Читать книгу Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligation. Reprinted from Green's Philosophical Works, vol. II., with Preface by Bernard Bosanquet онлайн

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14. It appears, then, that legal obligations—obligations which can possibly form the subject of positive law—can only be obligations to do or abstain from certain acts, not duties of acting from certain motives, or with a certain disposition. It is not a question whether the law should or should not oblige to anything but performance of outward acts. It simply cannot oblige to anything else, because the only means at its command for obtaining the fulfilment of obligations are (1) threats of pain and offers of reward, by means of which it is possible indeed to secure the general performance of certain acts, but not their performance from the motive even of fear of the pain threatened or hope of the reward offered, much less from any higher motive; (2) the employment of physical force, (a) in restraining men disposed to violate obligations, (b) in forcibly applying the labour or the property of those who violate obligations to make good the breach, so far as is possible: (as, e.g., when the magistrate forestalls part of a man's wages to provide for a wife whom he has deserted, or when the property of a debtor is seized for the benefit of his creditors.)