Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dsjbd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-30T20:46:04.171Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Helvétius and the Problems of Utilitarianism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 January 2009

D. W. Smith
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
Discussion
Information
Utilitas , Volume 5 , Issue 2 , November 1993 , pp. 275 - 289
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1993

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 De l'esprit, Paris, 1758, 4to, (henceforth E.), pp. i–iiGoogle Scholar. The translations, which are mine, are not slavishly literal.

2 De l'homme, London, 1773, 2 vols. (639; 760 pp.)Google Scholar, (henceforth H.), i. 91.

3 H., i. 333Google Scholar. Henceforth, references for allusions to and quotations from Helvétius's two works will be given in one note for each paragraph.

4 E., p. 322Google Scholar; H., ii. 405.Google Scholar

5 Shackleton, R., ‘The “greatest happiness of the greatest number”: the history of Bentham's phrase’, Studies on Voltaire, xc (1972), 1466Google Scholar. See H., i. 73.Google Scholar

6 E., pp. 220–1Google Scholar; cf. H., i. 524Google Scholar; ii. 406.

7 E., p. 163Google Scholar; p. 46; H., i. 137Google Scholar. n.31; ii. 499; E., p. ivGoogle Scholar; H., i., p. iii.Google Scholar

8 Hayer, Père J. N. H., La Religion vengée, 12 vols., Paris, 1757–1760, vi. 304Google Scholar. See also de M. d'Autrey, H. J. B. F., Idées sur la loi naturelle, Amsterdam, 1759, p. 15.Google Scholar

9 See Rosenberg, A., Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Providence: an Interpretive Essay, Sherbrooke, 1987, ch. 2 and 3.Google Scholar

10 E., p. 56Google Scholar; p. 313; H., ii. 72Google Scholar; ii. 72 n.b.

11 de Beaumont, C., Mandement de Monseigneur l'archevêque de Paris, portant condamnation d'un livre qui a pour titre, De l'esprit, Paris, 1758, p. 15Google Scholar. Cf. Hayer, , vii. 209–10Google Scholar; Lettres à M.*** traduite de l'anglois, Amsterdam, 1759, p. 42Google Scholar; Journal de Trévoux, 11 1758, pp. 2845–6.Google Scholar

12 E., p. 105Google Scholar (cf. H., i. 206–7Google Scholar; i. 605); H., ii. 286 n.17Google Scholar; ii. 282 n. 9.

13 Voltaire, , Oeuvres complètes, ed. Moland, L., 52 vols., Paris, 1877–1885, xxvii. 399–400.Google Scholar

14 H., i. 482–3Google Scholar (cf. H., ii. 72 n.b)Google Scholar; E., p. 80Google Scholar; E., p. 79Google Scholar n. c; H., ii. 515Google Scholar (cf. H., ii. 719).Google Scholar

15 This example is taken from Diderot, 's untitled work published as ‘Diderot et l'abbé Barthelémy’, Revue mondiale, cxxxv (1960), 261Google Scholar; cf. E., p. 79Google Scholar n.c. John Stuart Mill uses this example of a lie ‘expedient for some immediate object, some temporary purpose’. Though Mill acknowledges that all lies undermine both the credibility and the character of the teller, as well as impairing general trust in men's assertions, he recognizes that ‘after weighing conflicting utilities against one another’, we can justify some lies. (‘Utilitarianism’, in Essays on Ethics, Religions and Society, ed. Robson, John M., Toronto, 1969Google Scholar, Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, x. 223).Google Scholar

16 H., ii. 459Google Scholar (cf. E., p. vGoogle Scholar; H., ii. 462Google Scholar, n. a; ii. 472; ii. 499); E., p. vGoogle Scholar (cf. E., p. 309 n. b)Google Scholar; H., ii. 466.Google Scholar

17 Diderot, , Oeuvres, ed. Assézat, J. and Tourneux, M., 20 vols., Paris, 1875–1877, iv. 62.Google Scholar

18 H., ii. 484Google Scholar; ii. 224; i. 76.

19 For further discussion of this subject, see Crocker, L. G., ‘The Problem of Truth and Falsehood in the Age of Enlightenment’, Journal of the History of Ideas, xiv (1953), 573–603Google Scholar; and my ‘The “Useful Lie” in Helvétius and Diderot’, Diderot Studies, xiv (1971), 185–95.Google Scholar

