Bentham, Jeremy (1748–1832)
3. The Accomplishment
Ruth Benedict’s contribution to social science comes
from her ability to combine critical theory with
cultural relativism. She accomplished this by con-
structing a scheme for judging cultures that recognized
the full scope of their unique purposes and traits. The
scheme included inserting the ‘human being’ into an
analysis of social structures in a way that foreshadows
late twentieth- century notions of ‘actor’ and ‘agency.’
Moreover, Benedict never loses sight of the con-
stituents of actor and agency: as The Chrysanthemum
and the Sword demonstrates, the individual is com-
posed at once of idiosyncratic drives and the shaping
forces of a culture. Her attempts to explore sys-
tematically the conditions under which the ensuing
tension is productive rather than destructive banished
the simplistic ‘culture and personality’ equation.
A founder of that subfield of US anthropology,
Benedict pushed the theoretical formulations link-
ing self and society toward the critical social
theory of today’s humanistic and social scientific
disciplines.
Inasmuch as her comparative analyses have at core
the human being—creative, cooperative, resistant,
rebellious—they impose a rigorous critique on all
cultures. The body of her work asks, ‘does a particular
social arrangement suppress or exploit diverse in-
dividual capacities?’ The question pushes Ruth Ben-
edict into the vanguard of critical social theory in two
respects: she does not abstract the individual from the
material conditions that frame social responsibility,
and her emphasis on the diversity of purposes and
temperaments in any setting anticipates contemporary
rejection of the concept of a bounded society with a
definable cultural core.
Ruth Benedict embraced cultural relativism while
insisting that the anthropologist interpret cultures in
terms of their human benefits. The findings of any
science had to be devoted to improving the human
condition: preventing war, ensuring peace, and, above
all, granting anyone in any milieu access to resources
and to rights. Stressing the importance of directed
change, Benedict did not preach an imperialistic social
engineering. She argued instead that the social scientist
had unique skills with which to delineate the cultural
values and social institutions upon which change must
be based in order to last.
In Ruth Benedict’s writings, humanism extends
from theory to methods of inquiry and styles of
presentation. In her view the social scientist had an
obligation not only to investigate circumstances in
which some were deprived of the means of survival but
also to offer findings in an accessible form. Here again
she makes a major contribution: writings that appeal
to a general audience, to policy makers and to soldiers,
to social scientists and to artists, presage a contem-
porary scholarship that refuses to remain in an ivory
tower.
See also: Anthropology; Anthropology, History of;
Cross-cultural Psychology; Cultural Relativism,
Anthropology of; Culture as Explanation: Cultural
Concerns; National Character; Racial Relations;
Racism, History of; Relativism: Philosophical
Aspects
Bibliography
Benedict R F 1934 Patterns of Culture. Houghton Mifflin,
Boston, MA
Benedict R F 1938 Continuities and discontinuities in cultural
conditioning. Psychiatry I: 161–7
Benedict R F 1940 Race: Science and Politics. Modern Age
Books, New York
Benedict R F 1946 The Chrysanthemum and the Sword.
Houghton Mifflin, Boston, MA
Benedict R F 1970 Synergy: Some notes of Ruth Benedict.
Selected by Maslow A and Honigman J J American Anthro-
pologist 72: 320–33
Modell J S 1983 Ruth Benedict: Patterns of a Life. University of
Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, PA
J. S. Modell
Bentham, Jeremy (1748–1832)
1. Life and Writings
Bentham’s father was a prosperous attorney. Hoping
that his precocious child would have an illustrious
legal career, he had him educated at Westminster, the
Queen’s College, Oxford, and Lincoln’s Inn (called to
the Bar in 1769). For Bentham each of these three
institutions came to epitomise aspects of the prevailing
orthodoxy: conservatism, complacency, hierarchy,
superstition, insincerity, and the elevation of authority
over reason. As a child, he conceived a passionate
antipathy to the inadequacies and injustices of English
law and procedure. Later, ‘English common law and
equity seemed to Bentham archaic, uncodified, in-
comprehensible, arbitrary, irrational, cruelly vindic-
tive, tortuously dilatory, and so ruinously expensive
that nine out of ten men were literally outlawed’
(Mack 1968, p. 55). He very soon abandoned legal
practice in disgust. Unmarried, and comfortably off,
he devoted himself to criticism and reform of legal,
political, and social institutions on the basis of utility
or ‘the greatest happiness principle.’
