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Bentham's Ideal Republic

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 November 2014

Thomas P. Peardon
Thomas P. Peardon*
Affiliation:
Columbia University
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Extract

Seldom read today, Bentham's Constitutional Code (1820-1832) nevertheless ranks among the most significant political treatises of the last century. It contains an extended statement of the ideas of Philosophic Radicalism on the eve of their partial victory in the Reform Bill of 1832. It must be nearly, it may be actually, the last work of any important figure of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment. At the same time it is one of the first works in which through the fog of doctrinaire radicalism there can be seen fairly clearly the characteristic features of the contemporary state with its extreme centralization, its myrmidonian corps of bureaucrats, its elaborate administrative apparatus, and its miscellaneous services to the public. There are few books of a century ago in which the contemporary political scientist, provided he can overcome initial hurdles of style and manner, ought to feel more at home, if only because he will find there the twentieth-century student's interest in institutions and the emphasis on administration that plays so large a part in the study of government today.

The Constitutional Code may be regarded as Bentham's view of the best possible commonwealth—a Utilitarian Utopia. Like all Utopias it was the product of disappointment with the here and now. It is well known that Bentham turned to systematic consideration of constitutional questions only after repeated failure to persuade the rulers of England to accept his legal reforms and especially his Panopticon scheme for a model prison.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science/Revue canadienne de economiques et science politique , Volume 17 , Issue 2 , May 1951 , pp. 184 - 203
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association 1951

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References

1 The Works of Jeremy Bentham, Published under the Superintendence of His Executor, John Bowring (11 vols., Edinburgh, 1828–1943), IX Google Scholar, Constitutional Code. This will be referred to hereafter as Code.

2 Bentham, , Works, X, 66.Google Scholar

3 Code, 407.

4 Ibid., 9.

5 Codification Proposal, Addressed by Jeremy Bentham to All Nations Professing Liberal Opinions, 1822. Works, IV, 535–94.Google Scholar

6 Works, II, 267–74.Google Scholar

7 General treatises on the development of political thought seldom pay much attention to the Code. Exceptions are von Mohl's, Robert Die Geschichte und Literatur der Staats-wissenschaften (Erlangen, 1858), III, 623–7Google Scholar, and Engelmann's, Geza Political Philosophy from Plato to Jeremy Bentham (New York, 1927), 329–83.Google Scholar In the latter work, the digest of Bentham's ideas by Engelmann and the introduction thereto by Oscar Jaszi are based on the Code, especially Book I.

8 Code, 5.

9 Ibid., 5. This is the political expression of a psychological principle of self-preference, defined by Bentham as “that propensity of human nature, by which, on the occasion of every act he exercises, every human being is led to pursue that line of conduct which, according to his view of the case, taken by him at the moment, will be in the highest degree contributory to his own greatest happiness, whatsoever be the effect of it, in relation to the happiness of other similar beings, any or all of them taken together.”

10 Concerning Bentham's attitude towards human nature, Bowring said: “Of human nature, Bentham had an exalted opinion. He once told me he had known many men who held honours and riches cheap, in comparison with the delight of doing useful service to their race.” Works, XI, 77.Google Scholar

11 Code, 46. References to the Code will be given hereafter in the text.

12 Tom Paine had made the same point more succinctly in Common Sense: “There is something exceedingly ridiculous in the composition of monarchy; it first excludes a man from the means of information, yet empowers him to act in cases where the highest judgment is required. The state of a King shuts him from the World, yet the business of a King requires him to know it thoroughly… .” The Political Writings of Thomas Paine (Boston, 1870), I, 22–3.Google Scholar

13 Compare Jaszi, in Engelmann, , Political Philosophy, 336–7.Google Scholar

14 He is said to have anticipated Vaihinger's Philosophy of As-If. Ogden, C. K., Bentham's Theory of Fictions (New York, 1932), xxxi–xxxii.Google Scholar

15 Bentham was, of course, a strong believer in women's rights. He thought that education should be fully open to them and he favoured female doctors. He argued strongly in favour of the principle of woman suffrage, basing his case partly on their right to an equal share in the general happiness, partly on their right to compensation for physical weakness and suffering, partly on the probability that legislators would pay more attention to women's rights (or, rather, wrongs) if women voted, partly on experience (successful female monarchs). He would not, however, admit women to the legislature or executive because “the reciprocal seduction that would ensue in the case of a mixture of sexes … would lead to nothing but confusion and ridicule.” Code, 106.

16 The same suggestion was made recently by Sir Richard Acland of the Common Wealth Party: “I most earnestly recommend the suggestion that each member, after his election, shall be allowed to choose a deputy—or Parliamentary Private Secretary—whose views, in his judgment, correspond as closely as possible with his own. These two should work as a team. And either but not both of them should have the right to speak and vote in all sessions of the House or its committees.” SirAcland, Richard, What It Will Be Like in the New Britain (London, 1942), 170.Google Scholar

17 Works, V, 17 Google Scholar, quoted by Halévy, E., The Growth of Philosophic Radicalism (New York, 1928), 398.Google Scholar

18 Halévy, Elie, The Growth of Philosophic Radicalism, 431.Google Scholar

19 Redlich, J. and Hirst, F. W., Local Government in England (London, 1903), I, 95–6Google Scholar, quoted by Dicey, A. V., Lectures on the Relation between Law and Opinion in England during the Nineteenth Century (London, 1920), 307, note 1.Google Scholar

20 Halévy, E., The Growth of Philosophic Radicalism; 408.Google Scholar

21 “It was probably in order to yield to Dumont's entreaties, and to reconcile his personal conviction with the demands of the surrounding liberalism, that Bentham conceived in 1823 the formula of the quasi-jury.” Ibid., 401.

22 See below, pp. 198-9.

23 On public opinion, see below, pp. 200-3.

24 Halévy, , The Growth of Philosophic Radicalism, 411.Google Scholar

25 Secrecy was permissible in certain phases of the work of the Army, Navy, Preventive Service, Health, Foreign Relations, and Judiciary Departments. Bentham also favoured the secret ballot.

26 For further remarks on Bentham and the problem of publicity, see Friedrich, C. J., Constitutional Government and Politics (New York, 1937), 417 ff.Google Scholar

27 Code, 232-53. This section extends to some 20,000 words. Among the many interesting suggestions is that of a manifold system of writing so that documents would exist in several exact duplicates.