Pol_Hons_Ketu

JEREMY BENTHAM
Brief life sketch:

Jeremy Bentham was born on February 15, 1748 in London. He was born in a middle-class
family. His father was Jeremiah Bentham. He lost his mother at a very young age. Bentham
enjoyed reading books. It was said that he started learning Latin when he was as young as
three years old. He studied at Queen’s College, Oxford. Here, he learned to dislike, rebuke,
suspect and hate anything that was ancient or tradition- be it to do with institutions or
ideas.

Bentham studied law and was called to bar in 1769, but he never pleaded a single case. He
gave up the idea of practising law. He was also deeply interested in science-chemistry and
botany. He was also deeply interested in the study of legislation. He did not practice law but
focused on writing about how the law should be, rather than concentrating on what it was.
One of his earliest project was “Preparatory Principles” where he took the task of making a
set of new systematic legal terms which could be used for the study as well as for the
practice of law. He visited Russia in 1780 and here, he took greater interest in legislation and
reforms. Other than theory of laws and legislations, he was also interested in practical areas
like public administration, economics and social policy.

Jeremy was a compulsive writer and a reviser. As such, many of his works remained
incomplete and very few got published.

He called himself “The Hermit of Queen’s square Palace” and also described himself as
“Jeremy Bentham, the most ambitious of the ambitious”. Some of the famous works of
Bentham includes A Fragment on Government (1776), An introduction to the Principles of
morals and legislations (1789), A Treatise on Judicial Evidence (1813), Rationale of Evidence
(1827), etc.

Bentham died on 6th of June, 1832.

LEGISLATION: Bentham holds that legislation was the most significant of all worldly pursuits.
Legislation he believed would bring about reforms which are suitable for human beings. He holds
that every individual is alike but they turn out different later, only because of their differences in
upbringing, environment and education. Because he focused so much on the importance of
legislation, he took the task of making new set of laws which he thought would be suitable for the
individuals.

UTILITARIANISM: The Greatest Happiness Principle-

Utilitarianism as a school of thought dominated English political thinking form the middle of
the 18th century to the mid-19th century. Before Bentham, there were already political
thinkers who had talked about utilitarianism. They included Hume, Priestly, etc. But it was
Bentham who laid down the theory of utilitarianism systematically and he made it popular.

Initially this was commonly called or known as the principle of utility. The principle of utility
label has recently been joined or replaced by the greatest happiness principle. The Principle
of Utility the principle that approves or disapproves of every action according to the
tendency it appears to have to increase or lessen—i.e. to promote or oppose—the
happiness of the person or group whose interest is in question. By ‘every action’, he meant
not only of private individuals but also of governments. By ‘utility’ is meant the property of
something whereby it tends to produce benefit, advantage, pleasure, good , or happiness or
to prevent the happening of mischief, pain, evil, or unhappiness. An action is right if it tends
to promote happiness and wrong if it tends to produce the reverse of happiness. In other
words, it was based on pleasure and pain.

The basic premise was that human beings as a rule sought happiness and that pleasure
alone was good. And the only right action was that which produced the maximum happiness
for the maximum number of people. In other words, utilitarianism stands for “greatest
happiness of the greatest number of people”. Based on this concept, he held that anything
that gives maximum pleasure and maximum happiness to the maximum number of
people is good and therefore, needs to be followed. Bentham was confident that his
utilitarian principles could be the basis of law.

In his utilitarianism, Bentham perceived human beings as creatures of pleasure. Bentham

added that human beings were hedonists meaning human actions were always motivated
by a desire to seek pleasure and avoid pain.

Bentham holds that nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign
masters, pain and pleasure. These two alone point out what we ought to do and what we
shall do according to Jeremy. It is a matter of right and wrong. According to Bentham, these
two govern humans in all they do, all they say, and all they thing. Every effort humans make
is subjected to pain and pleasure· A man may claim to reject their rule but in reality he will
remain subject to it. The principle of utility recognises this subjection.

In simple words, anything that brings pleasure was good and anything that brings pain to
humans is bad. These two things surround the concept of utilitarianism.

He added that there exist four sanctions or source of pleasure and pain-

i) Physical sanction: This is the source of constraints which arose from human
nature and natural circumstances.
ii) Political and legal sanction: The second source of constraints was in the form of
rewards and punishment that were meted out by the political authority.
iii) Moral/ popular sanction: This refers to the influences on the individual
behaviour exerted by a collective opinion, or the disapproval by a person.
 iv) Religious sanction: This sanction refers to hope of getting divine rewards or fear
of divine punishments.

Bentham was confident that a society which the individual tried to maximise his own
happiness would be far better than one in which he had to maximise the happiness of
others.

FELICIFIC CALCULUS: The felicific calculus is an algorithm formulated by Jeremy

Bentham. He said this can be used in calculating the degree or amount of pleasure that
a specific action is likely to cause.

