Bentham Jeremy (1748–1832), British philosopher of ethics and political-legal theory. Born in London, he entered Queen’s College, Oxford, at age 12, and after graduation entered Lincoln’s Inn to study law. He was admitted to the bar in 1767 but never practiced. He spent his life writing, advocating changes along utilitarian lines (maximal happiness for everyone affected) of the whole legal system, especially the criminal law. He was a strong influence in changes of the British law of evidence; in abolition of laws permitting imprisonment for indebtedness; in the reform of Parliamentary representation; in the formation of a civil service recruited by examination; and in much else. His major work published during his lifetime was An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789). He became head of a ‘radical’ group including James Mill and J. S. Mill, and founded the Westminster Review and University College, London (where his embalmed body still reposes in a closet). He was a friend of Catherine of Russia and John Quincy Adams, and was made a citizen of France in 1792.
Pleasure, he said, is the only good, and pain the only evil: ‘else the words good and evil have no meaning.’ He gives a list of examples of what he means by ‘pleasure’: pleasures of taste, smell, or touch; of acquiring property; of learning that one has the goodwill of others; of power; of a view of the pleasures of those one cares about. Bentham was also a psychological hedonist: pleasures and pains determine what we do. Take pain. Your state of mind may be painful now (at the time just prior to action) because it includes the expectation of the pain (say) of being burned; the present pain (or the expectation of later pain – Bentham is undecided which) motivates action to prevent being burned. One of a person’s pleasures, however, may be sympathetic enjoyment of the well-being of another. So it seems one can be motivated by the prospect of the happiness of another. His psychology here is not incompatible with altruistic motivation.
Bentham’s critical utilitarianism lies in his claim that any action, or measure of government, ought to be taken if and only if it tends to augment the happiness of everyone affected – not at all a novel principle, historically. When ‘thus interpreted, the words ought, and right and wron. . . have a meaning: when otherwise, they have none.’ Bentham evidently did not mean this statement as a purely linguistic point about the actual meaning of moral terms. Neither can this principle be proved; it is a first principle from which all proofs proceed. What kind of reason, then, can he offer in its support? At one point he says that the principle of utility, at least unconsciously, governs the judgment of ‘every thinking ma. . . unavoidably.’ But his chief answer is his critique of a widely held principle that a person properly calls an act wrong if (when informed of the facts) he disapproves of it. (Bentham cites other language as coming to the same thesis: talk of a ‘moral sense,’ or common sense, or the understanding, or the law of nature, or right reason, or the ‘fitness of things.’) He says that this is no principle at all, since a ‘principle is something that points out some external consideration, as a means of warranting and guiding the internal sentiments of approbation. . . .’ The alleged principle also allows for widespread disagreement about what is moral. So far, Bentham’s proposal has not told us exactly how to determine whether an action or social measure is right or wrong. Bentham suggests a hedonic calculus: in comparing two actions under consideration, we count up the pleasures or pains each will probably produce – how intense, how long-lasting, whether near or remote, including any derivative later pleasures or pains that may be caused, and sum them up for all persons who will be affected. Evidently these directions can provide at best only approximate results. We are in no position to decide whether one pleasure for one hour is greater than another pleasure for half an hour, even when they are both pleasures of one person who can compare them. How much more when the pleasures are of different persons? Still, we can make judgments important for the theory of punishment: whether a blow in the face with no lasting damage for one person is more or less painful than fifty lashes for his assailant! Bentham has been much criticized because he thought that two pleasures are equal in value, if they are equally intense, enduring, etc. As he said, ‘Quantity of pleasure being equal, pushpin is as good as poetry.’ It has been thought (e.g., by J. S. Mill) that some pleasures, especially intellectual ones, are higher and deserve to count more. But it may be replied that the so-called higher pleasures are more enduring, are less likely to be followed by satiety, and open up new horizons of enjoyment; and when these facts are taken into account, it is not clear that there is need to accord higher status to intellectual pleasures as such. A major goal of Bentham’s was to apply to the criminal law his principle of maximizing the general utility. Bentham thought there should be no punishment of an offense if it is not injurious to someone. So how much punishment should there be? The least amount the effect of which will result in a greater degree of happiness, overall. The benefit of punishment is primarily deterrence, by attaching to the thought of a given act the thought of the painful sanction – which will deter both the past and prospective lawbreakers. The punishment, then, must be severe enough to outweigh the benefit of the offense to the agent, making allowance, by addition, for the uncertainty that the punishment will actually occur. There are some harmful acts, however, that it is not beneficial to punish. One is an act needful to produce a greater benefit, or avoid a serious evil, for the agent. Others are those which a penal prohibition could not deter: when the law is unpublished or the agent is insane or an infant. In some cases society need feel no alarm about the future actions of the agent. Thus, an act is criminal only if intentional, and the agent is excused if he acted on the basis of beliefs such that, were they true, the act would have caused no harm, unless these beliefs were culpable in the sense that they would not have been held by a person of ordinary prudence or benevolence. The propriety of punishing an act also depends somewhat on its motive, although no motive e.g., sexual desire, curiosity, wanting money, love of reputation – is bad in itself. Yet the propriety of punishment is affected by the presence of some motivations that enhance public security because it is unlikely that they – e.g., sympathetic concern or concern for reputation – will lead to bad intentional acts. When a given motive leads to a bad intention, it is usually because of the weakness of motives like sympathy, concern for avoiding punishment, or respect for law. In general, the sanction of moral criticism should take lines roughly similar to those of the ideal law. But there are some forms of behavior, e.g., imprudence or fornication, which the law is hardly suited to punish, that can be sanctioned by morality. The business of the moral philosopher is censorial: to say what the law, or morality, ought to be. To say what is the law is a different matter: what it is is the commands of the sovereign, defined as one whom the public, in general, habitually obeys. As consisting of commands, it is imperatival. The imperatives may be addressed to the public, as in ‘Let no one steal,’ or to judges: ‘Let a judge sentence anyone who steals to be hanged.’ It may be thought that there is a third part, an explanation, say, of what is a person’s property; but this can be absorbed in the imperatival part, since the designations of property are just imperatives about who is to be free to do what. Why should anyone obey the actual laws? Bentham’s answer is that one should do so if and only if it promises to maximize the general happiness. He eschews contract theories of political obligation: individuals now alive never contracted, and so how are they bound? He also opposes appeal to natural rights. If what are often mentioned as natural rights were taken seriously, no government could survive: it could not tax, require military service, etc. Nor does he accept appeal to ‘natural law,’ as if, once some law is shown to be immoral, it can be said to be not really law. That would be absurd. See also HEDONISM , PHILOSOPHY OF LAW, UTILITARIANIS. R.B.B.