Now, this most indispensable of all necessaries, after physical nutriment, cannot be had unless the machinery for providing it is kept unintermittedly in active play.  Our notion, therefore, of the claim we have on our fellow-creatures to join in making safe for us the very groundwork of our existence, gathers feelings around it so much more intense than those concerned in any of the more common cases of utility, that the difference in degree (as is often the case in psychology) becomes a real difference in kind.  The claim assumes that character of absoluteness, that apparent infinity, and incommensurability with all other considerations, which constitute the distinction between the feeling of right and wrong, and that of ordinary expediency and inexpediency.

Having presented his own analysis of the sentiment of Justice, the author proceeds to examine the intuitive theory.  The charge is constantly brought against Utility, that it is an uncertain standard, differently interpreted by each person.  The only safety, it is pretended, is found in the immutable, ineffaceable, and unmistakeable dictates of Justice, carrying their evidence in themselves, and independent of the fluctuations of opinions.  But so far is this from being the fact, that there is as much difference of opinion, and as much discussion, about what is just, as about what is useful to society.

To take a few instances.  On the question of Punishment, some hold it unjust to punish any one by way of example, or for any end but the good of the sufferer.  Others maintain that the good of the society is the only admissible end of punishment.  Robert Owen affirms that punishment altogether is unjust, and that we should deal with crime only through education.  Now, without an appeal to expediency, it is impossible to arbitrate among these conflicting views; each one has a maxim of justice on its side.  Then as to the apportioning of punishments to offences.  The rule that recommends itself to the primitive sentiment of justice is an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth; a rule formally abandoned in European countries, although not without its hold upon the popular mind.  With many, the test of justice, in penal infliction, is that it should be proportioned to the offence; while others maintain that it is just to inflict only such an amount of punishment as will deter from the commission of the offence.

Besides the differences of opinion already alluded to, as to the payment of labour, how many, and irreconcileable, are the standards of justice appealed to on the matter of taxation?  One opinion is, that taxes should be in proportion to pecuniary means; others think the wealthy should pay a higher proportion.  In point of natural justice, a case might be made out for disregarding means, and taking the same sum from each, as the privileges are equally bestowed:  yet from feelings of humanity and social expediency no one advocates that view.  So that there is no mode of extricating the question but the utilitarian.