Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-mp689 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-16T23:58:52.371Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Towards a Linguistic Criticism of Legal Hegemony: Some remarks on ‘Bentham v. Judges and Co.’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 February 2019

Guillaume Tusseau
Get access

Abstract

Bentham’s hatred of the major elements of the legal culture of his times is legendary. He thoroughly criticised the notions of natural law and social contract that were at the roots of Blackstone’s legal doctrine as so many fictions. His criticism also centred, in a more technical manner, on several fictions that belonged to the ordinary legal reasoning of the common lawyers. Substantive fictions such as the crime of grand larceny and procedural fictions such as the procedure of ejectment were everyday fare for legal practitioners. By unveiling how these fictions, understood as linguistic devices, operated, Bentham highlighted how they contributed to debase the law’s addressee’s practical reasoning in order to reinforce her subjection to the class of jurists. His contempt for artificial (but purposeful) legal technicalities allows to understand how full blown the hermeneutics of suspicion he developed against the hegemony of legalism (which will sound familiar to Marxists) was. Nevertheless, one cannot help concluding that Bentham might have been the very victim of the power structure he fought.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Law & Jurisprudence , Volume 32 , Issue 1 , February 2019 , pp. 173 - 194
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Journal of Law and Jurisprudence 2019 

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.)

Footnotes

Thanks are due to Professor Nader Hakim, who invited me to the Conference “Words and Law: Language, Identity and Power” at All Souls College, University of Oxford, where a first version of this text was presented.

References

1. This does not exclude the existence of several conceptions of what the common law is.

See Michael Lobban, The Common Law and English Jurisprudence, 1760-1850 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991).

2. See the contrast between Bentham, Jeremy, De l’ontologie et autres textes sur les fictions, edited by Schofield, Philip, French translation by Jean-Pierre Cléro & Christian Laval (Paris: Seuil, 1997) at 287Google Scholar [De l’ontologie] and Bentham, Jeremy, The Book of Fallacies, edited by Schofield, Philip (Oxford University Press, 2015).Google Scholar Nevertheless, Bentham’s writings are far from totally unambiguous in this respect, see Nomi Maya Stolzenberg, “Bentham’s Theory of Fictions—‘A Curious Double Language’” (1999) 11 Cardozo Stud L & Lit 223; Guillaume Tusseau, Jeremy Bentham : La guerre des mots (Paris: Dalloz, 2011); Michael Quinn, “Which Comes First, Bentham’s Chicken of Utility, or his Egg of Truth” (2012) 14 J Bentham Stud 1; Quinn, Michael, “Fuller on Legal Fictions: A Benthamic Perspective” in Maksymilian Del Mar & William Twining, eds, Legal Fictions in Theory and Practice (Springer, 2015) 52.Google Scholar

3. Bentham, Jeremy, A Fragment of Government in The Collected Works of Jeremy Bentham: A Comment on the Commentaries and A Fragment on Government, edited by JH Burns & HLA Hart (The Athlone Press, 1977) at 441 [Collected Works].Google Scholar

4. Ibid at 500; Bentham, Jeremy, Deontology Together with A Table of the Springs of Action and the Article on Utilitarianism, edited by Goldworth, Amnon (Clarendon Press, 1983) at 96Google Scholar [Deontology Together]; Bentham, Jeremy, Official Aptitude Maximized, Expense Minimized, edited by Schofield, Philip (Clarendon Press, 1993) at 50;Google Scholar Bentham, Jeremy, “Legislator of the World”: Writings on Codification, Law and Education, edited by Schofield, Philip & Harris, Jonathan (Clarendon Press, 1998) at 155.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5. Marx, Karl, The Capital (1867) vol 1, ch 24, s 5, online: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch24.htm#S5.Google Scholar

6. Ibid.

7. See Bentham, Jeremy, Rights, Representation, and Reform: Nonsense upon Stilts and Other Writings on the French Revolution, edited by Schofield, Philip, Pease-Watkin, Catherine & Blamires, Cyprian (Clarendon Press, 2002)Google Scholar [Bentham, Rights, Representation, and Reform]; Marx, Karl, “On the Jewish Question” in Works of Karl Marx 1844 (1844), online: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/jewish-question/;Google Scholar Marx, Karl, “The Constitution of the French Republic Adopted November 4, 1848 ” in Works of Karl Marx 1851 (1851), online: https://www.marxistsfr.org/archive/marx/works/1851/06/14.htm.Google Scholar See, e.g., Waldron, Jeremy, ed, ‘Nonsense upon Stilts’: Bentham, Burke, and Marx on the Rights of Man (Methuen, 1987).Google Scholar

8. However, Gramsci never offered a precise definition of hegemony, a suggestive reconstruction is for example offered by George Hoare & Nathan Sperbert, Introduction à Antonio Gramsci, 4th ed (Paris: La Découverte, 2013) at 93-112.

