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Bentham on Peace and War*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 January 2009

Extract

One of the most neglected aspects of Bentham's thought is his opposition to war. His views on this subject have been sketched out in a number of studies, but they have never been examined in any detail. Interested scholars have tended to base their assessments on a narrow range of sources. Most have relied on the four brief essays, collectively entitled ‘Principles of International Law’, which were published in John Bowring's edition of Bentham's Works. More particularly, they have leaned heavily on just one of these essays, ‘A Plan for an Universal and Perpetual Peace’. The aim of this paper is to present a much fuller picture of Bentham's views by supplementing relevant material in the international law essays with ideas drawn from Bentham's other works and unpublished papers.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1989

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Footnotes

*

I should like to thank Dr. John Dinwiddy, Dr. Fred Rosen, Dr. Philip Schofield, and Mrs. Janet Semple for information and advice.

References

1 See Beales, A. C. F., The History of Peace, London, 1931, p. 39Google Scholar; Kayser, E. L., The Grand Social Enterprise, New York, 1932, pp. 66–7Google Scholar; Hemleben, S. J., Plans for Peace through Six Centuries, Chicago, 1943, pp. 82–7Google Scholar; Schwarzenberger, G., ‘Bentham's Contribution to International Law and Organization’, Jeremy Bentham and the Law, ed. Keeton, G. W. and Schwarzenberger, G., London, 1948, pp. 152–84Google Scholar; Baumgardt, David, Bentham and the Ethics of Today, Princeton, 1952, pp. 158–62, 473–5Google Scholar; Kinsley, F. H., Power and the Pursuit of Peace, Cambridge, 1963, pp. 81–6Google Scholar; Howard, Michael, War and the Liberal Conscience, Oxford, 1981, pp. 32–5.Google Scholar

2 The Works of Jeremy Bentham, ed. Bowring, John, 11 vols., Edinburgh, 1843, ii. 537–60Google Scholar. Kayser, Schwarzenberger, and Baumgardt, all in varying degrees Bentham specialists, used other sources too; but none of them was primarily concerned with giving a detailed view of Bentham's ideas on peace and war.

3 Bowring, , ii. 546–60Google Scholar. Extracts were reproduced in Benthamiana, ed. Burton, John Hill, Edinburgh, 1843, pp. 3540, 41–3Google Scholar, and the whole ‘Plan’ was reprinted directly from Bowring in 1927 and 1939. It was also included in Everett, Charles W.'s Jeremy Bentham, London, 1966, pp. 195229.Google Scholar

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7 ‘Projet Forme Entregens’, UC xxxiii. 82Google Scholar; ‘Projet Militaire’, ibid., 84–5. This material was used in Traités de législation civile et pénale, ed. Dumont, P. É. L., 2 vols., Paris, 1802, i. 331, 338Google Scholar (Bowring, , iii. 201, 202).Google Scholar

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10 Of Laws in General, ed. Hart, H. L. A., London, 1970 (CW), pp. 245–46Google Scholar. See also ‘Indirect Legislation’, UC lxxxvii. 3Google Scholar. This may not of course mean much in itself. Even as peace-loving a man as Richard Cobden occasionally used warlike imagery. See the copies of his letters to Wilson, George, chairman of the Anti-Corn Law League, 3 03 1842, 28 02 1852, 22 03 1857Google Scholar, Cobden papers 59–61, West Sussex Record Office, Chichester.

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14 ‘Panopticon’, ‘E. India Company’, 02 1794Google Scholar, UC cviia. 71Google Scholar. See also ‘Panopticon’, n.d., UC cxixa. 107Google Scholar, where Bentham argues that popular anti-military feelings are encouraged by rulers as a means of turning soldiers against the people.

15 First Principles (CW), pp. 183–86.Google Scholar

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19 Bentham's thinking might have been similar to that expressed much earlier in a letter to Abbot, John Farr of 12/23 09 1787Google Scholar, in which he compared Samuel's military activities in Russia with his stepbrother Charles Abbot's progress as a lawyer (Correspondence (CW), iii. 568):Google Scholar

Remember me affectionately to Charles. He is taking great strides, I make no doubt, towards the top of his nasty prostitute profession. I will not pretend to wish that families may be ruined for his sake, any more than that Turks may have their throats cut for Sam's: all I can wish is, that if Turks must be killed, Sam may have some share in the killing of them: and that if Christians must be plunder'd, Charles may have a good finger in the plunder pie.

