Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-7cvxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T08:05:42.441Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

From Bentham to Benthamism*

Part of: Historiographical Reviews

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

David Lieberman
David Lieberman
Affiliation:
University of California, Berkeley
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content.
Image of the first page of this content. For PDF version, please use the ‘Save PDF’ preceeding this image.'
Type
Historiographical Review
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 28 , Issue 1 , March 1985 , pp. 199 - 224
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1985

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Stokes, Eric, The English Utilitarians and India (Oxford, 1959), p. viiGoogle Scholar.

2 Stephen, Leslie, The English Utilitarians (3 vols. London, 1900), 1, 169Google Scholar; Mill, J. S., ‘Bentham’, in Essays on ethics, religion and society, Collected works (Toronto, 1969), x, 79Google Scholar; Neal, John, Principles of legislation from the Mss. of Jeremy Bentham (Boston, 1830), preface p. 14Google Scholar; Bowring, John, Memoirs of Bentham, in The works of Bentham (11 vols. Edinburgh, 1838–1843), x, 439Google Scholar (Works of Bentham hereafter cited as Bowring).

3 See Dicey, A. V., Lectures on the relation between law and public opinion in England during the nineteenth-century (London, 1905)Google Scholar; MacDonagh, O., ‘The nineteenth-century revolution in government, Historical Journal, 1 (1958), 52–67CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Roberts, D., ‘Jeremy Bentham and the Victorian administrative state’, Victorian Studies, II (1959), 193–210Google Scholar; for a further survey and bibliography of the debate see Taylor, A. J., Laissez-faire and state intervention in nineteenth-century Britain (London, 1972)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 Thomas, William, The philosophic radicals (Oxford, 1979), pp. 10–11Google Scholar. (Thomas's book is discussed below, pp. 221–2.)

5 The projected contents of the new Collected works of Jeremy Bentham are set out in the general preface to Bentham, , An introduction to the principles of morals and legislation, eds. Burns, J. H. and Hart, H. L. A. (London, 1970)Google Scholar. Reports on the progress of the edition and notices of other current work in the field are supplied in The Bentham Newsletter (London, 1978–)Google Scholar, published by the Bentham Committee.

6 See Burns, J. H., ‘The Bentham project’, Baird, J. D. (ed.), Editing texts of the Romantic period (Toronto, 1972), pp. 73–87Google Scholar and ’Dreams and destinations: Jeremy Bentham in 1828’, The Bentham Newsletter, I (1978), 21–30 (to which my remarks here are much indebted); Halévy, Elie, The growth of philosophic radicalism (1st edn, 3 vols. Paris, 1901–1904Google Scholar; trans. Mary Morris, London, 1972 edn).

7 Bentham memoirs, Bowring, x, 27; Burns, , ‘Dreams and destinations’, p. 25Google Scholar.

8 See Burns, , ‘Bentham project’, pp. 77–8Google Scholar and ‘Dreams and destinations’, pp. 21–2; The correspondence of Jeremy Bentham, vol. 4, ed. Milne, A. Taylor (London, 1981), p. 244Google Scholar.

9 Bentham memoirs, Bowring, x, 566.

10 Sarah Austin in 1861, cited in Ross, Janet, Three generations of Englishwomen (2 vols. London, 1888), 11, 113Google Scholar; Francis Place in 1840, cited in Wallas, Graham, The life of Francis Place (London, 1951 edn), p. 84nGoogle Scholar.

11 (William Empson),‘Jeremy Bentham’, Edinburgh Review, LXXXVIII (1843), 516Google Scholar.

12 Wallas, Graham, ‘Jeremy Bentham’, in his Men and ideas (London, 1940), p. 19Google Scholar.

13 Hart's, H. L. A. articles are collected in his Essays on Bentham (Oxford, 1982)Google Scholar. For Burns, J. H., in addition to the essays cited above (n. 6), see: Jeremy Bentham and University College (London, 1962)Google Scholar ; ‘Bentham and the French Revolution’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, ser. 5, XVI (1966), 95–114Google Scholar; The fabric of felicity: the legislator and the human condition (London, 1967)Google Scholar; ‘Bentham on sovereignty: an exploration’, Northern Ireland Legal Quarterly, XXIV (1973), 135–50Google Scholar; ‘Bentham's critique of political fallacies’, Parekh, B. C. (ed.), Jeremy Bentham: ten critical essays (London, 1974), pp. 154–67Google Scholar.

