4. One view of Ideal Law states Freedom as its absolute End: but the attempt to construct a system of law on this principle involves us in insuperable difficulties. 274-278
5. Nor does the realisation of Freedom satisfy our common conception of Ideal Justice. The principle of this is rather ‘that Desert should be requited.’ 278-283
6. But the application of this principle is again very perplexing: whether we try to determine Good Desert (or the worth of services), 283-290
7. or Ill Desert, in order to realise Criminal Justice. There remains too the difficulty of reconciling Conservative and Ideal Justice. 290-294
1. The duty of obeying Laws, though it may to a great extent be included under Justice, still requires a separate treatment. We can, however, obtain no _consensus_ for any precise definition of it. 295-297
2. For we are neither agreed as to what kind of government is ideally legitimate, 297-299
3. nor as to the criterion of a traditionally legitimate government, 299-301
4. nor as to the proper limits of governmental authority. 301-303
5. The duty of fulfilling a promise in the sense in which it was understood by both promiser and promisee is thought to be peculiarly stringent and certain 303-304
6. (it being admitted that its obligation is relative to the promisee, and may be annulled by him, and that it cannot override strict prior obligations). 304-305
7. But Common Sense seems to doubt how far a promise is binding when it has been obtained by force or fraud: 305-306
8. or when circumstances have materially altered since it was made--especially if it be a promise to the dead or absent, from which no release can be obtained, or if the performance of the promise will be harmful to the promisee, or inflict a disproportionate sacrifice on the promiser. 306-308
9. Other doubts arise when a promise has been misapprehended: and in the peculiar case where a prescribed form of words has been used. 308-311
1. I have not adopted the classification of duties into Social and Self-regarding: as it seems inappropriate to the Intuitional method, of which the characteristic is, that it lays down certain absolute and independent rules: such as the rule of Truth. 312-315
2. But Common Sense after all scarcely seems to prescribe truth-speaking under all circumstances: nor to decide clearly whether the beliefs which we are bound to make true are those directly produced by our words or the immediate inferences from these. 315-317