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CERTAINTY - Inexecution Interest: individual x general. 1
An interest is general only, when a benefit accrues
to a given person on the supposition
of a number of persons observing a certain
conduct at once, & not otherwise-
Persons are individually interested, when upon
each person's observing a certain conduct, happening profit
accrues to that person, & not observing it, loss.
immediate - remote
In order to know (a priori) whether a Law will be executed
or no, there is but one method way, but it
is a certain one.
Denominations
Make out a list of [all the] the normal different classes
of persons who, from the first to the last, are
concerned in the execution - Carry your eye along
that list, from the individual from whom
information is to come of the offence [down] to the
officer by whose hands Punishment is to be inflicted.
If upon every person in that list it be so order'd that
a portion of clear [+]
[+] enjoyment devolves upon his performing & of &c
& of sufferance upon his not performing
that part which is competent to him- it is well -
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2
That [Substantive] Law will be executed.
If the succession is broken in any one instance
if at any stage there be found a naked precept,
without a precept unprovided with a
Sanction strong enough according to the circumstances of the person to surmount the ,
or the notion counter-interest that may oppose
it's observance, the whole fabric crumbles
That Law will not be executed.
It is not (however) necessary that in every inst article
the Sanction be an artificial one of the
Law's providing
Put the question concerning every person by on whom
something comes devolves to be done in the course of
this. . . . . . What will be the consequence
to him if he does it not?
What is will be about to happen to him
unless the answer
something unpleasant, unpleasant to a degree superior to that of the unpleasantness of <add>doing</add> the Law will not be exe executed
3
Now that something unpleasant is not all of one kind.
It may consist in the acting against established
moral propensity whether implanted by nature or by education:
in the incurring of loss of reputation [++]
[++] where the Stature in less is such as behaves to confer conciliate a Fund of Reputation to the occupier
in the foregoing of any of those special <add>individual rewards which Laws</add>
in fine, in the suffering of any of those Punishments
of positive establishment which Laws they inflict hold out
It is observed that +
+ where punishment is natural, its devolution depends no further when artificial, it goes on in the same train of dependence with the 1st substantive Punishment to the
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4
For a thing to be done, those who are to do it,
be interested individually — a general Interest
is as none.
Each must find an advantage to himself immediately consequent upon his own [particular act [singly]
The confounding of these 2 different species (
they may be so termed) of Interest, is the ignis
fatuus by which vulgar Politicians in their
Theories are bewilder'd; & the rock against
which their projects split. [And this was examples <add>of</add>
this are more especially frequent in reasonings on Political
Oeconomy.]
In their Theories - you shall see a man
proving well or ill that a certain conduct is
advantageous to a certain nation - that
you shall see him pass on in to an ecstacy
under amazement that it is not pursued - to account
for this, stamp it for Utopian his his philosophy furnishes him with
but two suppositions — either that (contrary
to a fundamental maxim in science of
humanity) [the] than [in action] act contrary counter
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Identifier: | JB/050/041/001 "JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 50.
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procedure code |
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041 |
certainty inexecution interest: individual & general |
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jeremy bentham |
[[watermarks::gr [crown motif] [lion with vryheyt motif]]] |
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