14 Bentham manuscripts, University College London, Box XXVII, fo. 140 (hereafter cited as U.C. XXVII. 140).

15 Long, Douglas G., Bentham on liberty (Toronto, 1977), pp. xi–xiv, 65–83Google Scholar.

16 Pollock, Frederick, An introduction to the history of the science of politics (London, 1890), p. 96Google Scholar.

17 Dicey, A. V., ‘Blackstone's Commentaries’, Cambridge Law Journal, IV (1932), 290–1.Google Scholar.

18 (Jeffrey, Francis), ‘Bentham, Principles de législation, par Dumont’ Edinburgh Review, IV (1804), 17Google Scholar.

19 Blackstone, William, Commentaries on the laws of England (4 vols. London, 1826 edn), III, 265–6Google Scholar.

20 Bentham, , Of laws in general, ed. Hart, H. L. A. (London, 1970), pp. 233, 246Google Scholar.

21 Bentham, , Morals and legislation, p. 305Google Scholar.

22 Ibid. pp. 6, 7.

23 Everett, Charles W., The education of Jeremy Bentham (New York, 1931), p. 196Google Scholar.

24 Letwin, Shirley Robin, The pursuit of certainty (Cambridge, 1965), p. 187Google Scholar. Bentham's Rationale of judicial evidence, edited by J. S. Mill, appeared in 1827. The first ten chapters of the Constitutional code were completed by Bentham in 1830 and the remaining parts posthumously edited by Richard Doane for the Bowring edition (Page figures taken from Bowring, VI, VII, IX.)

25 Bentham memoirs, Bowring, XI, 33.

26 The correspondence of Jeremy Bentham, vol. 3, ed. Christie, Ian R. (London, 1971), p. 618Google Scholar.

27 The correspondence of Jeremy Bentham, vol. 2 ed. Sprigge, Timothy L. S. (London, 1968), p. 188Google Scholar.

28 Bentham, , The rationale of reward (London, 1825), p. 190Google Scholar. (The work was originally edited by Dumont, as Théorie des…recompenses (Paris, 1811),Google Scholarbased on material composed in the mid-1780s.)

29 Bentham correspondence, III, 545.

30 Bentham, , Panopticon: or, the inspection-house (1st edn 1791)Google Scholar; Bowring, IV, 40.

31 For a discussion of this material see Burns, ‘Bentham and French Revolution’, and James, M. H., ‘Bentham's political writings, 1788–95’, The Bentham Newsletter, IV (1980), 22–4Google Scholar.

32 See Burns, , ‘Bentham and French Revolution’, pp. 110–14Google Scholar.

33 Bentham memoirs, Bowring, X, 250. For a full narrative of the panoptican venture see Hume, L. J., ‘Bentham's panopticon: an administrative history’, Historical Studies (University of Melbourne), XV (1973), 703–21Google Scholarand XVI (1974), 36–54.

34 So termed by Wallas, Graham, ‘Bentham’, p. 27Google Scholar.

35 For the elderly Bentham's, account see Bowring, XI, 96–107Google Scholar; for the correctives see Hume, , ‘Panopticon’, pp. 39–40, 50–4Google Scholar; Dinwiddy, J. R., ‘Bentham's transition to political radicalism’, Journal of the History of Ideas, XXXVI (1975), 683–700CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Steintrager, James, Bentham (London, 1977). pp. 44–61Google Scholar.