Bentham’s most important diversion from writing
was his attempt to lobby the government for a contract
to design and manage a model prison, the panopticon.
His proposals to William Pitt in 1791 received some
1145
Bentham, Jeremy (1748–1832)
encouragement, but then encountered repeated delay
and opposition. The project failed, in the process
nearly bankrupting him, alienating him from the
establishment, harming his reputation with posterity,
and pushing him towards democracy. He was eventu-
ally granted a sum in compensation for his efforts and
expenses in 1813, but the project was effectively dead
by 1803. Thereafter, he stayed mainly at home, or in
various retreats, writing, conversing with his friends,
acolytes and other visitors, and conducting an ex-
tensive international correspondence.
Bentham’s life was relatively uneventful, but enor-
mously productive. Nearly 70,000 pages of manu-
scripts survive, mostly in University College London,
the British Library, and Geneva. By January 2000, 20
of a projected 68–70 volumes of the scholarly edition
of The Collected Works of Jeremy Bentham had been
published. Preliminary work had been completed on
several more. Many of Bentham’s extant writings are
not yet accessible in a readable form, including
important ones on sex, religion, fallacies, logic, and
language, and many specific legal subjects.
The main outlines of Bentham’s life and ideas are
known and there have been some important special-
ized studies. However, the unworked manuscripts
contain second thoughts, refinements, and new depar-
tures which may confirm the view that Bentham was
less doctrinaire, more subtle, original, and genuinely
radical than has traditionally been supposed. Re-
visionism in Bentham studies is at an early stage.
Bentham was a secular child of the Enlightenment.
The principle of utility came mainly from Helvetius
and he owed much to Bacon, David Hume, (see Hume,
Da
id (1711–76)). John Locke (see Locke, John
(1632–1704)), Priestley and European thinkers,
including Voltaire, Beccaria, and Charles Montes-
quieu (see Montesquieu, Charles, the Second Baron of
(1689–1755)). But he differed from his predecessors in
several respects. He insisted that ‘the art-and-science’
of legislation required as preliminaries exhaustive
taxonomy based on precise concepts and exact analysis
of social facts. He had an acute awareness of the
importance and limitations of language as the main
instrument for expressing abstract ideas, and applied
his version of utility and relentlessly detailed analysis
to a remarkably wide range of subjects. He adopted
clear, often extreme, positions on some issues. For
example, he maintained that the only criterion of good
and bad, of right and wrong, is the principle of utility;
all other criteria are either meaningless or perversions
of utility or utility disguised or pure subjectivism; that
it is easier to justify torture than punishment; that talk
of natural rights is both nonsensical and dangerous;
that no artificial rule of evidence can promote rectitude
of decision; that the common law is not really law, but
a fiction based on judicial usurpation of power; and
that the interests of the legal profession and of those in
power are in general opposed to those of the comm-
unity.
1146
Despite this seeming clarity, many of Bentham’s
ideas invite conflicting interpretations. ‘Benthamic
ambiguity’ is an important thread in reading Bentham.
For example, he is often treated as a forerunner of
both laissez faire and the modern welfare state, yet he
does not fit either; he was a genuine political radical,
but he placed a high value on security, and on the
protection of existing property entitlements; he
favored both strong government and strong demo-
cratic control; he virulently rejected most features of
the common law, yet defended some salient institu-
tions such as orality and cross-examination; the great
codifier opposed all binding rules of evidence and
procedure. There is no more ambiguous symbol than
‘the auto-icon,’ Bentham’s skeleton, fully clothed and
topped with a wax head, that sits enigmatically in
public in a cupboard in University College London,
stimulating endless speculation about its possible
meanings. Some seeming ambiguities can be resolved
textually; some suggest honest and perceptive puzzle-
ment; others hint that behind the benign exterior lay
some deep inner conflicts.
2. Bentham as Jurist
Bentham explicitly aspired to be to jurisprudence
what Luther was to Christianity and Newton was to
science. His contributions to philosophy, political
theory, and social reform were offshoots of his concern
with law. Utility was a tool both for criticizing existing
laws and institutions and guiding legislation. His ideas
on linguistic analysis, on evidence and inference,
and on democracy grew out of specifically juristic
concerns.
