A Philosophical Inquiry Concerning Human Liberty (1890)/Chapter 5
Fifth argument, taken from the nature of Rewards and Punishments.
V. A fifth argument to prove man a necessary agent is as follows: If man was not a necessary agent, determined by pleasure and pain, there would be no foundation for rewards and punishments, which are the essential supports of society.[1]
For if men were not necessarily determined by pleasure and pain, or if pleasure and pain were no causes to determine men’s wills; of what use would be the prospect of rewards to frame a man’s will to the observation of the law, or punishments to hinder his trans- gression thereof? Were pain, as such, eligible, and pleasure, as such, avoidable; rewards and punishments could be no motives to a man, to make him do or forbear any action. But if pleasure and pain have a necessary effect on men, and if it be impossible for men not to choose what seems good to them, and not to avoid what seems evil, the necessity of rewards and punishments is then evident, and rewards will be of use to all those who conceive those rewards to be pleasure, and punishments will be of use to all those who conceive them to be pain; and rewards and punishments will frame those men’s wills to observe and not transgress the laws.
Besides, since there are so many robbers, murderers, whore-masters, and other criminals, who notwithstanding the punishments threatened, and rewards promised, by laws, prefer breaking the laws as the greater good or lesser evil, and reject conformity to them as the greater evil or lesser good; how many more would there be, and with what disorders would not all societies be filled, if rewards and punishments, considered as pleasure and pain, did not determine some men’s wills, but that, instead thereof, all men could prefer or will, punishment considered as pain, and reject rewards considered as pleasure? Men would then be under no restraints.
- ↑ Solon rempublicam contineri dicebat duabus rebus, præmio & pœnâ. Cicero Epist. 15 ad Brutum.