In several passages, Jeremy Bentham mentions the writings of Claude Adrien Helvétius as decisive for his own philosophy. Following Bentham's autobiographical statements, it was only after reading Helvétius's magnum opus De l'esprit that Bentham decided to concentrate on the philosophy of law, political theory and politics.Footnote 1 In the short version of his Article on Utilitarianism, he states in the third person that ‘Mr. Bentham has often been heard to say that he stands indebted [to De l'esprit] for no small part of the ardour of his desire to render his labours useful to mankind upon the largest scale.’Footnote 2 Bentham certainly sometimes endeavours to distance himself from Helvétius, but affirmation clearly prevails. In a letter to d'Alembert, he writes that his entire system is based on Helvétian ideas.Footnote 3 His commonplace book contains the claim that the law should receive from Helvétius the ruling principles for its ‘matter’, that is for its content.Footnote 4 No less does he praise Helvétius as a model for using exact and adequate language.Footnote 5
In particular, Bentham traces the principle of utility back to Helvétius. To Voltaire he writes: ‘I have built solely on the foundation of utility, laid as it is by Helvétius.’Footnote 6 Bowring cites him as follows: ‘Montesquieu, Barrington, Beccaria, and Helvétius, but most of all Helvétius, set me on the principle of utility.’Footnote 7 Helvétius's definition of a just man as a man whose actions serve the public good, for Bentham comprises ‘more useful truth, than is contained in whole Volumes of Ethics’.Footnote 8 According to further passages, in Helvétius Bentham came into contact with the principle of utility for the first time: ‘I could not easily have thought it [the principle of utility] had been new to any one, if I had not remembered that before I had read Helvetius it was new even for myself.’Footnote 9 Elsewhere, Bentham mentions that his beliefs on the relation of interest and opinion and the psychological causes of misconduct also go back to Helvétius.Footnote 10
But since elsewhere Bentham makes opposing statements regarding his sources, these remarks do not provide enough evidence that Bentham owes his ideas exclusively to Helvétius, rather than to further sources he himself mentions, namely Epicurus, Hume, Locke, Priestley, Beccaria and d'Alembert.Footnote 11 Nor do they show precisely which specific theorems Bentham owes to Helvétius. On the basis of the existing textual evidence, it seems hard to prove such claims.
Consequently, in the literature most writers declare in general terms that Helvétius played ‘a large role’Footnote 12 in the origination of Bentham's thinking. They mostly refer non-specifically to various similarities, such as the idea of utility, the theory of action and the claim that the crucial medium of applying the utility principle was legislation.Footnote 13 Almost no author tries to show that particular concepts or theoretical features go back to Helvétius.Footnote 14 Until now, the most elaborate claims have been made by Frederick Rosen. He maintains that Helvétius taught Bentham, besides the importance of concepts like pleasure, pain, interest and legislation, to use the principle of utility prescriptively, whereas Hume only used it with a descriptive aim. On the other hand, Rosen claims that Helvétius advocates a ‘reign of virtue’, where the legislator may intervene unlimitedly in personal life, while Bentham developed an account of an autonomous sphere of private morality beyond the sphere of legislation. In this way, according to Rosen, Bentham saw morals as potentially opposed to legislation.Footnote 15 However, as both Bentham and Helvétius are quite ambiguous about the limits of political action, Rosen has to assign his claims a ‘perhaps’.Footnote 16
In this article, I would like to defend some claims that are further-reaching than the general image that there is some influence, but that take into account the limits of what we know on the basis of the existing text material. To me, it seems possible to clarify the relationship between Bentham and Helvétius by addressing the question of what kind of use Bentham endeavours to make of Helvétian ideas. How does Bentham make use of Helvétian insights, und how does he try to develop them further? To answer this question it is not necessary to prove that Bentham follows Helvétius rather than other writers. It is enough to assume that Bentham does follow Helvétius, and to show in which respects he does this. Pursuing this direction, I will reach some results that could support a modified version of Rosen's claim that some kind of disagreement exists between Bentham and Helvétius.