Jurisprudence is the most extensive, original, and
neglected part of Bentham’s legacy. Yet he is better
known as a philosopher, political theorist, and social
reformer, for three reasons: few Bentham scholars
have been jurists; many of the legal writings have only
recently started to become accessible; and Bentham’s
disciple, John Austin, was for a century treated as ‘the
Father of English Jurisprudence.’ Austin’s command
theory of law is inferior to Bentham’s, but Austin was
preferred because he was more sympathetic to the
common law, less critical of the legal profession, and
less dangerously radical than his master. His general
ideas were also easier to grasp and to criticize.
Bentham’s science of legislation is based on five
main pillars: the greatest happiness principle, the
theory of fictions, his positivist command theory of
law, the pannomion, and, as a late but crucial addition,
his constitutional and democratic theory.
2.1 Bentham as Utilitarian: The Greatest Happiness
Principle
Bentham’s best-known expositions of utility are in two
early works, A Fragment on Go
ernment (1977, here-

after Fragment), first published in 1776, and An
Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation
(1996, hereafter IPML), first published in 1789. The
former is primarily an attack on the complacency of
William Blackstone’s idealization of the common law
and his espousal of natural law and social contract
theory at the start of his Commentaries. IPML was
conceived as a prolegomenon to a penal code dealing
especially with the classification of offences and the
principles of punishment. The opening words of IPML
are: ‘Nature has placed mankind under two sovereign
masters, pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to point
out what we ought to do, as well as to determine what
we shall do.’
As a utilitarian Bentham is generally regarded as
more representative than original. The rhetorical
opening of IPML is often treated as epitomizing
classical utilitarianism, a vehicle for considering stan-
dard criticisms on, for example, promising, punish-
ment of the innocent, torture, and egoism. However,
not all such objections apply to Bentham. For ex-
ample, pleasure refers to all human values, not just to
sensual or hedonistic pleasures or to wealth; the
felicific calculus was not intended as an exact measure,
but rather as providing a checklist of factors relevant
to weighing the costs and benefits of any action; every
individual equally counts for one, but the ultimate test
is aggregate happiness (i.e., the general welfare).
‘Extent’ (‘whose happiness is to be taken into ac-
count?’) applies not just to humans, but to all sentient
beings, for in respect of animals ‘the question is not,
Can they reason?, nor can they talk?, but can they
suffer?’ (IPML Chap. XVII, pp. 282–6)
The first six chapters of IPML are not fully
representative of Bentham’s utilitarianism, as it de-
veloped over time. They are pedagogically convenient,
because they are easy to read and to criticize. Here
Benthamic ambiguity seems to begin at the very root
of his thought: Does pleasure refer to satisfaction or to
preference? Was he a direct or an indirect utilitarian?
How different was Bentham’s utilitarianism from
Hume’s? Does rooting utility in human nature make
Bentham a closet natural lawyer? Do Bentham’s
utilitarian actors maximize their own pleasure or is
every human choice, in individual morality and col-
lective decision making, to be judged by its tendency to
maximize the general welfare? Is the primary concern
of sovereigns, their subordinates, and individuals
rightly confined to one’s own community, subject to
certain exceptions?
Such questions are much debated. It is dangerous to
impose on Bentham ideas that emerged in later debates
about utilitarianism, for example, modern distinctions
between act-utilitarianism and rule-utilitarianism, be-
tween preference and satisfaction, or between ag-
gregate and average utility. Bentham’s ideas developed
over time and he was not always consistent. He might
also have rejected sharp versions of these distinctions
as false dichotomies.
Bentham, Jeremy (1748–1832)
Bentham’s utility is a principle of both individual
psychology and of social and political morality, of
morals and legislation. For the jurist the latter is both
more important and less vulnerable to criticism.
Humans generally seek to maximize their own inter-
ests, and the primary task of legislation is to harmonize
individual interests with the general welfare by a
system of rewards and punishments. Similarly, the
interests of the governors need to be harmonized with
the interests of the governed, especially through
systematic design and implementation of securities
against misrule. Bentham rejected any idea of prin-
ciples independent of utility, but gave an important
place to four principles subordinate to utility: security,
subsistence, abundance, and equality. Of these se-
curity, or settled grounds of expectation, was the
principal one because it implies extension in point of
time and is a precondition for achieving the other ends
of government. Bentham gave a high priority to both
property and order, and hence for liberty in the sense
of absence of coercion. Security is also the basis for the
important motto of the good citizen, ‘To obey punc-
tually; to censure freely’ (Fragment, Preface). But
security can be overridden by utility in given cir-
cumstances. Security and subsistence generally have a
higher priority than equality, but in the calculus each
individual counts for one, the idea of diminishing
marginal utility serves a distributive function, and
Bentham believed that as a psychological fact ‘the
nearer the actual proportion approaches to equality,
the greater will be the total mass of happiness.’ (Ci
il
Code; Harrison (1983, pp. 243–50)).
