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James E. Crimmins

MES E . C R I M M I N SChairman of the Depart-of Political Science and

essor of Political Theory a ttern Ontario (C an ad a) .

Secular

published by Oxfordiversity Press. He is current-

Politics.

EREMY BENTH AM ( 174 8-1 832 ) IS MOST WELL-KNOWNas a utilitarian legal philosopher. However, he is often encounteredin the history of ideas as a radical democrat, a political theorist andreformer of consequence. Although he wrote extensively in the areaof political philosophy, he did not write one single work-likeHobbes' Leviathan or Rousseau's Le Contrat Social-that encom

passes all the primary features of his political thought. Rather we find interesting material scattered in voluminous published and unpublished writingsproduced at various times through a long, industrious, and extraordinarilyproductive career. My subject is the "political" Bentham-the politicathinker, political actor, and agitator for reform, the theorist of politics, government and its attendant institutions and the insatiable public policyenthusiast. My purpose is t o suggest a more appropriate conception oBentham's politics than is generally held, and to indicate a problem at theheart of our understanding of his political thought.

One potential problem can be dealt with at the outset: what did Benthamunderstand by "politics"?l It is a moot point whether Bentham had a verydistinct category of "politics" in the manner we usually associate with thcanon of political theorists in the western philosophical tradition. Certainlyhe commonly employed the adjective "political" when referring to particulacontemporary institutions and practices. Yet, at the same time, when hshifted from theory to practice the categories he most frequently invokedwere essentially jurisprudential. So, for instance, his theory of the stat(contra Rosenblum)2 is, in the main, really a theory of constitutional legislation, and when he spoke of policing, punishment and the maintenance oorder he wrote of "indirect legislation," the laws of evidence, judicial administration and penal law. There is a sense, therefore, in which politics as sucis a residual category for Bentham and this has the effect of extensivelbroadening what is t o count as "politics" and "political" when analysing hiwritings.

The conventional account of Bentham's political convictions usuallbegins by assuming that he was apolitical for much of his life. For instancein an extremely importa nt essay o n Bentham's politics the late JohDinwiddy denied that Bentham was converted to democracy as a result othe French Revolution, as some have held.3 O n the contrary, replieDinwiddy, Bentham's "revulsion against popular government in the earl1790s was deeply felt"; "he could denounce Jacobinism with almosBurkean vehemence." I n Dinwiddy's accoun t, it was only after th

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ng of his friendship with Jam es Mill in 18 08 that Ben tham was per-to advocate demo cratic institutions in earnest, that "the really fruitfulin the developm ent of his political tho ugh t came in 1 809" .4This interpre tation can be challenged in tw o ways-the first com ma ndsto scrutinize the evidenc e directly relevant to D inwiddy's interpre tation;to the underlying phi-ophy that gave shape to Bentham's politics. In the first appro ach theed evidence is: (1 ) the nature of Bentham's (largely unpu blished )

(2) he apparent retreat from politicalm sketched ou t in manuscripts dated 1793- 95;5 and ( 3 ) the characterns suggest that Dinwiddy's view can not be sustained, that B entham had

However, whi le th is is useful for p lo t t ing the chronology ofve view of his politics. T h e second ap proach is mo re fruitful in

S T A R T I N G P O I N T I S T O S U B M I T T H A TBentham's politics canno t be adequately explained in terms ofresponses to historical events, but were rather the product oft h e g e n e r a l p r e m i s e s o f h is o v e ra l l a p p r o a c h t o s o c i a lI am not concerned with the chronology of Bentham'sitical developme nt, bu t with the natu re of his philosophy. An d, when we

I mean by this more than just the expression he gavee of utility and its subordin ate principles (security, subsistence,and equality) . For, in and of itself, "utility" doe s no t determin eone particular set of political prescription s. As I have said before,7 in the

ical establishme nt.What this suggests is the contingent nature of the relationship betweens, Bentham's adop tion o f the principle o f utility (in 17 69 afterHelvetius's De I'isprit) was no t sufficient to c onver t him to "radical"

itics, in whatever form this migh t be cons true d. Th is suggests a co m -distinction made by philoso phers of causality-between, o n thethose co nditions necessary for s om eth ing to occu r (in this case the, those con ditions sufficient (inc ludi ng tha t which is necessary) forto occur. Utility, as the gov erning principle o f Bentham 's p hi-logy, educ ation, religion, a nd s o forth , bu t it was no t of itself sufficientse him t o m oun t h is num erous a t t empts t o in t ro duce u t i li ta r ian

tical philosophy. Fo r this we have to loo k elsewhere.Th e argume nt here is that Bentham's radicalism was profo undly ro ote d in

"Bentham's politicscannot be adequatelyexplained i n terms ofresponses t o historicalevents, but were ratherthe product of thedenera1 premises of hisoverall approach t osocial questions."

