1. Two questions will be considered here: 1) How are the rules of justice artifically established, and 2) Why we regard the observance or failure to observe the rules as cases of moral beauty and ugliness, respectively. The questions are distinct. The author begins with question 1).

2. Human beings seem to have been placed at greater disadvantage by nature than any other species. On the one hand, our needs are very great, and on the other, the means we have for fulfilling the needs are very slight. With most species, the two are in balance: a less needy kind of animal will have fewer means, and an animal with more means has more needs. An example of the former is a sheep or ox, and of the latter a tiger. “In man alone, this unnatural conjunction of infirmity, and of necessity, may be observ’d in its greatest perfection.” Food runs away from him or is hard to produce, and he also needs clothes and dwellings to fend against the weather. But all he has available to provide these is some pretty feeble natural endowments.

3. Only social relations overcome these deficiencies: so much so that humans do better than all the other animals. “By society all his infirmities are compensated; and tho’ in that situation his wants multipy every moment upon him, yet his abilities are still more augmented, and leave him in every respect more satisfy’d and happy, than ’tis possible for him, in his savage and solitary condition, ever to become.” An individual has little power, cannot produce anything perfectly, and failure is disastrous. These three problems are overcome by the power, ability, and security afforded by society.

4. It is not enough that society confer these advantages in order for it to be formed: people must also be aware of them. But this cannot take place in by study and reflection when people are in “their wild uncultivated state.” What overcomes this obstacle is the “natural appetite between the sexes,” which unites people and creates concern for their offspring. This is “the first original principle of human society.” This principle is augmented when the children have children, creating more extensive ties “where the parents govern by the advantage of their superior strength and wisdom, and at the same time are restrain’d in the exercise of their authority by that natural affection, which they bear their children.” Custom and habit make people sensible of the advantages of these unions.

5. The passions of lust and natural affection make human society unavoidable, and it is advantageous. But “other particulars in our natural temper, and in our outward circumstances” rest uneasily with, or even conflict with, social union. Our natural temper produces selfishness, which is the most considerable problem for society. The author observes that philosophers have vastly over-estimated the power of selfishness. It is just as rare to meet someone whose kind affections do not over-weigh his selfishness as it is to find someone who loves someone else more than himself. In families, wives and children are given the best part of the master’s fortune, with only a little devoted to his own enjoyment.

6. There is a problem, though, in that the noble affection of generosity can be as unfitting for people in large society as is selfishness.. This lies in the fact that our affection is general restricted to our near relatives and acquaintances, which can produces conflicts of our passions when a society is newly established.

7. This would not be so bad, except that it is exacerbated by “a peculiarity in our outward circumstances.” the author begins the explanation of this by noting that there are three kinds of goods: internal satisfaction, external advantage of the body, and the fruits of our labor. The first cannot be taken away from us, and taking away the second does no good to someone who does this. But the third can be taken from us by violence and be transferred intact to the taker. And there are not enough products of labor to meet everone’s needs and desires. So the problems are instability and scarcity of external goods.

8. There is no remedy for this in uncultivated nature. The remedy cannot be the idea of justice, which is something that (in its modern form) “wou’d never have been dream’d of among rude and savage men.” The problem is that our natural affection for those closely related to us is the basis for uncultivated ideas of morality. This can be seen even now in our blame for a person who devotes all his attention to the family (“too great an enlargment” of the natural degree of partiality) or those who treat strangers better (too great a contraction).

9. So the remedy is artificial: “nature provides a remedy in the judgment and understanding, for what is irregular and incommodious in the affections.” The remedy arises from these elements: 1) early exposure to society shows that it has great advantages, 2) people have acquired a new appreciation for company and conversation, 3) external goods are easily and loosely transferred from one to another. The remedy is to put the external goods on the same footing as the goods of the mind and of the body, which are “fix’d and constant advantages.” The only way to do this is by a convention agreed upon by all in society “to bestow stability on the possession of those external goods, and leave every one in the peacable enjoyment of what he may acquire by his fortune and industry.” Everyone knows what will remain his own, and the passions are restrained. This is not contrary to the passions (otherwise, the convention could never be established), but only to “their heedless and impetuous movement.” The agreement is in the interests of everyone.

