Overview of the Question

529. Opportuneness of the question. From the very beginning of this volume (no. 7), we spoke of a moral person, which, alongside physical persons, we proposed as constituted by a community, and which we said was the terminus of legal justice (no. 21), but the subject of distributive justice (no. 26). Nevertheless, we did not unfold a distinct notion of such a person, but merely adapted our words to the customary manner of speaking. Today, however, a keen controversy rages concerning its rationale. We are therefore moved equally by a desire to complete what was disputed before and not to neglect the present question, so that we may endeavor to treat this argument clearly.

And because, in present-day arguments concerning justice, the province of the State itself often comes into controversy, we also judged it worthwhile to explore the nature of the State summarily, so that it might more readily become known what parts public power may deservedly claim as its own.

530. Order of treatment. It is immediately evident that our proposal is composed, as it were, of two parts: the one, more general, concerning the nature of moral persons in general; the other, more particular, concerning the State alone.