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es (and subse-y their French

evil, butthey had been led

y by the metaphysics

"

a genera l ph i losophy in which u t i l i ty func t ioned as a connec t ing l inkbetween, on the one hand, his materialis t metaphysics with i ts at tendantempiricist epistemology an d nominalist science of mea ning an d, o n the o the rhand, his various prescriptions for improvement over a vast range of social,juristic, political, econ om ic, an d religious qu estions.What requires special attention, therefore, are the theoretical principleswhich togethe r con stitute Bentham's philosophy. Moreover, this was no t alate develop men t in Bentham's thinking, b ut was a central feature o f hisea rly ca ree r a s a soc ia l and l ega l theor i s t , dur ing t he 17 70s , wh en heembarked upon a far-reaching attempt to define the "hndamental terms ofUniversal Jurisprudence" in a collection of manuscripts (some 614 pages)variously titled "Crit[itical] Jur[isprudence] Crim[inal]" and "Preparatory~ r i n c i ~ l e s " . ~hese manuscripts still await publication; they contain a col-lection o f definit ions, dist inctions, axioms, and aph orisms which defineBentham's empir ical epis temology, mater ia l is t metaphys ics , nominal is tontology and referential theory of language.Fo r Bentham these were the app ropriate "tools" for clarifying or demys-tifying th e "fictions" of curr en t legal practice and conv entional m ode s oflegal theorizing. In sum , wha t we find in these m anuscripts is an analyticalm etho do logy w hich is unequivocally "radical" (in the adjectival sense of thatterm ), an approach tha t served to encourag e Bentham's general inclinationto adopt a critical perspective when dealing with established opinions andinstitutions of whatever kind. Fro m this stand po int he consistently adheredto an a l l -encompassing a t tempt to s t ructure a phi losophy that integratedwithin itself all the required premises t o analyze the co mp lete range of social,religious, econ om ic, legal and ot he r public issues that came before h im, an dto su ggest alternative policies based up on the principle utility. W heth er andwhen such analyses and alternative policies were committed to print andpublication depended at least in part on tactical considerations, but thisshould no t distract us from the systematic nature o f the relationship betweenBen tham's analytical "m etho dolo gical radicalism" a nd his social, legal ,eco nom ic, an d political prescriptions-in sh or t, wh at we m ight call his su b-stantive radical proposals for reform.

T I S E S S EN T IA L RE L A T I O N S H I P BE T WE E N P H I L O S O P H Yan d politics in Bentham's th ou gh t is clearly displayed in his distastefor na tura l law d i scourse. H e a t tacked the Amer ican revolu-tionaries ( an d subsequently their French counterp arts) no t becausethey were inherently evil, but because they had been led astray by the meta-physics of inalienable natural righ ts ("fictions" of the political im agin ationprovid ing a tenden t ious founda t ion for a new s ta te ) . On ce exposed ashollow and dangerous rhetoric, uti l i tarian doctrine demanded that naturalrights theo ry be rejected. T he relationship between philosophy an d politicsis also seen in Bentham's early jott ings on religious issues dating from1773-74? and, as one might expect, it is most evidently conspicuous in hispositivist jurisprudence , to which he devoted most of his energy in the firstdec ade o f his intellectual activity.loFrom the mid-1770s forward Bentham began to cri t ically analyze thelegal structure as it then existed in England and to systematically set aboutthe business of con structin g a codified substitute to replace it. Ultimately,he conceived this task as ranging from civil an d penal law an d th e judiciaryt o financial matters, educa tion, political econom y, public admin istration, and

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ous institutions. In each an d every facet of this vast prescriptive socialnce the central, hnd am enta l-one m igh t say, "radical"-tenet was "toelicity by th e han ds of reaso n a nd law". l l

nes a focal problem for stud ents of his work. Ever since Elie Halevy

of his thou ght.1 2 As mo re of Bentham's writings have becom eght and its application to practice. The re are those who , in one way or's legal positivism and his tendency t o advocate

The y dete ct "authoritarian" tendencies in his tho ug ht, with hisem variously desc ribed as "behav iouralist", "constructivist", "tota li-b collectivist".^^M M E N T A T O R S O F A VE RY D I F F E R E N T P E R S U A S I O N ,while allowing that legal positivism is characteristic of Bentham'sutilitarianism, ten d to emphasize the individualist premises of histhought (especial ly the use of law to enhance the individual 'sity of expectations), an d prefer to foun d a general accoun t o f his utili-sm o n an exposition of the central legal works or the "mature" consti-writings of his later years.14 O n this basis-and no t w itho ut goo d-they claim Be ntha m as on e of the intellectual forebears of m od ernism. But can bo th schools of interpretation be correct?s not an easily answered qu estion, for I d o no t think it could be said

