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Hayek on Bentham

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 January 2009

Allison Dube
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Extract

F. A. Hayek has had great influence upon recent political thought. Though he presents no organized account of Bentham his many references, mostly uncomplimentary, create the impression that Bentham's presentation was characteristically ‘crudely expressed’ and ‘naive’, and that Benthamite constructivism has been a major threat to individual liberty and a precursor of totalitarian social control. While Hayek has made a valuable contribution to the study of political ideas, this caricature has probably discouraged his readers from studying Bentham. It will be argued, however, that Bentham and Hayek share much common ground (and indeed, that Bentham's work anticipated Hayek's in many areas), and that an appreciation of the ways in which Bentham's position differs from Hayek's may contribute to a useful critique of Hayek's system.

Type
Research Article
Information
Utilitas , Volume 2 , Issue 1 , May 1990 , pp. 71 - 87
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1990

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References

1 Hayek, F. A., Law, Legislation and Liberty 3 vols., London 1982 (hereafter cited as ILL) ii. 45; iii. 32.Google Scholar

2 LLL i. 2Google Scholar. This ‘fundamental insight’ and the other two Hayek identifies, that ‘a self-generating or spontaneous order and an organization are distinct, and that their distinctiveness is related to the two different kinds of rules or laws which prevail in them’, and that ‘the predominant model of liberal democratic institutions, in which the same representative body lays down the rules of just conduct and directs government, necessarily leads to a gradual transformation of the spontaneous order of a free society into a totalitarian system conducted in the service of some coalition of organized interests’, are examined in relation to Bentham's system at greater length in Dube, A., ‘The Theme of Acquisitiveness in Bentham's Political Thought’, Ph.D. thesis, London, 1989Google Scholar. On Hayek's system, see Gray, J., Hayek on Liberty Oxford, 1984Google Scholar, and Hoy, C., A Philosophy of Individual Freedom London, 1984Google Scholar. On the concept of the spontaneous order, see Gray, , Ch. 2, and pp. 118–25.Google Scholar

3 Both types of orders which Hayek identifies (spontaneous orders and organizations), ‘depend upon man's propensity to follow rules. Indeed, the very essence of a human order, system, or structure is that behaviour limited by rules produces patterns of intelligibility, regularity, and predictability’ (Flanagan, T., ‘F. A. Hayek on Property and Justice’, Theories of Property, Aristotle to the Present ed. Parel, A. and Flanagan, T., Waterloo, 1979, p. 337.Google Scholar

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6 Ibid., i. 52.

7 ‘For Hayek’, explains Hoy, ‘freedom is negative; it is merely the absence of coercion’ (Hoy, , p. 9.).Google Scholar

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9 As Boralevi states, ‘absolute liberty… is for Bentham simply a state of anarchy: absolute liberty cannot be the basis for a political society which affords security and hence entails coercion (as rights impose correlative duties) on its members’ (Boralevi, L. C., Bentham and the Oppressed New York, 1984, p. 182CrossRefGoogle Scholar, noting Long, D., Bentham on Liberty: Jeremy Bentham's Idea of Liberty in Relation to his Utilitarianism Toronto, 1977, p. 76CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and UC lxix. 56).Google Scholar

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18 Bentham's and Hayek's theories of property are very similar. For example, Hayek's development of the subjective theory of value of the Austrian School, in Gray's words, ‘the theory that value is conferred on resources by the subjective preferences of agents and cannot be explained as an inherent property of any asset or resource’ (Gray, , p. 16Google Scholar), is somewhat anticipated by Bentham's understanding of the self-appending of value to luxury goods. (See Bentham, Jeremy, Economic Writings ed. Stark, W., 3 vols., London, 1952–1954, iii. 84–6.)Google Scholar

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31 Ibid., referring to Constitutional Code vol. I, ed. Rosen, F. and Burns, J. H., Oxford, 1983 (CW) pp. 260–61Google Scholar. Bentham's attitude to government expenditure is analyzed in Rosen, Ch. 4.

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37 Theory of Legislation p. 120Google Scholar, noted by Boralevi, , p. 99.Google Scholar

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39 Bentham advocates a form of redistribution in Supply Without Burthen (Stark, , i. 279–367Google Scholar, or for a general view, i. 283–97), but it would be difficult to consider it as an active extraction of wealth from individuals. As it has to do with escheat, no living person actually suffers a loss. Moreover the lines of conventional inheritance—‘within the pale’ as Bentham refers to them—are largely exempt.