10. The agreement is not a promise, which results from another convention. “It is only a general sense of common interest; whch sense all the members of society express to one another, and which induces them to regulate their conduct by certain rules.” Saying that I will leave someone else’s goods alone as long as he leaves mine alone “provides a suitable resolution and behavior.” This is an agreement without being a promise because actions refer to one another and are performed on the supposition of the performance of something else on the part of the other. An analogy is two men who co-ordinate their rowing of a boat, without making any promises. It might be objected that the fact that the rule arises gradually in the development of man, and is nutured by the visible consequences of transgressing it, shows that it is not the result of convention. But the author rejoins that this shows that it is, “that the sense of interest has become common to all our fellows, and gives us a confidence of the future regularity of their conduct.” “And ’tis only on the expectation of this, that our moderation and abstinence are founded.” An analogy is made with languages, and another with money.

11. From this original convention “concerning abstinence from the possessions of others” arises ideas of justice, injustice, property, rights, and obligation. We can hardly understand these apart from the convention, and it makes no sense to think that the concepts of justice and injustice are based on those of property, etc. Again, there would be “a very gross fallacy involved.” Someone’s property is related to him, not naturally, but morally, based on justice. So we cannot have an idea of justice based on property. “The origin of justice explains that of property. The same artifice gives rise to both.” It is only “the nature of our passions” which give preference to friends and family that can serve as the explanation, not “any such thing as a fix’d right of property,” which is impossible without the restraint of the passions.

12. This convention establishing “distinction of property, and stability of possession” is the most necessary to establish human society. It is about all that is needed to achieve “a perfect harmony and concord.” The author lists the other passions, which “are either easily restrain’d, or are not of such pernicious consequence, when indulg’d.” Vanity [pride; see Book II, Part 1, Section 9] is social and unites men, as do pity and love. Envy and revenge are very repugnant to society, but they operate only intermittently and directed agains particular people, not society as a whole. “This avidity alone, of acquiring goods and possessions for ourselves and our nearest friends, is insatiable, perpetual, universal, and directly destructive of society.” Almost everyone suffers from it, and they recognize its consequences when it is not restrained. “So that upon the whole, we are to esteem the difficulties in the establishment of society, to be greater or less, according to those we encounter in regulating and restraining this passion.”

13. No other affection of the individual human mind is strong enough to overcome avidity. Benevolence to strangers is not enough. The other passions feed it, “when we observe, that the larger our possessions are, the more ability we have of gratifying all our appetites.” This leaves only avidity itself, turning against itself “on the least reflection.” (This is because of the terrible consequences of letting it loose.) Whether self-interest is considered a virtue or a vice, it has the same effect of making men social: the only thing that matters is how wise people are in understanding the consequences of its liberty or restraint.

14. If the rule of stability is difficult to understand or create, then society would have to be considered accidental and the result of “many ages” of mankind. But “nothing can be more simple and obvious than that rule.” All parents use it to keep the peace among their children, and the rule improves as it is applied to larger units of society. So in fact, it is not possible for humans not to enter into the agreement, and man “in his very first state and situation may justly be deem’d social.” This does not prevent us from supposing a state of nature as “a mere philosophical fiction, which never had, and never cou’d have any reality.” The state of nature would be based on passion alone, but the understanding must be added for society to be possible at all. The co-operation of the passions and the understanding is compared to the notion of a vector of two motions, which is a legitimate concept of natural science. But if we think of the rule of passion without understanding, we get the state of nature, in which there is no society.

15. The author compares the supposed state of nature to a golden age supposed by the poets of ancient times. The only differences is that the golden age was the opposite in character to the state of nature: charming and peaceable. The disadvantages of men that the author has used to postulate the requirement of society are removed in the description, to the point where there is no distinction of property, justice, or obligation at all.

16. This “idle fiction” of a golden age illustrates the origin of justice. If you take away selfishness and limited generosity, as well as easy change of possession of goods and their scarcity, there would be no jealosy of interests of the kind supposed by justice, “nor wou’d there be any occasion for those distinctions and limits of property and possession, which at present are in use among mankind.” An increase in benevolence in men or bounty in nature renders justice useless. Scarcity animates selfishness, and the restraint of selfishness is what requires the distinction of external goods.

17. Fictions are not required to see this: common experience and observation will do. Married people, for example, co-mingle their property and lose the distinction between “mine” and “yours.” Great abundance has the same effect, as in the case of air and water. [Though note the effect of scarcity of water, as in California or the Middle East!] “If men were supply’d with every thing in the same abundance, or if every one had the same affection and tender regard for every one as for himself; justice and injustice wou’d be equally unknown among mankind.”