I would like to posit the assumption that the way Bentham deals with Helvétian ideas is less a contentual revision of the basic ideas of Helvétius's moral philosophy, and far more a transition from a merely theoretical understanding of philosophy to a practical one. Although Helvétius had himself already tried to formulate a utility-orientated philosophy, he failed, in Bentham's opinion, to go beyond the theoretical, and Bentham saw his task as creating from the Helvétian ideas a genuine ‘philosophy of practice’. I would like to substantiate this assumption in three ways.
First, I want to show that all the main elements of Bentham's philosophy can be understood as an attempt to work out the Helvétian programme of reforming practical philosophy with relation to concrete fields of action and to realize it in practice. My evidence here comes from a coincidence between Bentham's description of himself and what actually can be found in Helvétius (section I) and Bentham (section II).
Second, I will provide evidence that the move to practice comes with an orientation towards the practical realizability of normative ideas, which in turn is linked to certain changes in these ideas. This can be shown by contrasting Bentham and Helvétius regarding feasibility (section III).
Third, I will claim that between Helvétius's De l'esprit and the later Bentham, the notion of what kind of agents would be required to realize normative ideas fundamentally changes: whereas Helvétius favours a top-down understanding of politics, Bentham increasingly turns towards a model of middle-class politics. I try to show this by discussing the role of the citizen in Helvétius and Bentham, as well as by highlighting Bentham's own political engagement (section IV).
To start with, I shall examine Bentham's description of himself referred to above. It comes from a quotation which, as the only excerpt from the manuscript UC xxxii. 158 included in Economic Writings edited by Werner Stark, has long been familiar to researchers.Footnote 17 In an attempt at a more convincing interpretation, however, I shall in the course of my argumentation repeatedly refer to the previously unpublished part of the manuscript, which was kindly made available to me by the Bentham Project at University College London.Footnote 18 In the 1780s, as an introduction to a planned, but never elaborated larger work on the Civil Code, Bentham writes:
The present work, as well as every other work of the same author that has been or may hereafter be published on the subject of legislation, or any other branch of moral science, is an attempt to extend the experimental method of reasoning from the physical world to the moral. What Bacon was to the former, Helvetius was to the latter. He laid the foundations, the only true foundations of moral science: but having done enough for one man, and more than had been done by any other man, he stopt there, leaving the superstructure to be reared by other hands. The moral world has therefore had its Bacon, but its Newton is yet to come.Footnote 19
Here Bentham alludes to the widespread view of the time that the modern scientific revolution was occurring in two stages.Footnote 20 According to this view Bacon had rejected scholasticism, in his eyes useless, and developed a novel method of empirical research, but for the time being this remained a mere manifesto. The realization of the new method, which ultimately led to powerful new discoveries, was not initiated until Newton came along. Bentham transfers this two-step model to moral science, and it is clear from his writing that he himself would like to be the Newton of moral science.
And yet exaggerated importance should not be attributed to the analogy with the Bacon/Newton relationship. First, there are passages in Bentham's texts which suggest otherwise. For example, Bentham also stakes a claim to being the Bacon of moral science. He considers writing a text entitled Novum organon Juris, in other words transferring Bacon's Novum organum scientarium to practical philosophy. Second, the quoted passage is marked by a rhetoric which possibly sheds a less flattering light on Helvétius than initially appears. In some respects Helvétius was already close to being the Newton of moral science, transferring terms like ‘universe’ and ‘laws of motion’ to moralityFootnote 21 and attributing human actions to a single law.Footnote 22
Nevertheless, the quotation shows all too clearly that, on the one hand, Bentham wants to adopt Helvétian ideas but, on the other hand, does not wish to stop there – and that is true not just peripherally, but also at the core of his entire theoretical development (‘the present work, as well as every other work’). Can it be shown that Bentham actually pursues this aim in his writings? To answer this question, it is necessary to explain in which respects Bentham could have seen in Helvétius the Bacon of moral science.