36 Stephen, , English Utilitarians, 1, 205Google Scholar.

37 Bentham, , Morals and legislation, pp. 5–7Google Scholar.

38 Bentham memoirs, Bowring, X, 324.

39 Ibid, X, 458.

40 See Memoirs of the life of Sir Samuel Romilly (3 vols., London, 1840), 11, 75–6Google Scholar, and Bentham, , Theory of legislation, ed. Ogden, C. K. (London, 1931), pp. xliv–lGoogle Scholar.

41 Neal, , Legislation, p. 64Google Scholar.

42 See Halévy, , Philosophic radicalism, pp. 153–4Google Scholar; Bentham's economic writings, ed. Stark, Werner (3 vols., London, 1952–1954), 111, 47–8Google Scholar.

43 Poynter, J. R., Society and pauperism: English ideas on poor relief, 1795–1834 (London, 1963), pp. 139–40Google Scholar.

44 Bentham, , Tracts on poor laws and pauper management (1st edn 1797), Bowring, VIII, 367Google Scholar.

45 Mack, Mary P., Jeremy Bentham: an odyssey of ideas, 1748–1792 (London, 1962), p. 213Google Scholar.

46 Bentham, , Pauper management, Bowring, VIII, 391Google Scholar.

47 Ibid, VIII, 436n.

48 Bentham's, classic denunciation of natural rights theory is his Anarchical fallacies (composed 1795–1796), Bowring, 11, 489–534Google Scholar . For less polemical statements, see Of laws in general, pp. 54–8; Principles of the civil code, Bowring, 1, 302–3.

49 Bentham, , Panopticon, Bowring, IV, 64Google Scholar.

50 Bentham, , Pauper management, Bowring, VIII, 398Google Scholar.

51 Ibid, VIII, 436, 439.

52 Bentham, , Civil code, Bowring, 1, 322 and 301Google Scholar ff. Even in the pauper proposal, Bentham, still maintained that, ‘The Cases in which it is not better for a man to suffer by his own will, than to be saved against his will, are neither many, nor easy to determine’: Bowring, VIII, 417Google Scholar. For a different case also presenting the panopticon as unrepresentative of Bentham's usual legislative planning, see Rosenblum, Nancy L., Bentham's theory of the modem state (Cambridge, Mass., 1978), pp. 9–20CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

53 Bentham MSS, U.C. cliva, 84, cited in Himmelfarb, , ‘Bentham's Utopia: The National Charity Company’, Journal of British Studies, X (1970), 94Google Scholar.

54 Paul, George Onesiphorus, cited in Ignatieff, Michael, A just measure of pain: the penitentiary in the industrial revolution (London, 1978), p. 120Google Scholar; and see pp. 114–42, for a suggestive discussion of the disruptive impact of 1790s radicalism on the proponents of social reform in England.

55 Bentham, , Pauper management, Bowring, VIII, 370n, 420–1Google Scholar. For similar instances of Bentham providing a conservative gloss on his contemporary reform proposals, see Supply without burthen (1st edn 1975) and ‘Circulating annuities’ (composed 1800), Bentham's economic writings, 1, 318–22, 328–37 and II, 293–300.

56 Bentham MSS, U.C. cliiia, 123, cited in Himmelfarb, , ‘Bentham's Utopia’, p. 107Google Scholar; and U.C. cliiia, 132, cited by Bahmueller, p. 183.

57 Bentham, , Plan of parliamentary reform (1st printed 1817Google Scholar, republished 1818), Bowring, III, 438–40, 445–5; Radicalism not dangerous (composed 1819–20), Bowring, in, 609.

58 There are also major editorial problems regarding the existing version of the Constitutional code in the Bowring edition; see Rosen, Frederick, ‘The Constitutional code: the new version’, The Bentham Newsletter, II (1979), 40–3Google Scholar.

59 Stephen, , English Utilitarians, 1, 283Google Scholar.

60 Wallas, , ‘Bentham as political inventor’, Men and ideas, p. 45Google Scholar.

61 See Bentham, , Leading principles ofa constitutional code (1st edn 1823), Bowring, II, 271–2Google Scholar and ‘Pannomial fragments’, Bowring, in, 211.

