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REMARKS ON THE PREDICATES OF MORAL JUDGMENTS. 189 but satisfaction is not the same as approval or praise. We may even praise it, but " right " per se involves no praise. It is right to abstain from killing, robbing, lying, but it is not generally regarded as praiseworthy. "Eight," as well as " ought " ultimately derives its moral significance from moral indignation. This may seem strange considering that " right is commonly looked upon as positive and " wrong " as its negation. But we must remember that language and popular conceptions in these matters are modelled on the idea of a moral law. Wrong is to be prohibited, and the prohibition is expressed in a command. The breach of it is wrong, the obedience to it is right. 1 But the fact which gives birth to the command itself is the indignation called forth by that which the command forbids. I have spoken here of " right " as an adjective. Used as a substantive to denote a right, it also has a negative character. It essentially contains a prohibition. In the notion of a right there is always immanent the idea that any infringement of that which constitutes the right is inadmissible, being prohibited either by positive law, in the case of a legal right, or by the moral law, in the case of a moral right. To attribute a moral right to an individual is thus to recognise that no hindrance ought to be put in the way of the realisation or enjoyment of what is his right. And this character of inviolability belongs to a right on account of its always being a right to an activity or to a state of existence which is not wrong. The notion of " a right " thus derives its import from the notion of " ought ". To every right there is consequently a corresponding duty, the duty of not intruding upon it, of not preventing its possessor from making use of it, of not blaming him for doing so. This duty is a universal duty, incumbent upon every one who has any duties at all, although it may practically affect some special individual, or in- dividuals, more than other. In this point theorisers upon rights have frequently been guilty of a confusion of thought. It has been said, for instance, that if parents have a right to obedience from their children, the corresponding duty is that children are obliged to obey their parents. But the parents' right does not really consist in the obedience of their children, they have a right to command obedience from them, to try, within certain Limits, to compel them to obey, and the duty corresponding to this right is the universal 1 This way of looking upon the matter also accounts for the fact that " wrong " and " right " as moral predicates, refer to conduct, not to character. We do not command a man to have a certain character.