The originality and interest of Bentham’s utili-
tarianism lie mostly in his applications of the basic
ideas. Utility gives coherence and bite to his detailed
treatment of evidence, classification of crimes, the
rationalization of punishment, and numerous other
specific topics. His utilitarianism should be judged as
much by its potential for illumination as an analytical
and critical tool applied to concrete issues as by its
philosophical defensibility.
2.2 Fictions
Bentham’s theory of logic and language anticipated
key later developments in English analytical phil-
osophy, including the idea that sentences rather than
words are the primary unit of meaning. To clarify
basic abstract legal conceptions, such as ‘obligation,’
‘right,’ and ‘property,’ he substituted for the tra-
ditional definition per genus et differentiam the tech-
nique of ‘paraphrasis’ and ‘phraseoplerosis.’ Abstract
nouns with no direct counterpart in the world of fact
are names of fictitious entities. They can be elucidated
by placing them in a whole sentence, such as ‘X has a
right against Y,’ and then asking under what con-
ditions this sentence is true. It is true if Y has a duty. ‘Y
has a duty’ is true if the sovereign of an existing legal
system has commanded that there shall be a sanction
1147
Bentham, Jeremy (1748–1832)
(pain) for nonperformance in given circumstances,
and Y’s situation is subsumed under this command.
Thus the terms ‘right’ and ‘duty’ are linked through
‘sovereign’ and ‘sanction’ to pains and pleasures,
things that can be directly experienced.
Bentham’s theory of fictions contains his basic ideas
on ontology, epistemology, and logic. We construct
our knowledge of the world through the lens of
language, itself a human construct, which is both
necessary because it is our window on the world, and
dangerous because it is a distorting lens. Language is
the best tool we have for knowledge and under-
standing. This constructivist epistemology based on
utility has affinities with later developments in prag-
matism and the sociology of knowledge.
Bentham often used ‘fiction’ pejoratively. He at-
tacked natural law, social contract theories, and
technical legal fictions as dangerous mystifications.
One example is his famous attack on natural rights as
pestilential nonsense: to say that ‘X has a right’
logically implies some existing general rule or com-
mand. ‘X has a legal right’ presupposes a law com-
manded by a sovereign and backed by a sanction.
Legal rights are creatures of positive laws. But since
natural law does not exist nor do natural rights. The
idea of natural rights is nonsensical, like the idea of a
son without a father. To talk of imprescriptible (i.e.,
unalterable) rights is also meaningless, ‘nonsense upon
stilts,’ for the sovereign’s power cannot be legally
limited. Since rights conflict, talk of ‘absolute’ rights is
contradictory. Talk of nonlegal rights is also mis-
chievous, raising expectations that cannot be fulfilled,
inviting anarchy. Bentham’s objections relate to the
mode of discourse rather than to particular values.
There may be moral claims and legal rights based on
utility. He would not necessarily have opposed all
modern legal bills of rights. His objection was to talk
of nonlegal rights, not to the enactment into positive
law of enforceable legal rights. A modern Benthamite
can argue that talk of ‘a right to food’ or ‘a right to
work’ refers to important aspirations, but begs ques-
tions about the allocation of correlative duties, about
enforcement if not legally binding, and about the
feasibility of implementing such ‘rights.’ They rep-
resent wishful thinking. As Bentham put it: ‘Want is
not supply, hunger is not bread.’ Bentham started a
line of analysis of ‘rights,’ ‘powers,’ and ‘obligations’
that was developed by Austin, Hohfeld (see Hart,
Herbert Lionel Adolphus (1907–92)), Hart, and others.
He still poses a challenge to loose rights talk.
2.3 Theory of Law
Bentham’s legal theory operates on at least three
levels: first, his general theory of law and its philo-
sophical underpinnings; second, subtheories on, for
example, codification and nomography, constitutional
law, punishment and reward, and adjective law; third,
the pannomion, a comprehensive body of codes of
1148
general application, subject to particular, essentially
minor, modifications according to time, place and
social context.