9. A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1977), online: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1859/critique-pol-economy/preface.htm.

10. Marx, Karl & Engels, Friedrich, The German Ideology (1845-1846), online: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/german-ideology/ch01b.htm#b3.Google Scholar See similarly, regarding the law, Friedrich Engels, The Housing Question (1872), online: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1872/housing-question/ch03.htm.

11. For a methdological proposal consisting in making two authors complement one another’s theories, see for example Anne Brunon-Ernst, Utilitarian Biopolitics: Bentham, Foucault and Modern Power (Pickering & Chatto, 2012).

12. Offering concurring remarks, see Ost, François & van de Kerchove, Michel, “De la ‘bipolarité des erreurs’ ou de quelques paradigmes de la science du droit” (1988) 33 Archives de philosophie du droit 177 at 193-94.Google Scholar

13. See especially Evgeny B Pashukanis, Law and Marxism: A General Theory, English translation by Barbara Einhorn, edited and introduction by Chris Arthur (Ink Links, 1978). See also, for general presentations, Kelsen, Hans, Sozialismus und Staat: Eine Untersuchung der politischen Theorie des Marxismus, 2nd ed (Leipzig: CL Hirschfeld, 1923);Google Scholar Kelsen, Hans, The Communist Theory of Law (Stevens & Sons, 1955); Soviet Legal Philosophy, English translation by Hugh W Babb, introduction by John N Hazard (Harvard University Press, 1951);Google Scholar Konstantin Stoyanovitch, Marxisme et droit, preface by Henri Batiffol (Paris: Librarie générale de droit et de jurisprudence, 1964); Csaba Varga, ed, Marxian Legal Theory (Aldershot: Dartmouth, 1993); Norbert Reich, Hrsg, Marxistische und sozialistische Rechtstheorie (Frankfurt am Main: Athenäum, 1972); Jacques Michel, Marx et la société juridique (Paris: Publisud, 1983); Manuel Atienza & Juan Ruiz Manero, Marxismo y filosofía del derecho, 2nd ed (México: Fontamara, 2004); “Marx et le droit” (2018) 10 Droit & Philosophie, online: http://www.droitphilosophie.com/app/webroot/upload/files/pdf/dp10_ebook.pdf.

14. Legal Fictions in Practice and Legal Science (Rotterdam University Press, 1975) 59-80. See also Caire, Anne-Blandine, Les fictions en droit : Les artifices du droit : les fictions (Clermont-Ferrand: Centre Michel de l’Hospital, 2015);Google Scholar Legal Fiction, supra note 2.

15. See also Antonio Dadino Alteserra, De fictionibus juris tractatus quinque. Quibus accessit Solemnis Prælectio ad I Cum societas ff pro socio (Paris: P Lamy, 1659).Google Scholar For a commentary, see Cyrille Dounot, “Le De fictionibus juris de Dadine d’Auteserre, premier traité consacré aux fictions de droit” in Caire, supra note 14 at 71-82.

16. Olivier, supra note 14 at 81.

17. 4th pocket ed (West, 2011) 446. See also Yann Thomas, “Fictio legis: L’empire de la fiction romaine et ses limites médiévales” (1995) 21 Droits 17.

18. Jeremy Bentham, Constitutional Code in The Works of Jeremy Bentham, edited by John Bowring (W Tait, 1843) vol 9 at 77 [Works].

19. Jeremy Bentham, Justice and Codification Petitions in Works, supra note 18, vol 5 at 452, 512. See also Jeremy Bentham, The Book of Fallacies in Works, supra note 18, vol 2 at 466.

