
L'homme enfin n'est pas entièrement coupable — il n'a pas commencé l'histoire — ni tout à fait innocent, puisqu'il la continue.
Part 5: Thought at the Meridian (Section: Moderation and Excess)
The Rebel (1951)
Source: Tristes Tropiques (1955), Chapter 38 : A Little Glass of Rum, p. 392
L'homme enfin n'est pas entièrement coupable — il n'a pas commencé l'histoire — ni tout à fait innocent, puisqu'il la continue.
Part 5: Thought at the Meridian (Section: Moderation and Excess)
The Rebel (1951)
Source: The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness (1973), p. 262
Quoted in The Perfect Way in Diet by Anna Kingsford (London: Kegan Paul, Trench & Co., 1881), p. 14 https://archive.org/stream/perfectwayindie00kinggoog#page/n36.
1790s, Goya's announcement about 'Los Caprichos', 6 Febr. 1799
“Rich Cloaths, nor Cost, nor Education can
Change Nature, nor transform and Ape into a Man.”
Fab. LV: Of an Ægyptian King and his Apes
The Fables of Aesop (2nd ed. 1668)
Source: The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution (1967), Chapter III, POWER AND LIBERTY A THEORY OF POLITICS, p. 59.
Source: A Theory of Justice (1971; 1975; 1999), Chapter II, Section 14, pg. 87-88
Context: Occasionally this reflection is offered as an excuse for ignoring injustice, as if the refusal to acquiesce in injustice is on a par with being unable to accept death. The natural distribution is neither just nor unjust; nor is it unjust that persons are born into society at some particular position. These are simply natural facts. What is just and unjust is the way that institutions deal with these facts.
Context: We may reject the contention that the ordering of institutions is always defective because the distribution of natural talents and the contingencies of social circumstance are unjust, and this injustice must inevitably carry over to human arrangements. Occasionally this reflection is offered as an excuse for ignoring injustice, as if the refusal to acquiesce in injustice is on a par with being unable to accept death. The natural distribution is neither just nor unjust; nor is it unjust that persons are born into society at some particular position. These are simply natural facts. What is just and unjust is the way that institutions deal with these facts. Aristocratic and caste societies are unjust because they make these contingencies the ascriptive basis for belonging to more or less enclosed and privileged social classes. The basic structure of these societies incorporates the arbitrariness found in nature. But there is no necessity for men to resign themselves to these contingencies. The social system is not an unchangeable order beyond human control but a pattern of human action. In justice as fairness men agree to avail themselves of the accidents of nature and social circumstance only when doing so is for the common benefit. The two principles are a fair way of meeting the arbitrariness of fortune; and while no doubt imperfect in other ways, the institutions which satisfy these principles are just.