62 For a valuable account of these aspects of Bentham's democratic constitutionalism, see Rosen, Frederick, ‘Bentham on democratic theory’, The Bentham Newsletter, III (1979), 50–8Google Scholar , and his Jeremy Bentham and representative democracy (Oxford, 1983)Google Scholar.

63 See, as examples, Bentham's, Church-qf-Englandism and its catechism examined (London, 1817–1818)Google Scholar; Book of fallacies (1st English edn 1824), Bowring, 11, 375–487; Plan of parliamentary reform; official aptitude maximized expense minimized (1st edn 1830), Bowring, V, 263–386.

64 Bentham memoirs, Bowring, x, 539, 540, 542.

65 Bentham, , Codification proposal, addressed by Jeremy Bentham to all nations professing liberal opinions (1st edn 1822)Google Scholar, Bowritig, IV, 535–94. Bentham's 1822 decision to concentrate on the Constitutional code followed the hope that it would be adopted by the liberal governments of Spain and Portugal, a hope he successively transferred to the independence movement in Greece and the Latin American republics.

66 Neal, , Legislation, p. 24Google Scholar.

67 For other recent accounts of Bentham's Spanish American contacts and influence see McKennan, Theodora L., ‘Jeremy Bentham and the Colombian liberators’, The Americas, xxxiv (1976), 460–75Google Scholar; Schwartz, Pedro, ‘Bentham's influence in Spain, Portugal and Latin America’, The Bentham Newsletter, 1 (1978), 34–5Google Scholar; Alamira de Avila-Martel, ‘The influence of Bentham on the teaching of penal law in Chile’ and McKennan, Theodora L., ‘Benthamism in Santander's Colombia’, The Bentham Newsletter, v (1981), 22–8, 29–43Google Scholar.

68 Bentham memoirs, Boivring, x, 433, 439–44, 457.

69 See Avila-Martel, , ‘Bentham in Chile’, pp. 23–5Google Scholar, McKennan, , ‘Colombian liberators’, pp. 468–9, 473Google Scholarand ‘Benthamism in Colombia’, pp. 32–3.

70 Bentham memoirs, Boivring, x, 515.

71 For the relationship between ‘Rid yourselves of Ultramaria’ and the Constitutional code, see Burns, , ‘Bentham project’, p. 75Google Scholar, and Hume, , Bentham and bureaucracy, pp. 191–2Google Scholar. Bentham's other contemporary tracts for Iberia include On the liberty of the press and public instruction (Bowring, 11, 275–97), Three tracts relative to Spanish and Portuguese affairs, and Letters to Count Toreno (Bowring, vIII, 463–86, 487–554).

72 See above n. 3. The political and ideological context of Dicey's history of Benthamism is illuminated by Collini, Stefan in his Liberalism and sociology (Cambridge, 1979), pp. 13–42Google Scholar.

73 See particularly Gash, Norman, Politics in the age of Peel (2nd edn, Hassocks, 1977)Google Scholarand Cannon, John, Parliamentary reform (Cambridge, 1972), pp. 242–63Google Scholar.

74 For an alternative account of the radicals which shows greater regard for their doctrines and resulting practice see Hamburger, Joseph, Intellectuals in politics: John Stuart Mill and the philosophic radicals (New Haven, 1965)Google Scholar.

75 Wallas, , Place, p. 84Google Scholarn.

76 Bentham memoirs, Bowring, xi, 40; see also x, 578–81 (Bentham to Ludwig of Bavaria) and xi, 9–12 (to Wellington).

77 Bentham, , ‘A commentary on Mr Humphrey's real property code’ (1st edn 1826), Bowring, v, 389Google Scholar; and see Long, Douglas G., ‘Bentham on property’, Flanagan, T. and Parel, A. (eds.), Theories of property: Aristotle to the present (Waterloo, Ont., 1979), pp. 230–1Google Scholar.

78 Radicalism not dangerous, Bowring, in, 599–600, 613, 622.

79 Bentham memoirs, Bowring, x, 543.

80 Fragment on government, p. 421; Bentham memoirs, Bowring, x, 582–3.