Bentham’s jurisprudence starts with a strong posit-
ivist distinction between law as it is and law as it ought
to be. ‘To the province of the Expositor it belongs to
explain to us what, as he supposes, the Law is: to that
of the Censor, to observe what he thinks it ought to be’
(Fragment, 397). Exposition can be particular or
general; censorial jurisprudence is general. Bentham’s
main interest was in universal censorial jurisprudence.
The fullest account of Bentham’s general theory of
law Of Laws in General (1970 hereafter OLG), was
first published in a definitive edition, edited by H. L. A.
Hart, after Hart’s The Concept of Law had become
the leading text of English legal positivism, partly
through its critique of Austin’s imperative theory.
Ironically, Hart conceded in a late essay that
Bentham’s version contained an important core of
truth, ‘the notion of a content-independent, peremp-
tory reason for action’ as part of the general notion of
authority. (Hart 1982, Chap. 10, p. 261). OLG in-
volved a deeper exploration of difficulties that he had
dimly recognized earlier, especially the distinction
between the civil and the penal branches of juris-
prudence and individuation (what constitutes a single
law?). The outcome was a dense, but incisive work,
which includes original ideas on the logic of the will, a
precursor of modern deontic logic.
Bentham elaborated his conception of law in terms
later made familiar by John Austin: commands backed
by threats made by a sovereign who is subject to a
habit of obedience. Yet Bentham’s ideas were subtly
different. Bentham allowed for limited and divisible
sovereignty, whereas Austin did not. The habit of
obedience might be partial. Commands, such as
judicial orders, need not be general; some laws can be
backed by moral or religious sanctions, some laws by
rewards. The idea of command has a more complex
and limited role in Bentham’s theory.
Burns, Hart and others have explored aspects of
Bentham’s jurisprudence in detail, including universal
censorial jurisprudence; legal positivism and sover-
eignty; and his analysis of fundamental legal concepts,
such as rights and obligations. Less abstract and less
well known, but more extensive, are his theoretical
writings on codification, adjective law (evidence and
procedure), judicial organization, civil law, criminal
law, indirect legislation, international law, and many
other topics, whose importance is often underesti-
mated. For example, Bentham’s writings on evidence
represent the most original and wide-ranging con-
tribution to evidence theory in the Anglo-American
tradition.
2.4 Codification and the Pannomion
From the early 1780s Bentham’s main aspiration was
to produce a complete body of laws—a pannomion—

to rationalize and systematize English law and, indeed,
any legal system. At first he thought that the main
weaknesses of English law were lack of organization,
incompleteness, and inaccessibility, linked to the
prejudice that legislation was an inferior form of law
to common law—defects that might be remedied by a
comprehensive Digest. By 1782 he was convinced of
the necessity for a systematic structure of codes based
on utility and satisfying the tests of coherence, com-
pleteness, and comprehensibility. The pannomion
encompassed integrated codes on civil, penal, pro-
cedural, and constitutional law, backed by detailed
legislation on specific topics.
He started with penal law, but was diverted by
theoretical concerns into ‘the metaphysical maze’ of
OLG. By the late 1780s he had completed important
work on the general theory of law and legislation, but
no actual code. Though codification remained his
long-term aim, he only returned to the work of actually
preparing codes much later. Starting in 1811 he offered
his services as a codifier, first for several jurisdictions
in the United States, then for Russia, Poland, and
Geneva, and latterly for Spain, Portugal, Tripoli, and
various Latin American countries. He now prepared
some important general works on codification and
started drafting several codes. His ideas excited con-
siderable interest, but did not lead to the adoption of
a single code. In 1830 he published the first volume of
his magisterial Constitutional Code (1983). This, to-
gether with a procedure code, was only completed
after his death by a former amanuensis, Richard
Doane. Shortly before his death, Bentham was still
‘codifying like any dragon.’ He believed strongly that a
code should be the product of a single mind, but his
failure to complete a single draft reinforced the view
that the pannomion was impracticable.
2.5 Constitutional Law and Democratic Theory
Bentham was not an instinctive democrat. When
young, he was mainly concerned with how legislators
should govern. He was prepared to deal with aristo-
crats, enlightened despots, revolutionaries, and demo-
crats in promoting his ideas. His constitutional theory
was a late development. The timing and reasons for his
‘conversion to democracy’ have been much debated.