I. HELVÉTIUS, THE BACON OF MORAL SCIENCE
Helvétius's epistemological starting point is a sensualism which views all human judgements as sensations.Footnote 23 From this Helvétius concludes that moral judgements cannot be divided into right and wrong using a criterion of rationality; far more, the core of philosophy deals with how human beings judge factually. According to him, if one observes the moral judgements of human beings, one discovers that they are always orientated towards the interests of whoever is judging,Footnote 24 and that what counts as being in their interest depends solely on the categories of pleasure and pain.Footnote 25 Thus, when individual human beings form a judgement about an action, they always judge in the light of their own self-interest. Because they also always act according to their judgements, Helvétius at the same time advocates psychological egotism.
Helvétius's explanation for supposedly altruistic actions is that there are some human beings – whether because of physical or educational factors – who happen to have needs motivating them to such actions, for example ‘a happy disposition, a strong desire for glory and esteem’. Such naturally sunny dispositions are rare, however: ‘But the number of these men is so small, that I only mention them in honour of humanity.’Footnote 26
In order to proceed from psychological egotism to a criterion of morality, Helvétius introduces the judgement of the public, as opposed to the judgements of individuals. The former judgement is also a feeling, and as such is determined not by reason, but also by interest. Here, however, the interest is no longer particular, but general, directed towards the greatest benefit for the majority of human beings. Public judgement therefore constitutes ‘true probity’.Footnote 27 Helvétius clearly believes that the judgement of the public does not constitute the random sum of many individual judgements, but instead develops a kind of objectivity. The public is ‘[s]heltered from influence, exempt from all private interest’; it judges ‘as the stranger’.Footnote 28 And yet the objectivity or ‘infallibility’ of the public refers only to a disregard of private, individual interests. Even the public can be deluded regarding the question what serves its own general interest.
From this principal possibility of delusion, it follows that determination of ‘true’ probity, although initially only referring in a descriptive sense to the factual judgements of the general public, harbours a considerable critical potential: much of what in certain societies is deemed virtuous loses its virtuous character when its real contribution to public happiness is questioned. This includes, for example, ritual actions from various religions. Helvétius lists how, in India, people who allow themselves to be eaten by crocodiles are considered sacred; how, on the island of Formosa (now Taiwan), female priests discard all their clothes and roll around on the ground; and how, in Hindustan, people worship the genitals of the Brahmins.Footnote 29 And yet, reading between the lines, he is patently equally averse to the ritual commandments and moral directives of Christianity.
Far more significant than this criticism of religion, however, is the critical impetus aimed at politics.Footnote 30 The relationship between the egotistical actions of individuals and the moral principle is one of tension which can only be solved politically:
[A]ll men tend only towards their happiness; that is a tendency from which they cannot be diverted; that the attempt would be fruitless, and even the success dangerous; consequently, it is only by incorporating personal and general interest, that they can be rendered virtuous. This being granted, morality is evidently no more than a frivolous science, unless blended with policy and legislation.Footnote 31
As the quotation shows, Helvétius is ultimately concerned with the virtue of mankind, that is, with a classical category of individual ethics. Simultaneously, however, it becomes apparent that this goal can only be achieved through politics. To this extent, moral philosophy is translated into a project concerned with the political malleability of society: it is no longer virtue itself which is the object of theoretical interest, but the political conditions under which virtuous action emerges. Accordingly, individuals are no longer the direct addressees of normative ideals; they become a function of political will. ‘[T]o guide the motions of the human puppet, it is necessary to know the wires by which he is moved.’Footnote 32
Concerning the nature of this political influence, Helvétius hints at two divergent models: on the one hand, there is direct intervention by the legislator in the actions of individuals, a model which functions through rewards and deterrents.Footnote 33 But Helvétius rarely addresses this direct mechanism. Most of his deliberations are concerned with another, indirect type of political influence on human behaviour. The two elements of the latter are not concrete laws pertaining to concrete actions, but type of government and, second, education.
Accordingly, what is deemed virtuous in a society essentially depends on general political principles like the ‘form of government’ or the constitution.Footnote 34 Only by adapting general political principles, i.e. the form of government, can good morals spread throughout the population, in turn effecting the happiness of the majority. Helvétius writes astonishingly little about shaping a form of government which would give rise to ‘true’ virtues. Suitable institutions are not discussed; instead, he isolates the ideal form of government from despotism, and highlights the spirals of corruption which keep despotic societies alive.
