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Definition 9
- Liberty Fund
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94 u d e f i n i t i o n i x u Esteem is the value of persons in communal life in accordance with which they are fit to be placed upon an equality with other persons, or to be compared with them, and to be rated either above or below them. 1. 2. Simple esteem. Intensive esteem. 1. Esteem of persons in communal life is either simple or intensive. The former is considered either outside of states or inside the same. Simple esteem of a man outside a state consists in this, that he is regarded as the kind of person with whom, as with a man who observes the law of nature, it may be possible to have intercourse. Hence it is clear that all those who use commonly against any men whatsoever, or at least against those who are outside their own fellowships, the same licence which they do against beasts, have no such esteem. Such are states with powers unimpaired, if there be any of that kind, by which all outsiders are regarded indiscriminately as enemies, and especially if they themselves attack these outsiders of their own volition. Likewise, pirates, brigands, highwaymen, assassins, cut-purses, and others of that ilk; whom, unless they are on the way to give up that life of rapacity, it is no more appropriate for others to spare, than to spare wolves or other fierce monsters; nor are the offices of humanity to be shown them, by which, forsooth, they are made stronger to inflict damage upon others; nor should any confidence be put in a pledge which they have themselves given, the value of which in the minds of others is destroyed by the wickedness of their life. esteem 95 Now that is simple esteem inside a state, by which each one is regarded at least as an ordinary and a complete member of the state, or as one who has not been declared a defective member of the state according to laws and statutes. And any and all free men and respected, or those who have not been branded by disgrace in process of law, rejoice in that esteem. Furthermore , this esteem in a state fails one either from mere status or from misdeed. The former is the case among slaves, who are not regarded as civil persons, or are understood not to have the standing of a citizen. For that slaves, at Rome, for example, were formerly regarded as no persons at all, and therefore lacked civil esteem,1 is perfectly clear from the fact that they had nothing of their own and acquired nothing for themselves; from the fact that anything could be inflicted upon them by their masters with impunity ; moreover, that, according to the law of Aquila, an action was brought against some one else who had done harm to slaves, just as though he had injured the cattle of another;2 that no kinship among slaves was recognized, nor was cohabitation among slaves regarded as marriage, exactly as is the case among beasts; that no credence was given in a court to their testimony even when under oath; and by other facts of this nature. This esteem is lost as a result of antecedent misdeed, when some one, in accordance with the laws, because of a definite kind of misdeed (for not all misdeeds extinguish esteem in a civil sense), is branded with infamy;and this consists either in his being eliminated at the same time from natural existence; or utterly ejected from the state; or else retained, indeed, in the state, yet not as a complete member, but as a defective member, so that he rejoices, indeed, in domicile within the state, and in the common protection of the laws, but is excluded from public official duties and honourable associations, and is disdainfully deprived even of individual intercourse with all but the base. Such infamy can be invoked only by those in whose hands is the execution of the laws. By the judgement of private persons no one is brought into infamy in such a manner before that fact has been declared openly by a competent tribunal. And much less can any obligation 1. See Inst., I.xvi.4: “Servus autem manumissus capite non minuitur, quia nullum caput habuit.” [A manumitted slave loses no civil rights because he did not possess any.] 2. See Dig., IX.ii.2. [34.238.242.168] Project MUSE...