BENTHAM’S VIEW ON RIGHTS AND DUTIES:

Bentham discarded natural rights to the individuals but he did not kill the concept of
natural rights. However, he totally denied the existence of natural law. The different
kinds of rights are:

a) Legal rights- These are the rights which are guaranteed by the supreme law-maker in
a political society.
b) Moral Rights
c) Natural rights

The different kinds of duties are:

i) Political duty
ii) Religious duty
iii) Moral duty

BENTHAM’S VIEW ON PRISON (PANOPTICON):

Bentham was of the view that a prison sholdbe in the form of a panopticon.He opined that
prisons should not be state-run. This was so because he believed that state-run prisons
would only lead to corruption and jobbery.

The term panopticon was derived from the Greek word meaning ‘all *seeing’. The concept
of the design is to allow all prisoners of an institution to be observed by a single guard,
without the inmates being able to tell whether they are being watched or not.

Although it is not possible for the single guard to observe all the inmates' cells at once, the
fact that the inmates cannot know when they are being watched means that they are
motivated to act as though they are being watched at all times. Thus, the inmates are
effectively compelled to regulate their own behaviour.
He opined that this type can be used for different purposes other than a prison,such as,
educational institutions, factories, etc.
BENTHAM ON THE MODERN STATE:
Bentham was in favour of modernization. The notion of the modern state was considered as
an ideal, an inspiration which should exist to examine the techniques of state building
according to Bentham. He also added that methods that would promote modernization
should also be taken into consideration because he was in view of a ‘modern state’. He
defined the state or political society as a number of persons who are supposed to be in the
habit of paying obedience to another person or an assembly of persons.
Bentham opined that state was a legal entity and its ethical basis being ‘individualism’. He
holds that modernization requires two things-
a) It needed a broad-based and diversified legal system which would take into account
the individual’s desire.
b) It needed institutions that would support the legal system.
Bentham brought together two great themes of modern political thought- first was
individualism and second, modern sovereign state. Bentham gave priority to the individuals’
interests. Since people have different interests, at times, this can lead them to various
groupings. The sovereign state needs to exist to maintain discipline and unite these groups
in order to be an effective body.
Bentham was confident that ‘representative form’ or representation would ensure
agreement and harmony between the interests of the government and those of the
community as a whole. For this reason, he was in favour of universal adult franchise in the
state. He defined law as the command of the sovereign. He said that the powers of the
sovereign are indivisible, unlimited, inalienable and permanent. His greatest contribution
was in the field of legal system and government. Bentham opposed delays in laws, the
difficulty in understanding the language used in laws and the use of cruel punishments as
remedies. He tried to introduce an informal, inexpensive and simple procedure in law
courts.
He stipulated happiness, and not liberty as the end of the state. Therefore, in order to
promote happiness, he recommended the need of establishing laws, construct hospitals for
the indigent, create workhouse for the unemployed, levy taxes for the purpose of
redistribution, safeguard national security, establish courts and internal police, regulate
banks,etc.
Bentham was categorical that a government and a state had to be judged by their
usefulness to the individual. He also insisted on the need of a watchful government which
would readily and willingly act whenever necessary especially for the happiness of the
individuals. Bentham also granted the power to the people to select and dismiss their rulers
to ensure that the interests of the rulers were closely linked with the individuals. He gave
recommendations for the need for central inspection, a public prosecutor, recruitment of
young individuals to the government and competitive civil service examinations.
Jeremy Bentham viewed representative form of government as a solution in the modern
state because that according to him, would give the greatest happiness to the greatest
number of people. However, interestingly, he opposed the concept of division of power for
three different reasons:
-He argued that if rulers were already accountable to the people, there was no point of
additional checks.
-Even with division of power, it is possible to replace the majority rule with the minority.
-He argued that in the absence of effective opposition, division of power would be of no
useful means.
Other than these, Bentham urged a more universal and centralised system to register births,
marriages and deaths. He also opined that government in the modern state should be the
ones taking initiative and responsibility in matters like education, care of the insane and
providing protection against accidental dangers. Bentham recommended the establishment
of a permanent police, separate ministers for education, health and poverty.
All these showed that Jeremy Bentham was practical when he talk about the modern state.
This is in fact, relevant even in today’s context.
CRITICISM:
Regardless of the many contributions he made, Bentham had his share of critics as well.
Some of them are as follows:
-Keynes described his ideas as ‘the worm which had been gnawing at the insides of modern
civilization responsible for its present moral decay’.
-Emerson characterised his philosophy as ‘stinking’.
-Schumpeter viewed Bentham’s ideas as the ‘shallowest of all conceivable philosophies of
life’.
-Goethe described him as “that frightfully radical ass” because of his thoughts and ideas.
-J.S.Mill described him as a ‘boy’ to the end, because he had neither the internal experience
nor the external, and had lived a quiet eunuch’s life on a private income withot ever
growing up.
-Leon Trotsky referred to Bentham’s utilitarianism as ‘a philosophy of social cookbook
recipes’.