20. Bentham, Justice and Codification Petitions, supra note 19 at 452.

21. See Perelman, Chaïm, Logique juridique : Nouvelle rhétorique, 2nd ed (Paris: Dalloz, 1979) at 63.Google Scholar

22. Jeremy Bentham, Rationale of Judicial Evidence Specially Applied to English Practice in Works, supra note 18, vol 7 at 418 [Rationale of Judicial Evidence]. See also Jeremy Bentham, Rationale of Judicial Evidence Specially Applied to English Practice in Works, supra note 18, vol 6 at 273.

23. See, e.g., Anthony J Draper, “‘Corruption in the Administration of Justice’: Bentham’s Critique of Civil Procedure, 1806-1811” (2004) 7 J Bentham Stud; Judith Resnik, “The Democracy in Courts: Jeremy Bentham, ‘Publicity’, and the Privatization of Process in the Twenty-First Century” (2013) 10 No Foundations 77.

24. Lobban, supra note 1 at 67. See generally ibid at 47-79.

25. Bentham, Rationale of Judicial Evidence, supra note 22 at 284.

26. Jeremy Bentham, Scotch Reform in Works, supra note 18, vol 5 at 13.

27. Jeremy Bentham, Truth versus Ashhurst; or Law as it is, Contrasted With What it is Said to be in Works, supra note 18, vol 5 at 234.

28. First Part of the Institutes of the Laws of England, or, a Commentary upon Littleton, 13th ed (G Kearsly, G Robinson, 1775) at 261.

29. Peter Sparkes, “Ejectment: Three Births and a Funeral” in Del Mar & Twining, supra note 2 at 275-91.

30. Real Property Limitation Act 1833, c 27.

31. John Hamilton Baker, An Introduction to English Legal History, 3rd ed (Butterworths, 1990) at 341-43.

32. Bentham, Rationale of Judicial Evidence, supra note 22 at 278.

33. See, e.g., Baker, supra note 31 at 1-154; Stroud Francis Charles Milsom, Historical Foundations of the Common Law, 2nd ed (Butterworths, 1981); Andrzej Bryk, The Origins of Constitutional Government: Higher Law and the Sources of Judicial Review, 1st ed (Kraków, Wydawnictwo uniwersytetu jagiellońskiego, 1999) at 97-111; Michael Lobban, “Legal Fictions Before the Age of Reform” in Del Mar & Twining, supra note 2 at 199-223; Maksymilian Del Mar, “Legal Fictions and Legal Change in the Common Law Tradition” in Del Mar & Twining, supra note 2 at 225-53. Offering a synthesis of arguments pro et contra regarding fictions, see Olivier, supra note 14 at 88-92.

34. On demystification in Bentham’s work, see Herbert Lionel Adolphus Hart, “Bentham and the Demystification of the Law” (1973) 36:1 Mod L Rev 2.

35. “Legal Fictions” (1930-1931) 25:4 Ill L Rev 363, 513, and 877 at 513.

36. Ibid at 516-29.

37. See, e.g., the criticism he voices against fiction in Constitutional Code, supra note 18 at 77-78.

38. Freud and Philosophy: An Essay on Interpretation, English translation by Denis Savage (Yale University Press, 1970) at 20-36. See also Alison Scott-Baumann, Ricœur and the Hermeneutics of Suspicion (Continuum, 2009).

39. See, e.g., Jacques Krynen, “Un exemple médiéval de critique des juristes professionnels : Philippe de Mézières et les gens du Parlement de Paris” in Histoire du droit social : Mélanges en hommage à Jean Imbert (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1989) at 333-44; Marcel Rousselet, Histoire de la magistrature française des origines à nos jours (Paris: Librairie Plon, 1957), vol 2 at 389-407; Benoît Garnot, Justice et société en France aux XVIe, XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles (Paris: Ophrys, 2000) at 159-64.

40. Gargantua and his Son Pantagruel, Book V, ch 6 ff, online: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1200/1200-h/1200-h.htm#link52HCH0011.

41. Ibid.

42. Jean de La Fontaine, “The Cat, the Weasel, and the Little Rabbit” in The Complete Fables of Jean de La Fontaine, English translation by Norman R Shapiro, introduction by John Hollander (University of Illinois Press, 2007) 179 at 180.

43. Dei delitti e delle pene : Con una raccolta di lettere e documenti relativi alla nascita dell’opera e alla sua fortuna nell’Europa del Settecento, (Torino: Einaudi, 1999).

