This, therefore, being the characteristic difference which marks
off, not justice, but morality in general, from the remaining
provinces of Expediency and Worthiness; the character is still to be
sought which distinguishes justice from other branches of morality.
Now it is known that ethical writers divide moral duties into two
classes, denoted by the ill-chosen expressions, duties of perfect
and of imperfect obligation; the latter being those in which, though
the act is obligatory, the particular occasions of performing it are
left to our choice, as in the case of charity or beneficence, which we
are indeed bound to practise, but not towards any definite person, nor
at any prescribed time. In the more precise language of philosophic
jurists, duties of perfect obligation are those duties in virtue of
which a correlative right resides in some person or persons; duties of
imperfect obligation are those moral obligations which do not give
birth to any right. I think it will be found that this distinction
exactly coincides with that which exists between justice and the other
obligations of morality. In our survey of the various popular
acceptations of justice, the term appeared generally to involve the
idea of a personal right- a claim on the part of one or more
individuals, like that which the law gives when it confers a
proprietary or other legal right. Whether the injustice consists in
depriving a person of a possession, or in breaking faith with him,
or in treating him worse than he deserves, or worse than other
people who have no greater claims, in each case the supposition
implies two things- a wrong done, and some assignable person who is
wronged. Injustice may also be done by treating a person better than
others; but the wrong in this case is to his competitors, who are also
assignable persons.

  It seems to me that this feature in the case- a right in some
person, correlative to the moral obligation- constitutes the specific
difference between justice, and generosity or beneficence. Justice
implies something which it is not only right to do, and wrong not to
do, but which some individual person can claim from us as his moral
right. No one has a moral right to our generosity or beneficence,
because we are not morally bound to practise those virtues towards any
given individual. And it will be found with respect to this, as to
every correct definition, that the instances which seem to conflict
with it are those which most confirm it. For if a moralist attempts,
as some have done, to make out that mankind generally, though not
any given individual, have a right to all the good we can do them,
he at once, by that thesis, includes generosity and beneficence within
the category of justice. He is obliged to say, that our utmost
exertions are due to our fellow creatures, thus assimilating them to a
debt; or that nothing less can be a sufficient return for what society
does for us, thus classing the case as one of gratitute; both of which
are acknowledged cases of justice. Wherever there is right, the case
is one of justice, and not of the virtue of beneficence: and whoever
does not place the distinction between justice and morality in
general, where we have now placed it, will be found to make no
distinction between them at all, but to merge all morality in justice.

  Having thus endeavoured to determine the distinctive elements
which enter into the composition of the idea of justice, we are
ready to enter on the inquiry, whether the feeling, which
accompanies the idea, is attached to it by a special dispensation of
nature, or whether it could have grown up, by any known laws, out of
the idea itself; and in particular, whether it can have originated
in considerations of general expediency.

  I conceive that the sentiment itself does not arise from anything
which would commonly, or correctly, be termed an idea of expediency;
but that though the sentiment does not, whatever is moral in it does.

  We have seen that the two essential ingredients in the sentiment
of justice are, the desire to punish a person who has done harm, and
the knowledge or belief that there is some definite individual or
individuals to whom harm has been done.

  Now it appears to me, that the desire to punish a person who has
done harm to some individual is a spontaneous outgrowth from two
sentiments, both in the highest degree natural, and which either are
or resemble instincts; the impulse of self-defence, and the feeling of
sympathy.

  It is natural to resent, and to repel or retaliate, any harm done or
attempted against ourselves, or against those with whom we sympathise.
The origin of this sentiment it is not necessary here to discuss.
Whether it be an instinct or a result of intelligence, it is, we know,
common to all animal nature; for every animal tries to hurt those
who have hurt, or who it thinks are about to hurt, itself or its
young. Human beings, on this point, only differ from other animals
in two particulars. First, in being capable of sympathising, not
solely with their offspring, or, like some of the more noble
animals, with some superior animal who is kind to them, but with all
human, and even with all sentient, beings. Secondly, in having a
more developed intelligence, which gives a wider range to the whole of
their sentiments, whether self-regarding or sympathetic. By virtue
of his superior intelligence, even apart from his superior range of
sympathy, a human being is capable of apprehending a community of
interest between himself and the human society of which he forms a
part, such that any conduct which threatens the security of the
society generally, is threatening to his own, and calls forth his
instinct (if instinct it be) of self-defence. The same superiority
of intelligence joined to the power of sympathising with human
beings generally, enables him to attach himself to the collective idea
of his tribe, his country, or mankind, in such a manner that any act
hurtful to them, raises his instinct of sympathy, and urges him to
resistance.