40 Bentham distinguishes between ‘natural’ and ‘technical’ arrangements in his writings on the arrangement of laws. A natural arrangement ‘takes such properties to characterize them by, as men in general are, by the common constitution of man's nature, disposed to attend to’. In contrast, however, once a technical arrangement has been made, the technical nomenclature supporting it ‘stands an invincible obstacle to every other than a technical arrangement’. A technical arrangement ‘governed then in this manner, by a technical nomenclature, can never be otherwise than confused and unsatisfactory’. Just as a natural arrangement invites comprehension, a technical arrangement by nature defies comprehension. Sinister interests will encourage technical arrangement—of laws, institutions, and it could be said, society itself—because this arrangement serves their seeking of advantage. Especially when expanded to include the arrangement of institutions and men themselves, Bentham's concepts of natural and technical arrangements in several ways anticipate Hayek's writings on spontaneous and made orders. (See A Comment on the Commentaries and A Fragment on Government ed. Burns, J. H. and Hart, H. L. A., London, 1977 (CW) pp. 414–16Google Scholar.) See also Twining, W.'s exposition of the natural and technical systems of law in Theories of Evidence: Bentham and Wigmore London, 1985.Google Scholar

41 Bentham's writings on sinister interest groups and their methods of operation (for example, their laying snares of deception in language), would provide useful support to Hayek's writings on the dangers of special interests to modern democracies. (See, for example, Stark, , iii. 402–12Google Scholar, and Deontology, A Table of the Springs of Action, and Article on Utilitarianism ed. Goldworth, A., Oxford, 1983 (CW) p. 65.Google Scholar

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61 Contrary to the impression left by Hayek, that Bentham took no account of men's natural unconscious or semi-conscious adoption of rules, it could be argued that it is just such an adaptation to rules which is fostered by the moral and religious sanctions. Bentham's subtle understanding of men's rule-following is also evident in the concept of the ‘habit of obedience’ which distinguishes men in a political society. On this concept see Long, , p. 34Google Scholar, and Postema, G., Bentham and the Common Law Tradition Oxford, 1986, pp. 237–42.Google Scholar

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64 Ibid., p. 433.

65 Ibid.

66 Ibid., p. 434.

67 Hume, L. J.'s account leads to this suggestion (p. 64).Google Scholar

68 For a full exposition of Bentham's theories on representative democracy, see Rosen's study.

69 LLL ii. 136.Google Scholar

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71 Ibid., p. 314. One important attitudinal change Bentham sought to encourage was the development of ‘negative benevolence’, which, in Rosen's terms, ‘is manifest in the desire not to harm others.… Impartiality is conceived as not harming others with partiality’ (Rosen, , p. 209–10Google Scholar). The closely related theme of tolerance in Bentham's writings is emphasized by Rosen, , pp. 209–11Google Scholar, Boralevi, , pp. 181–82Google Scholar, and Letwin, S., The Pursuit of Certainty Cambridge, 1965, pp. 137–54Google Scholar, and ‘Utilitarianism: A System of Political Tolerance’, Cambridge Journal, 6 (1953), 323–35.Google Scholar

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75 Buchanan, J., Freedom in Constitutional Contract College Station, 1977, pp. 25–30Google Scholar. See also Barry, N., ‘Ideas versus Interests: The Classical Liberal Dilemma’, Hayek's Serfdom Revisited London, 1984Google Scholar, and Gray, , p. 70.Google Scholar

76 LLL iii. 3.Google Scholar

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79 Bentham did not consider democracy a guarantee that the greatest happiness would be the object of government. However, he seems to have come to the view that anything other than democracy was a guarantee that the greatest happiness would not be the object. The people could best advance the greatest happiness of all because they, unlike a monarch or ruling elite, had the ‘moral aptitude’ for this task. On the concept of moral aptitude see Rosen, , pp. 48–54.Google Scholar

80 Rosen, , p. 19.Google Scholar

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83 On Bentham's desire to encourage development of men's perceptive faculties see Baumgardt, D., Bentham and the Ethics of Today Princeton, 1952, p. 250.Google Scholar

84 Hayek often uses this phrase of Adam Ferguson's.

85 As Rosen explains, Bentham regarded the ‘delay, vexation and expence’ inflicted upon citizens by government and government functionaries as a form of oppression (pp. 65–7, 109).