurist or jurisconsult
(jurisconsultus). A practical jurisconsult (jurisperitus), or a
professional lawyer, is one who is skilled in the knowledge of
positive external laws, and who can apply them to cases that may occur
in experience. Such practical knowledge of positive right, and law,
may be regarded as belonging to jurisprudence (jurisprudentia) in
the original sense of the term. But the theoretical knowledge of right
and law in principle, as distinguished from positive laws and
empirical cases, belongs to the pure science of right (jurisscientia).
The science of right thus designates the philosophical and
systematic knowledge of the principles of natural right. And it is
from this science that the immutable principles of all positive
legislation must be derived by practical jurists and lawgivers.

                    B. What is Right?

  This question may be said to be about as embarrassing to the
jurist as the well-known question, "What is truth?" is to the
logician. It is all the more so, if, on reflection, he strives to
avoid tautology in his reply and recognise the fact that a reference
to what holds true merely of the laws of some one country at a
particular time is not a solution of the general problem thus
proposed. It is quite easy to state what may be right in particular
cases (quid sit juris), as being what the laws of a certain place
and of a certain time say or may have said; but it is much more
difficult to determine whether what they have enacted is right in
itself, and to lay down a universal criterion by which right and wrong
in general, and what is just and unjust, may be recognised. All this
may remain entirely hidden even from the practical jurist until he
abandon his empirical principles for a time and search in the pure
reason for the sources of such judgements, in order to lay a real
foundation for actual positive legislation. In this search, his
empirical laws may, indeed, furnish him with excellent guidance; but a
merely empirical system that is void of rational principles is, like
the wooden head in the fable of Phaedrus, fine enough in appearance,
but unfortunately it wants brain.

  1. The conception of right- as referring to a corresponding
obligation which is the moral aspect of it- in the first place, has
regard only to the external and practical relation of one person to
another, in so far as they can have influence upon each other,
immediately or mediately, by their actions as facts. 2. In the
second place, the conception of right does not indicate the relation
of the action of an individual to the wish or the mere desire of
another, as in acts of benevolence or of unkindness, but only the
relation of his free action to the freedom of action of the other.
3. And, in the third place, in this reciprocal relation of voluntary
actions, the conception of right does not take into consideration
the matter of the matter of the act of will in so far as the end which
any one may have in view in willing it is concerned. In other words,
it is not asked in a question of right whether any one on buying goods
for his own business realizes a profit by the transaction or not;
but only the form of the transaction is taken into account, in
considering the relation of the mutual acts of will. Acts of will or
voluntary choice are thus regarded only in so far as they are free,
and as to whether the action of one can harmonize with the freedom
of another, according to a universal law.

  Right, therefore, comprehends the whole of the conditions under
which the voluntary actions of any one person can be harmonized in
reality with the voluntary actions of every other person, according to
a universal law of freedom.

               C. Universal Principle of Right.

  "Every action is right which in itself, or in the maxim on which
it proceeds, is such that it can coexist along with the freedom of the
will of each and all in action, according to a universal law."

  If, then, my action or my condition generally can coexist with the
freedom of every other, according to a universal law, any one does
me a wrong who hinders me in the performance of this action, or in the
maintenance of this condition. For such a hindrance or obstruction
cannot coexist with freedom according to universal laws.

  It follows also that it cannot be demanded as a matter of right,
that this universal principle of all maxims shall itself be adopted as
my maxim, that is, that I shall make it the maxim of my actions. For
any one may be free, although his freedom is entirely indifferent to
me, or even if I wished in my heart to infringe it, so long as I do
not actually violate that freedom by my external action. Ethics,