44. See Audegean, Philippe, La philosophie de Beccaria : Savoir punir, savoir écrire, savoir produire (PHD Thesis, Université Paris I-Sorbonne, 2003)Google Scholar [Paris: J Vrin, 2010]; Audegean, Philippe, “Beccaria et l’écriture du droit modern” in Laurence Giavarini, ed, L’écriture des jurists : XVIe-XVIIIe siècles (Paris: Classiques Garnier, 2010) at 167-82.Google Scholar

45. Rousselet, supra note 39, vol 1 at 116.

46. Discourse of Thouret (24 March 1790), Archives parlementaires, vol 7 at 346.

47. Bentham, Fragment of Government, supra note 3 at 411.

48. William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, 3rd ed (Clarendon Press, 1765-1769), vol 3 at 43. See also Sir Edward Coke, Reports, 11th part (London, UK: Printed by E & R Nutt & R Gosling, 1727) at 51 (“In fiction of law equity always exists”).

49. Bentham, Constitutional Code, supra note 18 at 59; Bentham, Fragment of Government, supra note 3 at 510-11; Bentham, Rationale of Judicial Evidence, supra note 22 at 417.

50. Bentham, Rationale of Judicial Evidence, supra note 22 at 287. See also Jeremy Bentham, Nomography; or the Art of Inditing Laws in Works, supra note 18, vol 3 at 241.

51. Pierre Bourdieu, Language and Symbolic Power, edited and introduced by John B Thompson, translated by Gino Raymond & Matthew Adamson (Harvard University Press, 1991).

52. Pierre Bourdieu, “The Force of Law: Towards a Sociology of the Juridical Field” (1987) 38 Hastings LJ 814 at 834 [The Force of Law].

53. Halévy, Elie, La formation du radicalisme philosophique, edited by Canto-Sperber, Monique (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1995), vol 3 at 82.Google Scholar

54. Bentham, Constitutional Code, supra note 18 at 59.

55. Bentham, The Book of Fallacies, supra note 19 at 466.

56. Bentham, De l’ontologie, supra note 2 at 146.

57. See, for example, Meyerson, Denise, False Consciousness (Clarendon Press, 1991).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

58. See especially Schofield, Philip, Bentham: A Guide for the Perplexed(Continuum, 2009) at 53-60, 104, 113.Google Scholar

59. Bentham, Deontology Together, supra note 4 at 100-05.

60. Cléro, Jean-Pierre, Bentham: Philosophe de l’utilité (Paris: Ellipses Marketing, 2006) at 154.Google Scholar

61. Bentham, Jeremy, An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, edited by Henderson Burns, James & Lionel, Herbert Hart, Adolphus (The Athlone Press, 1970) at 11Google Scholar [Introduction to the Principles].

62. Bentham, Constitutional Code, supra note 18 at 76.

63. Bentham, Nomography, supra note 50 at 274.

64. de Champs, Emmanuelle, La déontologie politique ou la pensée constitutionnelle de Jeremy Bentham (Genève: Librairie Droz, 2008) at 52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

65. See, e.g., Bentham, Book of Fallacies, supra note 19 at 456.

66. Bentham, Fragment of Government, supra note 3 at 513.

67. Bentham, Constitutional Code, supra note 18 at 78.

68. See, e.g., Bentham, Justice and Codification Petitions, supra note 19 at 455, 481, 512.

69. Bentham, Rationale of Judicial Evidence, supra note 22 at 203.

70. Bentham, Book of Fallacies, supra note 19 at 395.

71. Bentham, Rationale of Judicial Evidence, supra note 22 at 280.

72. Ibid at 225-311. See also Bentham, Nomography, supra note 50 at 270.

73. Hart, supra note 34.

74. Bentham, Scotch Reform, supra note 26 at 13.

75. “The Force of Law”, supra note 52 at 828-29.

76. “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses (Notes Towards an Investigation)”, translated by Ben Brewster in Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays (Monthly Review Press, 1971), online: https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/althusser/1970/ideology.htm; Louis Althusser, Sur la reproduction, preface by Jacques Bidet (Paris, Presses universitaires de France, 1995).

77. Lobban, supra note 1 at 146.

78. Bentham, Justice and Codification Petitions, supra note 19 at 512.

79. Bentham, Rationale of Judicial Evidence, supra note 22 at 203.

80. Bentham, Justice and Codification Petitions, supra note 19 at 453.

81. Ibid at 452.

82. Charles Warren Everett, “Introduction” in Jeremy Bentham, A Comment on the Commentaries: A Criticism of William Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England, edited by Charles Warren Everett (Clarendon Press, 1928) at 1.