He was sympathetic to democratic ideas at the start of
the French Revolution, but he only became involved
in the movement for parliamentary reform after 1809,
stimulated by his experience of general resistance and
indifference to reform, especially the panopticon.
Bentham firmly located sovereignty in the people. He
recognized the problem of the tyranny of the majority,
but he never satisfactorily solved it, perhaps because
of his virulent antipathy to talk of nonlegal rights.
His elaborate constitutional design is based on
three axioms: maximization of the happiness of all as
the proper end of government; the maximization of
the self-interest of the governors as the actual end of
Bentham, Jeremy (1748–1832)
government in every political community; and the
harmonization of the interests of the rulers and the
ruled. His scheme involves vesting real and sustained
power in the sovereign people to locate, monitor, and
dislocate officials through a system of securities against
misrule, especially publicity.
Several of the constitutional writings have only
recently become available. The main elements in his
code were ‘expense minimized, aptitude maximized,’
universal manhood suffrage (subject to a literacy test),
secret ballots, frequent elections, a unicameral legis-
lature, limited judicial power, accountability and
transparency, and a power of recall of office holders,
including the military, vested in the sovereign people.
He supported ideas backed by other radical reformers
of the time. In principle he favored votes for women,
but considered it inexpedient to press for this.
Bentham conceived of a constitutional code as a
logical and engineered product of a single mind, based
on articulated principles, and designed to provide
popular control over misrule, patronage, and other
forms of corruption.
3. Bentham and Social Science
Bentham did not draw sharp distinctions between
jurisprudence, psychology, political economy, and
other fields that have since become semiautonomous
social sciences. Utilitarianism requires a concern for
social facts. Legislation is the social science. To make
calculations the legislator needs reliable information
about the existing situation, the likely consequences of
a given course of action, and causal relations. He
emphasized ‘the statistic function’ of government; his
stepbrother, Charles Abbott, played a leading role in
the first population census (Population Bill, 1800); and
Bentham himself tirelessly argued for better social
data, especially regarding the Poor Laws. This
Benthamite enthusiasm was satirized in Charles
Dickens’s Hard Times in Mr. Gradgrind, who believed
that ‘Facts alone are wanted in life.’ Bentham believed
no such thing. Utility was his guiding principle and he
had a sophisticated awareness of the complexities of
concepts such as ‘fact’ and ‘causation.’ To his credit,
he was among those who first recognized and cam-
paigned for the systematic collection of reliable social
data as a necessary, but not a sufficient, condition for
policy making and legislation.
On ‘the art and science of political economy,’
Bentham was a follower of Adam Smith, but criticized
his defense of usury laws, and on some issues differed
from him in either being more averse or more
amenable to interventionism. Bentham saw the main
role of government as promoting abundance indirectly
through ensuring security, the basic presumption
being against government involvement in economic
affairs ‘without some special reason.’ But his proposals
included provision for many areas later associated
with the welfare state, such as public health, education,
1149
Bentham, Jeremy (1748–1832)
and the relief of indigence. He argued for the eman-
cipation of colonies both on economic and consti-
tutional grounds and, rather than being a doctrinaire
supporter of laissez faire, consistently applied cost–
benefit analysis to particular issues. Bentham had
some impact on the economic writings of James
Mill, John Stuart Mill (see Mill, John Stuart (1806–73),
David Ricardo, and later W. S. Jevons, Alfred
Marshall (see Edgeworth, Francis Ysidro (1845–1926)),
and F. Y. Edgeworth (see Edgeworth, Francis Ysidro
(1845–1926)). There is a useful, but incomplete, edition
of Bentham’s economic writings (1952–4).
One cannot do justice here to Bentham’s psy-
chology, which is regarded by some as his Achilles
heel, nor to his extensive and detailed writings on edu-
cation, poor law, social administration, and other
aspects of social policy. There are some interesting affin-
ities with Marx’s (see Marx, Karl (1818–89)) ideas,
for example, the clash between the interests of the few
and the many (though with less emphasis on social
class), interest-begotten prejudice, and demystifica-
tion. But Marx, like Foucault, criticized Bentham
without having studied him carefully. Marx treated
him as the epitome of ‘commonplace bourgeois inte-
lligence.’ Foucault interpreted the Panopticon as a
symbol of repressive authoritarian control, ignoring
the fact that Bentham’s concern with transparency
applied to those with power as well as those subject to
it. Both images are, at best, half-truths. Bentham was
also a pioneer in the study of bureaucracy. His
standing as a social theorist is ripe for reappraisal.