18. We can regard this proposition as certain: “that ’tis only from the selfishness and confin’d generosity of man, along with the scanty provision nature has made for his wants, that justice derives its origin.” This bestows more force on observations made earlier in Book III.

19. 1) Regard for public interest (extensive benevolence) is not the origin of justice, since if everyone had them, the rules would be unnecessary.

20. 2) The sense of justice is not founded on reason, “or on the discovery of certain connexions and relations of ideas, which are eternal, immutable, and universally obligatory.” The changes that would render the rule of justice superfluous would have to produce a change in those ideas. But they will not do that, since the only difference is in the utility of the rules, which are needed to fulfill both public and personal interest. Everything is indifferent to us but our impressions and sentiments, and so justice is not based on ideas.

21. 3) The principles giving rise to the sense of justice are artificial. The alterations in temperament and availablity of goods changes only interests. If we had public interests at heart naturally, the rules would not be needed. If we pursued only our own interests, disaster would occur. “These rules, therefore, are artificial, and seek their end in an oblique and indirect manner; nor is the interest, which gives rise to them, of a kind that cou’d be pursu’d by the natural and inartificial passions of men.”

22. The connection of justice with interest is unusual. Single acts of justice can be determinental to public interest (a man of merit restores a fortune to a seditious bigot) and private interest (a man might impoverish himself by paying off a debt, wishing that “with regard to that single act, the laws of justice were for a moment suspended in the universe”). But “the whole plan or scheme” of justice benefits both greatly. It is impossible to avoid the bad effects, but they are swamped by the good benefits of society. As soon as this is realized, justice takes place. [Note that this follows the author’s approach to the problem of evil, where he admits the existence of the bad.] The author recapitulates the process by which the convention is established, and states its necessity for there to be a virtue of justice. Only the combination, not a single act, renders justice an advantage or gives any reason to conform to its rule.

23. This answers the first question proposed in Section 1, pertaining to the origin of justice. Now the second question can be addressed: why call justice a virtue and injustice a vice? Here only a few words will be offered. More will be coming in Part III, where the moral virtues are discussed.

24. In uncultivated men, the need for the rule is seen immediately, but after cultivation, we lose sight of it. When, however, we are victims of injustice (i.e., our property is taken in violation of the rule), we feel bad about it (this is “the prejudice we receive”). When injustices are done remotely from ourselves, and away from all our interests, we share in the uneasy feeling of others, due to the influence of sympathy. What produces displeasure, we call vice, and so we regard injustice as a vice. Similar reasoning applies to virtue. Though self-interest is the origin of justice, “a sympathy with public interest is the source of the moral approbation, which attends that virtue.” Sympathy is not strong enough to control our passions the way justice does, but it can “influence our taste, and give us the sentiments of approbation or blame.”

25. This is a natural progress of the sentiments, but it is helped by what politicians do to further the sense of justice. Some writers on morals give too much credit to this influence, thus really wiping out “all sense of virtue from among mankind.” The artifice of politicians could never be the source of our distinction between virtue and vice. We would not understand what they were talking about when they used words such as “honourable” if nature did not help us. At most, politicians can only extend the natural sentiments.

26. Private education and instruction contribute to the same effect. The parents’ knowledge of the beneficial effects of the rule of justice leads them to inculcate a taste for them in their children, to the point that they approach natural sentiments, “those principles, which are the most essential to our natures, and the most deeply radicated [rooted] in our internal constitution.”

27. Another reinforcing factor is concern for our reputation, which is wrapped up with the merit that attends justice and the demerit that attends injustice. This touches us most dearly. “For this reason, every one, who has any regard to his character, or who intends to live on good terms with mankind, must fix an inviolable law to himself, never, by any temptation, to be induc’d to violate those principles, which are essential to a man of probity and honor.”

28. A final observation is that there is no justice or injustice in a state of nature. This does not make it “allowable, in such a state, to violate the property of others.” [Hobbes had made a claim that “mastery” of or “dominion over” others is allowable in the state of nature. See, Leviathan, Part I, Chapter 13, “And from this diffidence of one another, there is no way for any man to secure himselfe, so reasonable as Anticipation; that is, by force, or wiles, to master the persons of all men he can, so long, till he see no other power great enough to endanger him: And this is no more than his own conservation requireth, and is generally allowed.”] A similar reflection will be made regarding promises, in Section V. This might remove the final objections to the account given of justice and injustice.

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