The man who falls back upon intuition alone, in his
advocacy of the abolition of capital punishment, may
be expected to maintain next that a state, in going
to war, should stop short at the point where the lives
of its citizens are put in jeopardy. Why kill
a good man, when it is wrong to kill a bad one?
It must be admitted that the State and its representatives
enjoy some rights and duties not accorded to individuals.
The State may condemn men to death or to imprisonment;
it may take over property; it may make itself a compulsory
arbiter between individuals. On the other hand,
its representatives are not always as free as are
private persons. The individual, if he is a generous
soul, may freely forego some of his advantages and
may seek only a fair fight with an opponent. It
is doubtful whether the duty the State owes to its
citizens permits of chivalry. Certainly strong
states do not hesitate to attack weak ones; nor do
many hesitate to combine against one, on the score
of fair play. And a private man may temper justice
with mercy in ways forbidden to a judge.
CHAPTER XXXV
INTERNATIONAL ETHICS
159. WHAT IS MEANT BY THE TERM.—I
am almost tempted to avoid the discussion of this
thorny subject by simply referring the reader to what
has been said already on “The Spread of the Community,”
and developed in the chapters on “The Rational
Social Will” and “The Individual and the
Social Will.” [Footnote: See Sec 75 and
chapters xxi-xxii.]
He who confines himself to generalities avoids many
difficulties and can assure himself of the approval
of many. Who, condemns justice and humanity in
the abstract? Who can wax eloquent in his condemnation
of freedom? Who finds the Christian Church on
his side, when he advocates rapacity and the oppression
of the helpless, without entering into details?
On the other hand, who wishes to view his country
with a cold impartiality, and to place its interests
exactly on a par with the interests of other lands?
Who, save the Chinaman himself, thinks it as important
that a Chinaman should have enough to eat as that an
American or an Englishman should? Was not the
turpitude, that excluded the Chinaman from Australia,
traced to the two deadly sins of undue diligence and
sobriety? [Footnote: Encyclopedia Britannica,
11th edition, article, “Australia.”] As
for freedom, men of certain nations regard it as the
highest virtue to be willing to die for it—their
own freedom, be it understood,—while they
regard the same desire for freedom on the part of
their colonists as a moral obliquity to be extirpated,
root and branch.
That the historian and the sociologist should find
much to say touching the relation of nations to each
other and to subject peoples goes without saying.
But the cynic may maintain with some plausibility that
the moralist’s chapter on International Ethics
must be as void of content as the traditional chapter
on “Snakes in Ireland.” In this the
cynic is wrong, as usual; but it is instructive to
listen to him, if only that we may intelligently refute
him.