Occasionally, Helvétius does describe his ideal of good politics somewhat more precisely. For example, he envisages the creation of a comprehensive system of state education aimed at promoting a passion for fame.Footnote 35 Because Helvétius views the character of human beings as completely the result of their education, in this way all human beings could in principle be guided towards virtue and, consequently, all human beings within a society could ultimately be happy.Footnote 36 The critique implicitly aimed here at social ranking emerges more clearly in the additional condition that general happiness demands restriction of the divide between rich and poor to a moderate degree.Footnote 37
Helvétius's theory is undoubtedly underdeveloped in some respects. And yet it is clear in which respects, for Bentham, this theory contains the premises of a new type of ethical theorizing capable of making Helvétius the Bacon of moral science. If, in the preface to De l'esprit, Helvétius programmatically demands that ‘morality ought to be treated like all the other sciences, and founded on experiment’,Footnote 38 then this claim is essentially recognizable in four aspects of his theory, namely those which constitute the core of the Helvétian reforms:
• It is through empirical observation that psychological egotism is founded.
• It is through empirical observation that the principle of the greatest utility as the principle of ‘true’ virtue is introduced.
• The question of the practical realization of this principle can only be answered within the framework of empirical sciences.Footnote 39
• Moral science is not an end in itself, but a prescriptive, utility-orientated science with the purpose of designing guidelines for the legislator of applying the moral principle.
In the following, I would like to attempt a reconstruction of how Bentham takes up precisely these aspects – albeit sometimes in a slightly modified form.
II. BENTHAM'S ELABORATION OF THE HELVÉTIAN IDEAS
The cornerstone of Bentham's philosophy consists of a conviction that human actions are largely determined by self-interest, even though it can be doubted that Bentham's theory of action is a strong form of psychological egotism.Footnote 40 As it was for Helvétius, self-interest is always linked to the categories of pleasure and pain. Pleasure and pain are therefore the ‘sovereign masters’ of mankind, with the chain of causes and effects being ‘fastened to their throne'.Footnote 41 More strongly than Helvétius, Bentham stresses that this orientation towards self-interest can take place over the very long term, foreshadowing the economic orientation of the theory.Footnote 42
Bentham also follows Helvétius in finding the substantive content of his basic moral principle in the formula of the greatest happiness for the greatest number. Whereas for Helvétius the most urgent task was to bring the happiness of the masses within the horizons of moral philosophy in any sense, Bentham adds deliberations about the possibility of offsetting pleasure and pain, one against the other. A more important difference between the two thinkers is a result of Bentham's rejection of Helvétian sensualism and the role of public judgement. Judgements in the Helvétian sense would, for Bentham, be no more than sympathy and antipathy towards certain principles.Footnote 43 Instead, the principle of the greatest happiness for the greatest number is introduced as a kind of first principle accepted by every agent that can be used to prove further claims, but cannot itself be proven. At least, there is a way to give rational justification to the principle by showing that every possible opponent of the principle either comes to inhumane conclusions or unconsciously presupposes the principle.Footnote 44
Furthermore, Bentham follows Helvétius in his idea that it is the task of politics and, by serving politics, also the task of the law in particular, to harmonize private interestsFootnote 45 artificially with the interest of the general public. Accordingly, the legislator is to persuade each individual to orientate his happiness towards the happiness of all: ‘each individual ought . . . to be made to fashion his behaviour’Footnote 46 – Bentham calls this the duty and interest junction principle.Footnote 47 The primary field of application for the principle of greatest utility is therefore designing a rational legal system.Footnote 48 Here Bentham explicitly closes ranks with Helvétius: the latter provides the yardstick for the content of the law; its external form would have to follow the linguistic criticism formulated by Locke in Book Three of his Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689): ‘From Locke the law must receive the ruling principles of its form, from Helvetius of its matter.’Footnote 49
This goal can only be achieved politically if the legal system is viewed as principally and consciously modifiable. In this respect, Bentham's legal positivism, his critique of the Common Law, and the criticism of the concept of human rights in the French Revolution, all express a common thrust which Helvétius had tacitly presupposed. For Bentham, the law is neither God-given nor infallible, but invented by human beings and therefore modifiable by human beings, as expressed with great symbolism in the ‘creation narrative’ of the law: paraphrasing the Book of Genesis, Bentham narrates how the legislator created the law.Footnote 50 This aspiration to shape the legal system consciously and rationally becomes even clearer in the metaphor of an ‘architect’ of law who would have to adopt a function for legislation precisely opposed to that occupied by the linguistic critic Locke as a scavenger for natural philosophy.Footnote 51
Yet how is the work of the architect of the law to be placed on firm foundations? From the beginning of his philosophical period, Bentham pursues Helvétius's idea of viewing moral science as an empirical science; and he pursues several plans to flesh out such a science in a book or set of books. In the 1770s, Bentham partly has in mind to write a magnum opus dedicated to the topic, and he produces a mass of text material under the heading Preparatory Principles, only some of which he later used in publications.Footnote 52 As far as his deliberations can be reconstructed, he envisages a new kind of science located somewhere between jurisprudence, action theory and economics.
