Importance of Bentham in

History of Political Thought

Bentham holds a distinctive place in the history of political thought. He was more a legal
reformer and jurist rather than a political philosopher. He had nothing original in his political
doctrine and also he did not create new ideas. Bentham was the first to establish the
utilitarian school of thought. Maxey said, “Here was a doctrine to rock the foundations
of all accredited political theory. With ruthless logic he brushed aside the ancient
varieties of both radical and conservative thought; had erased all distinction in
principle between free and despotic politics: had put it down that divine, feudal
right, historical right, natural right and constitutional right equally and like were
rubbish and nonsense. There was no right to rule and no right to be free, there
was only the fact of power and the circumstances which made that power a fact.”

Influence of Utilitarianism:
Utilitarianism, a British gift to political philosophy, represented a British reaction against the
value generalities about mutual rights and social contract and the mystic idealism of the
German political thinkers. It brought political theory back from the abstractions of the Age
of Reform to the level of concrete realities. The utilitarian philosophers particularly Bentham
and Austin rendered valuable service to political thought. They were the thinkers who
viewed society not from the ivory tower of isolation but from close participation. They were
not idealistic, they were not utopian, they were not visionary and their philosophy was not
transcendental. They built a new theory of government according to which government was
based not on contract but on the habit of obedience of utility.

Achievements of Bentham:
Bentham was a true practical reformer and a great smasher of political evils in his age. He
took keen interest in the political life of his country. Bentham and his followers are mainly
responsible for the parliamentary reforms in England during the nineteenth century like the
Municipal Reform Act of 1835. The following reforms are also due to Bentham’s suggestion:

1. Reform of law and legal procedure

2. University education became universal
3. Establishment of trade union

His theory of law established the point of view of analytic jurisprudence, which was almost
the only system of the subject generally known to English and American lawyers throughout
the nineteenth century.

Bentham contributed, sometimes on the request, sometimes as volunteer to the revision of

the legal codes of many countries. In 1811 he made a formal proposal to President Madison
to draw up a scientific code of law for the USA. Later he made a similar offer to the Czar of
Russia and to the Governor of Pennsylvania, and in 1822 he appealed to “all nations
professing opinions.” His confidence in his ability to create a system of laws guaranteed to
promote the greatest good of greatest number was unbounded.

Bentham’s writings became popular in many countries. His doctrines were very popular in
Spain, Russia, and Iberian Peninsula and in several parts of South America. His ideas were
used by the leaders of the national movements that defeated the Holy Alliance and created
new nations on the ruins of the Spanish and Turkish Empires. Such was the tremendous
influence which Bentham exercised in the History of Political Thought.

Bentham’s Views on Rights and Duties

Bentham discarded natural rights to the individuals. But he did not kill the concept of
natural rights. Bentham totally denied the existence of natural law, holding that law is the
expression of the sovereign will in the shape of a command. This sovereign was absolute
and omnipotent against which individuals possessed no natural rights nor did they have any
legal right to show resistance against it.

Bentham was a passionate champion for the existence of freedom and equality but he would
not base them natural law. He supported for the existence of an authority for the purpose to
enforce rights by imposing penalties in case of violation. Neither law of nature or natural
rights could impose limitations on the unlimited absolute powers of sovereign authority. The
only conceivable imposition to the authority could possibly be made by effective resistance
by the determined subjects.

It is queer to note that, though Bentham denied natural rights, yet he could not disregard
the right of private property. He advocated it for its preservation on the basis of general
utility. The happiness of the individual depended upon security, subsistence, abundance and
equality. Security includes liberty, safety and property of the individual. Thus the legal
reformer recognizes the right of property. He prefers security to liberty.

Kinds of Rights:

1. Legal Rights:
A vivid and intelligible expression means a faculty of action sanctioned by the will of a
supreme law-maker in a political society.

2. Moral Rights:
It means vivid and intelligible expression than the other. Its sanction is the opinion or
feeling of a group of persons who cannot be precisely identified, but who nevertheless are
able to make their collective or over age will unmistakably manifest.