20 Four Essays on Liberty, Oxford, 1969.Google Scholar

21 H., i 91–2Google Scholar (cf. ii. 399–400; ii. 431–2 n.a).

22 H., i 559Google Scholar; E., p. viGoogle Scholar; H., ii. 500Google Scholar; ii. 506 n.b; E., p. 105Google Scholar; H., ii. 607 n.26Google Scholar; ii. 62 n.a.

23 E., p. 214Google Scholar; p. 224, 226 n.c; H., ii. 650Google Scholar; i. 572.

24 H., ii. 286 n.17Google Scholar; ii. 205 n.19; E., p. 147Google Scholar; H., i 559Google Scholar; i. 395 n.24; i. 597 n.7; ii. 652.

25 H., ii. 280 n.7Google Scholar; ii. 157 n.a; i. 541; i. 331; E., p. 25 n.eGoogle Scholar; H., i. 78.Google Scholar

26 H., ii. 406–7Google Scholar, ii. 399–400.

27 H., i. p. ixGoogle Scholar; E., p. 378.Google Scholar

28 E., p. 238Google Scholar; H., i. 486Google Scholar; ii. 18; i. 408–9; E., p. 275–6Google Scholar; H., ii. 138Google Scholar; E., p. 323–4Google Scholar; H., i. 219Google Scholar; i. 604; ii. 635; ii. 18. n.b; i. 91; ii. 653.

29 H., i. 82Google Scholar (cf. H., i. 287–8Google Scholar; i. 367); ii. 506; E., p. 523Google Scholar n.a (cf. H., i. 366–7)Google Scholar; H., ii. 506Google Scholar; E., p. 6 n.dGoogle Scholar; p. 561; H., ii. 228Google Scholar; H., i. 524.Google Scholar

30 H., i. 5–6Google Scholar; ii. 611, 616.

31 H., ii. 618–19Google Scholar; E., p. 80–1; p. 229.

32 E., p. 36–7Google Scholar; H., ii. 38Google Scholar; E., p. 159Google Scholar (cf. p. 618); H., ii. 268.Google Scholar

33 H., i. 223Google Scholar; ii. 625–9. This belief in public education separates the French and English Lockeans. Priestley and Godwin, like Mill, shared Helvétius's confidence in the power of education to mould men's minds, and, for that very reason, as dissenters, feared public education as an instrument of state despotism. See Passmore, J. A., ‘The Malleability of Man in Eighteenth-century Thought’, in Aspects of the Eighteenth Century, ed. Wasserman, E. R., Baltimore, 1965, p. 44–5.Google Scholar

34 E., p. 75Google Scholar; H., ii. 39Google Scholar; i. 412.

35 E., p. 632.Google Scholar

36 H., i. 533Google Scholar (cf. E., p. 68)Google Scholar; H., ii. 457–8.Google Scholar

37 H., ii. 270Google Scholar; i. 524–5; ii. 756 n.6; ii. 273.

38 Rousseau, , Du contrat social, part II. ch. 7.Google Scholar

39 Le Siècle de Louis XIV, ch. 10 Oeuvres complètes, xiv. 243.Google Scholar

40 H., i 132Google Scholar n.21 (cf. i. 544, i. 610 n.32); i. pp. xi–xii; i. 390–1 n.20; E., p. 406Google Scholar; p. 393 n. e, p. 467.

41 E., p. 384, p. 407Google Scholar; H., ii. 210 n.26Google Scholar; ii. 157–8 n.a; i. 507–8. De l'homme should not be read in the Didot 1795 edition, reprinted by Olms, since its editor, Lefebvre de La Roche, was an Anglophobe at this time and he cut out most passages which idealized the English political system. See my ‘Helvétius—problèmes de recherches’, Revue de l'Université de Bruxelles, new series, xxiv (1972), 144–56.Google Scholar