4. Influence
Bentham first gained recognition through the efforts
of a Genevan, Etienne Dumont (1759–1829) who
between 1802 and 1828 produced five elegant French
‘recensions’ from manuscripts and printed texts. These
were more lucid, succinct, and diplomatic than the
originals. Some were translated into several languages,
including English. The first, TraiteT de legislation ci
ile
et penale (1802) made Bentham’s reputation in Europe,
whence it spread to Latin America and eventually
back to Britain.
In the late nineteenth century Bentham was hailed
as the most influential reformer in English history.
Subsequently there has been a revisionist debate about
the relationship between his ideas and particular
reforms. Bentham had both committed disciples and
more pragmatic followers who became influential,
including Romilly, Brougham, Chadwick, James Mill,
and John Stuart Mill; his ideas contributed to the
climate of reform in the nineteenth century both in
Britain and internationally; many changes, for ex-
ample in the Anglo-American law of evidence, moved
in directions he had advocated, but in a more
piecemeal fashion than he would have approved. He
hated jargon, but coined neologisms. Some—codify,
maximize, international—have become part of the
1150
language. Others, fortunately, have not. Many of his
proposals, for instance on codification, have not yet
been implemented. How far responsibility for specific
changes should be attributed to him or his followers
remains controversial.
Similar questions arise about his contemporary
‘significance.’ It is anachronistic to apply early nine-
teenth-century ideas directly to twenty-first-century
issues. Yet, Bentham’s views are still relevant to topics
as varied as human rights, sovereignty, constitutional
reform, penal policy, torture, corruption, patronage,
transparency and accountability, freedom of infor-
mation, political rhetoric, the legal profession, access
to justice, inheritance, the free market, globalization,
and ‘the farther uses of the dead to the living.’ On these
and many other topics he is still worth consulting, not
least because he often takes provocatively radical
positions. As Herbert Hart (see Hart, Herbert Lionel
Adolphus (1907–92)) remarked, ‘where Bentham fails
to persuade, he still forces us to think’ (Hart 1982,
p. 39).
See also: Constitutionalism; Economics, History of;
Enlightenment; Justice: Political; Law and Democ-
racy; Law: History of its Relation to the Social
Sciences; Natural Law; Positivism, History of; Prisons
and Imprisonment; Ricardo, David (1772–1823);
Smith, Adam (1723–90); Utilitarian Social Thought,
History of
Bibliography
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Bowring J (ed.) W. Tait, Edinburgh
Bentham J 1952–4 Jeremy Bentham’s Economic Writings, 3 vols.
Stark W. (ed.). Allen & Unwin, London
Bentham J 1970 Of Laws in General. Hart H L A (ed.). Oxford
University Press, Oxford, UK
Bentham J 1977 A Comment on the Commentaries and A
Fragment on Go
ernment. Burns J H, Hart H L A (eds.).
Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK
Bentham J 1983 Constitutional Code, Vol. I. Burns J H, Rosen F
(eds.). Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK
Bentham J 1989 First Principles Preparatory to the Constitutional
Code [Schofield P (ed.)]. Oxford University Press, Oxford,
UK
Bentham J 1995 Colonies, Commerce and Constitutional Law:
Rid Yoursel
es of Ultramaria and Other Writings on Spain and
Spanish America. Schofield P. (ed.). Oxford University Press,
Oxford, UK
Bentham J 1996 An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and
Legislation. Burns J H, Hart H L A (eds.). Oxford University
Press, Oxford, UK
Bentham J 1997 De l’ontologie et autres textes sur les fictions
1997, P. Schofield P, Clero J-P, Laval C (eds.) Editions du
Seuil, Paris
Bentham J 1968–81 Correspondence, vols. 1–5. Athlone Press,
London
Bentham J 1984–2000 Correspondence, vols. 6–11. Clarendon
Press, Oxford, UK
Dinwiddy J 1989 Bentham. Oxford University Press, Oxford,
UK

Halevy E 1952 The Growth of Philosophic Radicalism, 2nd edn.,
Morris M (trans.). Faber and Faber, London
Harrison R 1983 Bentham. Routledge and Kegan Paul, London
Hart H L A 1982 Essays on Bentham. Oxford University Press,
Oxford, UK
Kelly P J 1990 Utilitarianism and Distributi
e Justice. Oxford
University Press, Oxford, UK
Mack M 1968 Bentham, Jeremy, in International Encyclopedia
of Social Science, Vol. 2, pp. 55–8. Macmillan, New York
Parekh B (ed.) 1993 Jeremy Bentham: Critical Assessments,
4 vols. Routledge, London
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Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK
Rosen F 1983 Jeremy Bentham and Representati
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W. L. Twining
Copyright # 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd.