A Science which might be conceived is, the art of knowing what ought to [be] done in the way of internal Government . . . [T]he fact is, no such science as yet existeth. No wonder, therefore, there should be no name for it. No such science as yet exists: for no such book hath as yet appeared as professes to contain a body of any such science, or any regular branch of such a body . . . . The science (the art, it matters not which) is not born.Footnote 53
Bentham considers a number of titles for this science: ‘the Art of Legislation’, ‘Critical Jurisprudence’, ‘the Science of Internal Politics’, ‘the Science of Legal Politics’ and ‘the Science of Jurisprudential Politics’. The ultimate aim of this new science would be to elaborate the principles of a complete legal system which different countries can then adapt to their local customs and peculiarities.Footnote 54
It should be emphasized that Bentham completely rejects the customary distinction between ‘science’ and ‘art’ in his Preparatory Principles (‘The science (the art, it matters not which)’): the science he demands should follow Bacon's ideal of a utility-orientated science; from the outset it aims not at pure knowledge, but at technical realization of the utility principle, and it does so as art in the sense of a skill. In his Introduction – and later in Chrestomathia – he pursues the same aim with a different strategy: here he concedes that there is a conceptual difference between science and art; however, these concepts form a direct means–end relationship:
As between art and science, in so far as they are distinguishable, art is that one of the two that seems entitled to the first mention, as being first and most independent – in value, and thence in dignity, in so far as dignity consists in use: for, of science, the value consists in its subserviency to art; of speculation, the value consists in its subserviency to practice. Footnote 55
Therefore Bentham finds the best model for an optimal linking of science and art in the discipline of medicine. The ‘science of law’ and the ‘art of legislation’ should be related in the same manner as the ‘science of anatomy’ and the ‘art of medicine’.Footnote 56 The fact that exactly the same analogy is drawn in the above-cited Bacon–Newton manuscript provides evidence for the claim that, as we look for the way Bentham wants to build on Helvétius's theory, we are on the right track: ‘In short, what the physician is to the natural body, the legislator is to the political: legislation is the art of medicine exercised upon a great scale.’Footnote 57
Methodologically, the new science must have a strict orientation towards empiricism. Concepts which are not tied to empirical insights are, for Bentham, ‘jargon’. In particular, the idea of a ‘good order’ of the world; the binding of political relations to a contract, and the concept of natural law must not be allowed to play any role for legislation; all of these ideas are ‘phantoms called in from the clouds to throw dust in the eyes of the learner’.Footnote 58 Bentham praises Helvétius for consistently excluding such concepts in his methods.Footnote 59
The fact that Bentham intended to present his political science within a monumental work is evidence of his aspiration to elaborate exhaustively the Helvétian idea for a new type of moral philosophy. This monumental work was never realized, but many aspects of his later writings must be viewed as components of precisely this revolutionary practice-orientated science, spelling out a rational shaping of society from its foundations to concrete political embodiment.Footnote 60 Let us try to crystallize some essential components which Bentham uses to elaborate Helvétius's theory.