3. Natural Rights:
It is a term commonly used without any definite meaning or any form of usefulness. Nature
is a vague and indefinite entity. It may indeed be used as synonymous with God. In any
other sense it denotes something that cannot be thought as endowed with will, and is
incapable of making law. “Natural Rights” is a phrase that can contribute only confusion in a
national system of political science.

Kinds of Duties:
According to Bentham, duties of following kinds:
1. Political Duty:
It is determined by the penalty which a definitely known person i.e., a political superior will
inflict for the violation of certain rights.

2. Religious Duty:
It is determined by the punishment to be inflicted by a definitely known being i-e the
Creator.

3. Moral Duty:
It depends upon circumstances hardly certain and definite enough to be called punishment,
yet such as to create an unpleasant state of mind in the person concerned, by putting in
disagreeable relations with that infinite body of individuals known as the community in
general.

Bentham denied natural rights and natural law, yet he carried both these things in his
political philosophy. Sabine said, “The liberal elements in Bentham’s Philosophy
resided largely in its tacit premises. When he observed that one man is worth just
the same as another man or that in calculating the greatest happiness, each
person is ‘to count for one and no one more than one,’ he was obviously borrowing
the principle of equality from natural law.”
__________________
Kon Kehta hy k Main Gum-naam ho jaon ga
Main tu aik Baab hn Tareekh mein Likha jaon ga

Bentham’s Views on Sovereignty and

Government

Bentham empowered the sovereign with unlimited powers to legislate all and everything.
The supreme government authority, though not infinite must unavoidably, be allowed to
infinite unless limited by express convention. The only possible restraint on the sovereign
authority is his own anticipation of popular resistance, based upon popular interests.
Bentham firmly believed in the written constitutions as guarantees of rational governments,
but he was against any bill of rights, limitations upon the powers to amend the constitution
and all other devices for restraining the supreme authority and regarded them unsound in
theory and worthless in practice. He said that rights emanated from the supreme authority
of the state, i-e, the sovereign. The sovereign was not bound to respect any individual
rights. A government was liberal and despotic according to the arrangement of distribution
and application of supreme power.

Rights of Resistance:
Bentham thought that a subject had no legal right to show resistance or revolt against
sovereign. Their legal duty is unconditioned obedience to the sovereign. But a subject has a
moral right and a moral duty to resist his sovereign if the utility of resistance were greater
than the evil of resistance. The exercise of his unlimited powers by the sovereign would
depend on considerations of utility.

Government:
Bentham believed that in the long run a representative democracy was a more suitable form
of government than any other to secure the greatest happiness of the greatest number. The
main thing is that the government should be an agency of good, i-e, of happiness and not of
evil. The extension, duration and intensity of government power should be properly
restricted and de-limited with a view to secure the maximum of happiness and pleasures.

Bentham seems reluctant to agree with Blackstone’s characterization of the British

constitution as perfect, and suggested some amendments to it. He was for the promulgation
of universal manhood suffrage, annual parliaments and voting by ballot. He disliked oth the
monarchy and the House of Lords in Britain. A republican government was best because it
ensured efficiency, economy and supremacy of the people and brought about the greatest
good of the greatest number on the basis of the identity of interests between the ruler and
the ruled. Democratic constitution is presented by him.

Theory of Punishment:
Bentham held that punishment should be preventive and corrective rather than coercive and
retaliatory. It should be calculated to prevent the spread of evil and to secure the extension
of good. Punishment must not be inflicted where it was ineffective, groundless, needless or
unprofitable. It should be obviously justifiable and proportionate to the offence committed
but it must be sufficient to secure its ends. It ought to be able to prevent the offender from
repeating the offence. It should be individualized, qualitatively and quantitatively, to suit the
individual offender. The basic principles of punishment are:

1. Equable
2. Exemplary
3. Frugal of Pain
4. Remissible
5. Compensatory
6. Reformatory
7. Popular
8. Certain and not severe

According to Bentham, the only valid test of the adequacy of a punishment was its ability to
secure public welfare. He believed that the English criminal law was inhuman. He was in
favor of the reform of the criminal and the prisons and suggested the building of his moral
Panopticon, a wheel-shaped building for the housing and proper observation of the
criminals. He had a great faith in education as he wanted to bring about adult franchise, a
responsible executive, universal education and a representative parliament.