All rights reserved.
Bereavement
The term ‘bereavement’ is derived from the Latin
word rumpere (to break, to carry, or tear away), and
refers to the objective situation of a person who has
suffered the loss of someone significant. ‘Grief’ is
derived from the Latin gra
are (to weigh down), and
refers to the emotional experience of a number of
psychological, behavioral, social, and physical reac-
tions to one’s loss. The word ‘mourning’ is derived
from the Latin word memor (mindful). It refers to
actions expressive of grief which are shaped by social
and cultural mourning practices and expectations.
Pointing to the timeless message of the original
meanings of these terms, Jeter (1983) commented that
‘as the ancients, people today surviving the death of a
family member do feel robbed, weighted down, and
are mindful of the past, knowing that life will never be
the same’ (p. 219). But how do individuals cope with
such an experience? To address this question, the
models and approaches that seem most influential to
the current understanding of bereavement and grief
are examined. The discussion begins with a review of
the traditional views on bereavement, and then turns
to the more recent developments in research and
theorizing that have changed basic ways of looking at
grief.
1. Traditional Views
Several different theoretical formulations have made
important contributions to the current state of knowl-
edge about loss and grief (for a more detailed review
see Rando 1993). The first major contribution that is
generally referred to as a classic in the field of
International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences
Berea
ement
bereavement was Freud’s paper, ‘Mourning and mel-
ancholia.’ According to Freud (1957), the psycho-
logical function of grief is to withdraw emotional
energy (cathexis) and become detached from the loved
one (decathexis). The underlying idea of this for-
mulation is that people have a limited amount of
energy at their disposal. Consequently, only by freeing
up bound energy will the person be able to reinvest in
new relationships and activities. Freud believed that
the mourner has to work through the grief (grief work
hypothesis) by carefully reviewing thoughts and mem-
ories of the deceased (hypercathexis). He maintained
that although the process of working through causes
intense distress, it is necessary in order to achieve
detachment from the loved one.
The second theoretical formulation that has been
highly influential was advanced by John Bowlby. In
his attachment model of grief, Bowlby (1980) inte-
grates ideas from psychoanalysis, ethology, and from
the literature on human development. Fundamental to
his view is the similarity between the mourning
behavior of adults and primates, and children’s re-
action to early separation from the mother. He
considers grief to be a form of separation distress that
triggers attachment behavior such as angry protest,
crying, and searching for the lost person. The aim of
these behaviors is maintenance of the attachment or
reunion, rather than withdrawal. However, in the case
of a permanent loss the biological function of assuring
proximity with attachment figures becomes dys-
functional. Consequently, the bereaved person
struggles between the opposing impulses of activated
attachment behavior and the need to survive without
the loved one. Bowlby believed that in order to deal
with these opposing forces, the mourner must go
through four stages of grief: initial numbness, dis-
belief, or shock; yearning or searching for the lost
person, accompanied by anger and protest; despair
and disorganization as the bereaved gives up the
search, accompanied by feelings of depression and
lethargy; and reorganization or recovery as the loss is
accepted, and an active life is resumed. Emphasizing
the survival value of attachment behavior, Bowlby
was the first to give a plausible explanation for
responses such as searching or anger in grief.
A number of other theorists have proposed that
bereaved individuals go through certain stages in
coming to terms with the loss. One stage theory that
has received a great deal of attention is Kubler-Ross’
model, which addresses people’s reaction to their own
impending death. Kubler-Ross claims that individuals
go through stages of denial, anger, bargaining, de-
pression, and ultimately acceptance. It was her model
that has popularized stage theories of bereavement.
For the past several years, stage models like Kubler-
Ross’ have been taught in medical, nursing, and social
work schools. These models also have appeared in
articles in newspapers and magazines written for
bereaved persons and their families.
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ISBN: 0-08-043076-7