In part, the problem is tha t Bentham had a long and prolifict for all that he t ho ug ht a nd wrote. It is also the case that comm en-s th ou gh t are usually at pains to elucidate one particular

to take the particular for theReflecting, for example, o n the accounts we have of Bentham o nto conclude tha t bot h the "authoritarian" and "liberal" views I haveplace in a comp lete an d comprehensive interpretation.

m's system is less systematic th an he preten ded an d than has oftensed since.rt, there may well be a disjunction in Benthamic praxis, betweensm and the interventionist practice to which he was occasionally pronen advoc ating specific public policies. If this is true, th en it seem s entirely

ntin Skinner as dubb ed "the mythology of coherencem,16 maintainingency between theory and practice in Bentham's tho ug ht can berly express his ideas, it is entirely conceivable th at it d oe s n o t exist. (p

"The problem is thatBentham had a longand prolz3c career thatranged far and wideover an extensive realmof theoretical andpractical issues, makingit dzyficult within theconfines of a single studyt o account for all that hethought and wrote."

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I am grateful for the observations of Dr

Bentham's Theory of the Modern State,, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1978.

Jeremy Bentham: Anssey of Ideas 1748-1799, London: Heinemann, 1962.

J.R . Dinwiddy, "Bentham's Transition t o PoliticalJournal of the History of Ideas, 35

97 5) , pp. 693 , 683. A similar view is enunciated byThe Bentham Newsletter, 4 (1980), pp.

24, and "Bentham's Democratic Theory at the Time ofThe Bentham Newsletter, 10 (1986),

versity College, London: UC 12 6/1- 18, 127/ 1-19 ,44/1-5, 170/17-82.

The argument is made in J .E. Crimmins, "Bentham'sJournal of the History of Ideas,

.E. Crimmins, "John Brown and the Theological TraditionHistory of Political Thought, 4/3

83) , pp. 523 -50, and "Religion, Utility and Politics:versus Paley," in J . E . Crimmins (ed.), Religion,

ation and Political Thought: Thomas Hobbes t o J.S.(London: Routledge, 1990), pp. 130-52.

entham MSS, esp. UC Boxes 69 and 140.See UC 5/1-32, 96/263-341, and for a detailed discussion

Secular Utilitarianism: Social Science and the

cience and religon in Bentham's thoughtally see Ch.1.

J. Bentham, A Comment on the Commentaries (begun in, but not published until 1 928 ); A Fragment on

(1776), A n Introduction to the Principles of

Morals and Legislation (printed 1780-81, published 178and Of Laws in General (substantially completed in 1782, bnot published until 1945).

Bentham, An Introduction t o the Principles of Morals aLegislation, ed. J .H . Burns and H.L.A. Hart (LondoAthlone Press, 1970), p.11.l 2 E. Halevy, The Growth of Philosophic Radicalism [Formation du radicalisme philosophique, 1901-41, trans. Morris, 1928: Clifton, New Jersey: Augustus M. Kelle1972.l 3 See D.G. Long, Bentham on Liberty: Jeremy BenthamIdea of Liberty in Relation t o his Utilitarianism, ToronUniversity of Toronto Press, 1977; F.A. Hayek, "The errof constructivism", New Studies in Philosophy, PolitiEconomics and the History of Ideas (Chicago: ChicaUniversity Press, 1978) , pp. 3-22; C.F. Bahmueller, TNati onal Char ity Company: Jeremy Bentham's SileRevolution, Berkeley: University of California Press, 19L . J . H u m e , Bentham and Bureaucracy, CambridgCambridge University Press, 1981; M.H. James, "PubInterest and Majority Rule in Bentham's Democratic TheoPolitical Theory, 9/ 1 ( 1981 , pp. 49-64; and W.H. GreenleThe British Political Tradition. 3 vols. (London: Methu1983-87), I.l4 F. Rosen, Jeremy Bentham and Representative DemocraA Study of 'The Constitutional Code', Oxford: ClarendPress, 1983; L. Campos Boralevi, Bentham and the OppressBerlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1984; G. PostemBentham and the Common Law Tra diti on, OxfoClarendon, rev. edn. 1989; P.J. Kelly, Utilitarianism aDistributive Justice: Jeremy Bentham and the Civil LaOxford: Clarendon Press, 1990;.and A. Dube, The ThemeAcquisitiveness in Bentham's Political Thought, New YoGarland, 1991.l 5 See Long, Bentham on Liberty, Hume, Bentham aBureaucracy, and Postema, Bentham and the Common LTradition (notes 13 and 14 above).l6 Q. Slunner, "Meaning and Understanding in the Histof Ideas", History and Theory, 8 (1969), pp. 3-53.