(For curiosity sake, I start with the
large entry on Bentham from my Webster’s
Biographical Dictionary. It does show the derivative nature of Bentham’s
philosophy, yet this does not diminish his own achievement as the acknowledged
father of Benthamism, or utilitarianism, although it does of
course point to his unquestionable limitations as a derivative thinker.---
“Bentham,
Jeremy. (1748-1832). English jurist and philosopher; one of chief exponents of
utilitarianism. M.A., Oxon. (1766). Called to bar (1772); wrote criticism of
Blackstone’s Commentaries as showing
antipathy to reform (1776). Made recommendations in View of the Hard Labor Bill (1778) for improvement in mode of
criminal punishment, published later in Rationale
of Punishment and Rewards (1825). Made trip to Russia [nota bene!!!] (1785-1788) to
visit his brother (see below; there wrote Defense
of Usury (printed in 1787), his first essay in economics, following the
principles of Adam Smith. Published (1789) work on administration of justice, Introduction to the Principles of Morals and
Legislation, expounding his basic ethical doctrine that morality of actions
is determined by utility, that is, the capacity for rendering pleasure or
preventing pain, according to which the object of all conduct and legislation
is ‘the greatest happiness of the
greatest number’ --- the key phrase of Benthamism (suggested by Priestley’s
Essay on the First Principles of
Government, 1768, and earlier used in Hutcheson’s Ideas of Beauty and Virtue, 1725). Studied poor law question
(1797-98). Wrote several treatises developed in Rationale of Judicial Evidence (edited by J. S. Mill, 1825). Aided
in establishing Westminster Review (1823)
to spread philosophical radicalism; working on codification of laws and Constitutional Code (1st
volume, 1827) at his death. His nephew and secretary (1826-32) George (1800-1884), was an English
botanist; studied law; wrote Outlines of
a New System of Logic (1827), setting first for the first time principle of
qualification of the predicate; author of Handbook
of British Flora (1858); produced for government works on flora of Hong
Kong and Australia; collaborated with Joseph Hooker in Genera Plantarium (7 volumes, 1862-1883). Jeremy’s brother Samuel (1757-1831) was a naval
architect and engineer; colonel in Russian service; and superintendent of
shipbuilding yard at Kritchev.”
***
The
greatest happiness of the greatest number is the foundation of morals and
legislation. This celebrated phrase represents the philosophy of
Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832), known as utilitarianism. Bentham was a
prominent British lawyer, who became famous when he started dabbling in
politics and social reform. His primary claim to historical fame however has
been as a philosopher, founder of utilitarianism, capsulated in the key phrase “the greatest happiness of the greatest number.”
This catchword is not, however, original to Bentham. He himself attributes it
to Joseph Priestley’s 1768 Essay on the First Principles of Government,
but the minor Scottish philosopher Francis Hutcheson (1694-1746) ought to be
given the proper credit for it, writing in his 1720 Inquiry Concerning Moral
Good and Evil: “That action is best which
procures the greatest happiness for the greatest numbers.” To
Bentham, however, belongs not the prize for originality, but the application of
this principle to a wide variety of practical problems.
This borrowed phrase has
however become the distinctive slogan of utilitarianism, or Benthamism,
as it is also known. Bentham’s 1776 Fragment on Government, and 1789 Introduction
to the Principles of Morals and Legislation have become world famous in
their own right, probably, as a “collateral advantage” of his great success as
a reformer of the whole British government system, and thus one of the very few
officially recognized “establishment” philosophers. Unlike his success in
reform, though, Bentham’s philosophy has been naïve, and occasionally outright
silly.
Aside from the banner principle
of utilitarianism, which, as we said, was not original in Bentham, his hat is
adorned with another feather which is not his either. The so-called association
principle articulated in 1749, that is, before Bentham, by the minor
British philosopher David Hartley (1705-1757) promotes association of ideas as
the basic principle of psychology. Considering that there was little new in
what Bentham could add to Hartley here, the philosophical significance of
Bentham’s appropriation of this principle is minimal, and hardly worthy of a
further discussion.
Bentham has been spectacularly
lucky in this fashion to become treated as a major philosopher, rather than
just a political figure. Even his harshest critics are giving him too much
personal credit on the rebound, in recognition of his connection to the
political-social system, which took root in Britain thanks largely to his
efforts. Karl Marx attack on him sounds like a loud commendation of his
overblown role in British social, economic and political life: The arch-philistine Jeremy Bentham was the insipid,
pedantic, leather-tongued oracle of the bourgeois intelligence of the
Nineteenth Century. (Das Kapital,
I, 1867)
I value Jeremy Bentham most not
for his specific “positive” theories, but for his “negative” contribution to
the philosophical debate over politics and government. Like the Russian
mathematician Lobachevsky was a revolutionary in geometry with his disregard for
the basic premises of Euclidean geometry, Bentham can be credited for knocking
the gods of social contract and natural law off their pedestals. The indestructible prerogatives of mankind, he
wrote, have no need to be supported upon the sandy
foundation of a fiction.
This reminds me of my own
argument against rationalizing God, as I insist that those wobbly and
inherently fallacious efforts impede and complicate the discovery of the right
solution to forego the hopeless search for proof of this improvable theorem,
and to accept it as a founding axiom, true by definition.
By the same token, it is patently
silly to try to justify a better state of world organization by appealing to a
preexistent condition, where sheer pragmatism without any such preconditions
may yield fresh unexpected insights and results. Therefore, there is some
considerable value in Bentham’s pragmatism, as long as it is not stretched out
too far and too authoritatively, and it does not become a panacea for curing
all social ills. Among Bentham’s similar successes in liberating himself from
the conventions of contemporary political philosophy was his reduction of all
civil laws to only four purposes: subsistence, abundance, security, and
equality. Liberty had little value for him, and he had contempt pour les
droits de l’homme, which, he said, were plain nonsense: these rights of
man, he said, fell into three categories: unintelligible, false, and both. Fortunately
for Bentham, and for his reluctant successor John Stuart Mill, their respective
legacies cannot be cruelly reduced by some intellectual Procrustes to the
one-size-fits-all utilitarian bed that Bentham built and John Stuart Mill was
born in.
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