83. Jeremy Bentham, Introductory View of the Rationale of Evidence for the Use of Non-Lawyers as Well as Lawyers in Works, supra note 18, vol 6 at 11.

84. Bentham, Rationale of Judicial Evidence, supra note 22 at 270.

85. Bourdieu, “The Force of Law”, supra note 52.

86. Bentham, Jeremy, Of the Limits of the Penal Branch of Jurisprudence, edited by Schofield, Philip (Oxford University Press, 2010) at 227-28Google Scholar [Of the Limits].

87. On the history of this project, see Janet Semple, Bentham’s Prison: A Study of the Panopticon Penitentiary (Clarendon Press, 1993).

88. Bentham, Book of Fallacies, supra note 18 at 434.

89. See, e.g., Bentham, Constitutional Code, supra note 18 at 77-78.

90. Bentham, Rationale of Judicial Evidence, supra note 22 at 285-86.

91. Bentham, Rights, Representation, and Reform, supra note 7 at 321-22.

92. Prohibition Del Roy, [1607] EWHC KB J23 at 1343.

93. Jeremy Bentham, The Elements of the Art of Packing in Works, supra note 18, vol 5 at 92. See also Jeremy Bentham, A Comment on the Commentaries, in Collected Works, supra note 3 at 269; Bentham, Constitutional Code, supra note 18 at 59.

94. Bentham, Jeremy, Chrestomathia, edited by John Smith, Martin & Hedley Burston, Wydham (Clarendon Press, 1983).Google Scholar

95. Marx, The Capital, supra note 5, s 4. For a clear explanation, see especially Jacques Michel, Marx et la société juridique, supra note 13 at 158-207; Etienne Balibar, La philosophie de Marx, 3rd ed (Paris: La découverte, 2010) at 41-75.

96. Kerruish, Valerie, Jurisprudence as Ideology (Routledge, 1991) at 22.Google Scholar

97. See, e.g., Douglas Long, “Political and Philosophical Radicalism: The Place of the Utility Principle in Jeremy Bentham’s Early Writings on Critical Jurisprudence” (2008) Kadish Center for Morality, Law, and Public Affairs, University of California, Berkeley, available online at: http://www.escholarship.org/uc/item/3q11q6vr; Douglas Long, “Jurisprudence and the Art of Government: Justice and Public Utility in Jeremy Bentham’s Elements of Critical Jurisprudence” (2008), online: http://www.cpsa-acsp.ca/papers-2008/Long.pdf.

98. See Guillaume Tusseau, “An Old English Tale? Bentham’s Theory of The Force of a Law” in Guillaume Tusseau, ed, The Legal Philosophy and Influence of Jeremy Bentham: Essays on ‘Of the Limits of the Penal Branch of Jurisprudence’ (Routledge, 2016) at 80-133.

99. For an explanation of this concept, see especially Scott, James C, Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed (Yale University Press, 1998).Google Scholar

100. See, e.g., Bentham, Introduction to the Principles, supra note 61 at 283, reproduced in Bentham, Of the Limits, supra note 86 at 5; Jeremy Bentham, Principes du code pénal in Jeremy Bentham, Traités de législation civile et pénale (1802), edited by Etienne Dumont, preface by Malik Bozzo-Rey, Anne Brunon-Ernst & Emmanuelle de Champs (Paris: Dalloz, 2010) at 33-405.

101. Bentham, Chrestomatia, supra note 94 at 204.

102. Rudan, Paola, L’inventore della costituzione : Jeremy Bentham e il governo della società (Bologna: Società editrice il Mulino, 2013) at 167-243.Google Scholar See also Rudan, Paola, “Society as a Code: Bentham and the Fabric of Order” (2016) 42 History of European Ideas 39.Google Scholar

103. Ben-Dor, Oren, Constitutional Limits and the Public Sphere: A Critical Study of Bentham’s Constitutionalism (Portland: Hart, 2000) at 159.Google Scholar

104. Ideology and Utopia: An Introduction to the Sociology of Knowledge, preface by Louis Wirth (Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1952) at 49-50.

105. Ibid at 51.

106. Ibid.

107. See especially Renault, Emmanuel, Marx et l’idée de critique, 1st ed (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1995).Google Scholar