Custom vs Justice
Blaise Pascal
Pensees

Pascal argues that while people follow custom because they believe it to be just, custom's true authority lies simply in its existence as a natural principle of human society.

...h or wealth. The world again exults in showing how unreasonable this is; but it is very reasonable. Savages laugh at an infant king.[123] 3. In being offended at a blow, on in desiring glory so much. But it is very desirable on account of the other essential goods which are joined to it; and a man who has received a blow, without resenting it, is overwhelmed with taunts and indignities. 4. In working for the uncertain; in sailing on the sea; in walking over a plank. 325 Montaigne is wrong.
Custom should be followed only because it is custom, and not because it is reasonable or just. But people follow it for this sole reason, that they think it just. Otherwise they would follow it no longer, although it were the custom; for they will only submit to reason or justice. Custom without this would pass for tyranny; but the sovereignty of reason and justice is no more tyrannical than that of desire. They are principles natural to man.
It would therefore be right to obey laws and customs, because they are laws; but we should know that there is neither truth nor justice to introduce into them, that we know nothing of these, and so must follow what is accepted. By this means we would never depart from them. But people cannot accept this doctrine; and, as they believe that truth can be found, and that it exists in law and custom, they believe them, and take their antiquity as a proof of their truth, and not simply of their auth...
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War's Absurd Logic
Blaise Pascal
Pensees

The author laments the absurdity of war and the corruption of natural law, noting how human reason has been distorted to justify arbitrary violence based on geography or politics.

...Truth on this side of the Pyrenees, error on the other side. Men admit that justice does not consist in these customs, but that it resides in natural laws, common to every country. They would certainly maintain it obstinately, if reckless chance which has distributed human laws had encountered even one which was universal; but the farce is that the caprice of men has so many vagaries that there is no such law. Theft, incest, infanticide, parricide, have all had a place among virtuous actions.
Can anything be more ridiculous than that a man should have the right to kill me because he lives on the other side of the water, and because his ruler has a quarrel with mine, though I have none with him? Doubtless there are natural laws; but good reason once corrupted has corrupted all.
Nihil amplius nostrum est;[110] quod nostrum dicimus, artis est. Ex senatus--consultis et plebiscitis crimina exercentur.[111] Ut olim vitiis, sic nunc legibus laboramus.[112] The result of this confusion is that one affirms the essence of justice to be the authority of the legislator; another, the interest of the sovereign;[113] another, present custom,[114] and this is the most sure. Nothing, according to reason alone, is just in itself; all changes with time. Custom creates the whole of e...
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The River of Justice
Blaise Pascal
Pensees

Pascal satirizes the absurdity of moral relativism and nationalism, noting how the morality of murder is often determined solely by geographical boundaries.

...t is certain that there is no ground for laughing at those who follow it. 290 Proofs of religion.--Morality, Doctrine, Miracles, Prophecies, Types. SECTION V JUSTICE AND THE REASON OF EFFECTS 291 In the letter On Injustice can come the ridiculousness of the law that the elder gets all. "My friend, you were born on this side of the mountain, it is therefore just that your elder brother gets everything." "Why do you kill me?" 292 He lives on the other side of the water. 293
"Why do you kill me? What! do you not live on the other side of the water? If you lived on this side, my friend, I should be an assassin, and it would be unjust to slay you in this manner. But since you live on the other side, I am a hero, and it is just."
294 On what shall man found the order of the world which he would govern?[109] Shall it be on the caprice of each individual? What confusion! Shall it be on justice? Man is ignorant of it. Certainly had he known it, he would not have established this maxim, the most general of all that obtain among men, that each should follow the custom of his own country. The glory of true equity would have brought all nations under subjection, and legislators would not have taken as their model the fanc...
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Justice and Might
Blaise Pascal
Pensees

Pascal argues for the necessary union of justice and might, claiming that justice without power is ineffective while power without justice is tyrannical.

...ing and the image of the usurpation of all the earth. 296 When the question for consideration is whether we ought to make war, and kill so many men--condemn so many Spaniards to death--only one man is judge, and he is an interested party. There should be a third, who is disinterested. 297 Veri juris.[118]--We have it no more; if we had it, we should take conformity to the customs of a country as the rule of justice. It is here that, not finding justice, we have found force, etc. 298
Justice, might.--It is right that what is just should be obeyed; it is necessary that what is strongest should be obeyed. Justice without might is helpless; might without justice is tyrannical. Justice without might is gainsaid, because there are always offenders; might without justice is condemned. We must then combine justice and might, and for this end make what is just strong, or what is strong just.
Justice is subject to dispute; might is easily recognised and is not disputed. So we cannot give might to justice, because might has gainsaid justice, and has declared that it is she herself who is just. And thus being unable to make what is just strong, we have made what is strong just. 299 The only universal rules are the laws of the country in ordinary affairs, and of the majority in others. Whence comes this? From the might which is in them. Hence it comes that kings, who have power of...
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Truth's Elusive Point
Blaise Pascal
Pensees

A vision of the inadequacy of human reason, suggesting that justice and truth are too delicate for our crude intellectual instruments to grasp. When we attempt to define them, we usually distort or miss the mark entirely.

...e senses; and if the more serious produce a sensible change, I do not doubt that slighter ills produce a proportionate impression. Our own interest is again a marvellous instrument for nicely putting out our eyes. The justest man in the world is not allowed to be judge in his own cause; I know some who, in order not to fall into this self-love, have been perfectly unjust out of opposition. The sure way of losing a just cause has been to get it recommended to these men by their near relatives.
Justice and truth are two such subtle points, that our tools are too blunt to touch them accurately. If they reach the point, they either crush it, or lean all round, more on the false than on the true.
[Man is so happily formed that he has no ... good of the true, and several excellent of the false. Let us now see how much.... But the most powerful cause of error is the war existing between the senses and reason.] 83 We must thus begin the chapter on the deceptive powers. Man is only a subject full of error, natural and ineffaceable, without grace. Nothing shows him the truth. Everything deceives him. These two sources of truth, reason and the senses, besides being both wanting in since...
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