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29 BL Add. MSS 30,151, fo. 12.

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38 ‘Manual’, ‘Col. & Navy Brouillon’, UC xvii. 77.Google Scholar

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69 UC xxv. 4, 124Google Scholar (Bowring, , ii. 539, 544).Google Scholar

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72 UC xxv. 106Google Scholar. Much later, in a letter to de Mora, José Joaquín of 11 1820Google Scholar, Bentham went out of his way not to use the word ‘glorious’ on the ground that it ‘is so stained by blood and vanity’. UC xiii. 43.Google Scholar

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79 UC xxv. 124Google Scholar (Bowling, , ii. 544–45).Google Scholar

80 UC xxv. 134Google Scholar (Bowring, , ii. 546Google Scholar; Stark, , i. 211Google Scholar). See also UC xxv. 110Google Scholar and The Public Advertiser, 15–16 06 1789Google Scholar (Bowring, , x. 207Google Scholar): ‘Of the non-necessity of all alliances to this country… my conviction is as strong as of my own existence. The fewer allies, the more friends.’

81 UC xxv. 110.Google Scholar

82 Ibid., 132 (Bowring, , ii. 550Google Scholar). See also Bentham to the Morellet, Abbé, 18 06 1789, The Correspondence of Jeremy Bentham, vol. iv, ed. Milne, A. T., London, 1981 (CW), p. 76.Google Scholar

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84 ‘Democracy has it a tendency to produce unjust wars?’, UC xv. 81.Google Scholar

85 UC xxv. 38Google Scholar (Bowring, , ii. 547)Google Scholar. See also UC xxv. 61–2Google Scholar and The Public Advertiser, 3–4 07 1789Google Scholar (Bowring, , x. 205)Google Scholar: ‘Secrecy is the known companion of guilt: publicity of probity and innocence.’

86 Constitutional Code, vol. i (CW), p. 426.Google Scholar

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96 Ibid., fos. 15–16.

97 Ibid., fo. 12.

98 UC xxv. 35, 132Google Scholar (Bowring, , ii. 554)Google Scholar. See also UC cix. 2Google Scholar, where Bentham wrote of an ‘Areopagus—or European Diet’.

99 BL Add. MSS 30, 151, fos. 15–16.

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102 Ibid., fos. 17–18.

103 Bentham had read The Letters of Valens, London, 1777Google Scholar, now attributed to William Burke, an exposition of the opposition case in the American war. Bentham's copy, with annotations and underlinings, is at BL shelf mark 08138 dd. 50 (7).

104 Rights of Man, Pt. I, London, 1791: Harmondsworth, 1984 edn., p. 145.Google Scholar

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106 SirSteuart, James, An Inquiry into the Principles of Political Oeconomy, 2 vols., London, 1767, i. 448Google Scholar; Bentham, to Anderson, , 28 05 1783Google Scholar, Correspondence (CW), iii. 166.Google Scholar

107 Kant, Immanuel, Perpetual Peace and other Essays, ed. Humphrey, Ted, Indianapolis and Cambridge, Mass., 1983, p. 116Google Scholar; Paine, , Rights of Man, Pt. I, pp. 146–47Google Scholar; Price, Richard, Observations on the Importance of the American Revolution, London, 1784, pp. 1415.Google Scholar

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Significantly, perhaps, when Bentham wrote ‘A Plan for an Universal and Perpetual Peace’ he mused: ‘This belongs partly to Constitutional partly to International Law— But principally and more obviously to the latter—and therefore had best be introduced under that head.’ (UC xxv. 120Google Scholar.) From this it seems that he even saw the ‘Plan’—which was clearly provoked by the immediate political situation—as fitting into his general scheme.

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115 I am working on this subject and hope soon to be able to present my findings.