Guiding the actions of citizens by means of laws
For Bentham a main medium for guiding the behaviour of citizens is penal law. In a very simple application of his action theory, Bentham advocates that the expected profit from a crime only has to be outweighed by the expected punishment for the crime not to take place at all.Footnote 61
A large part of Bentham's philosophy is therefore dedicated to criminal law; he spells out precisely the conditions under which criminal law can optimally contribute to general happiness. This includes the development of a new system of legal terms: as the law should have an action-guiding function, there is a need for clear language making it possible for ordinary citizens to predict which actions will have legal consequences and which not. This may seem banal, but English Common Law in particular was very far from this insight, as Bentham repeatedly pointed out.
In addition to this ‘direct’ form of state intervention in the behaviour of its citizens, Bentham is aware of a second, ‘indirect’ form, namely ‘indirect legislation’. This is no longer a case of regulating behaviour once the desire to commit a forbidden act has already arisen; far more, the idea is to prevent in advance such desires from arising at all. Indirect legislation therefore employs ‘softer’ methods than criminal law. It attempts to cultivate ‘less dangerous desires’Footnote 62 and to reinforce a moral consciousness within the people which, via sanctions from the moral community, can contribute to a coincidence of private and general utility. The means for achieving this are a guaranteeing of freedom of the press and freedom of speech so that any violations against morality can be made public, but also state-controlled and state-promoted employment of theatre and literature. Bentham even considers whether or not citizens should be made transparent by means of an identifying tattoo; if people expect to be recognized, they will behave more decently from the outset.Footnote 63
Political economy
A further component of this new science can be seen in Bentham's writings on ‘political economy’.Footnote 64 For Bentham, political economy is the branch of politics aimed at increasing national wealth; it alone is the means with which the state cannot only negatively circumvent harmful and erroneous behaviour from its citizens, but also positively contribute to their well-being.Footnote 65 Although Bentham's economic considerations are clearly influenced by Adam Smith, the ‘Institute of Political Economy’ as well as the ‘Manual of Political Economy’ contain polemic demarcations against Smith. Here, too, the link between science and art is in the foreground: ‘To Adam Smith, the science alone has been the direct and constant object in view: the art the collateral and occasional one.’ This is to be overcome in political economy: ‘Political economy is at once a science and an art. The value of the science has for its efficient cause and measure its subserviency to the art.’Footnote 66
No less does Bentham reject the claim often connected with Smith, that the state should intervene as little as possible in the free market: ‘I have not, I never had, nor ever shall I have any horror . . . of the hand of government. I leave it to Adam Smith, and the champions of the rights of man . . . to talk of invasions of natural liberty’,Footnote 67 wrote Bentham in 1801. That does not mean that for Bentham economic freedoms are irrelevant. On the contrary, individuals are the driving forces of economic activity,Footnote 68 and the state is well advised to give them extensive free space. But because Bentham rejects the idea of a natural harmony of needs, the state is to bring about this harmony artificially with extensive legislation, without having to take into account economic freedoms substantiated in natural law.
Concrete projects
Components of a scientifically guided optimization of society are, finally, to be seen in several of Bentham's concrete proposals and projects located in the overlap between law and political economy. The most famous (and most notorious) of these projects is his Panopticon, a design for a circular prison with a warden situated in the middle, able to monitor all the inmates at once.Footnote 69 For some time, the Panopticon proposal was viewed in the literature either as eccentric or as merely profit-orientated, but more recent research has regarded it as symbolic for the various strands of Bentham's philosophical theory.Footnote 70 The fact that the Panopticon actually needs to be understood as the emanation of his ‘new science’ is verified, for example, by his statement that it is ‘one of the corner stones of political science . . . [that] . . . the more strictly we are watched, the better we behave’.Footnote 71
Here one should be aware that an unbounded instrument of suppression, designed to maltreat prisoners as effectively as possible, was not Bentham's intention in the slightest. On the contrary, the Panopticon is one of many attempts to replace the cruel dungeons of the eighteenth century with more humane detention centres, with the serious aim of improving criminals: in analogy to a hospital, they should regain their ‘moral health’.Footnote 72 Even the fact that prisoners were used as cheap workers can be understood as an attempt at humanization because, through constant occupation, imprisonment is much easier to bear. The Panopticon is therefore both: ‘a mill for grinding rogues honest, and idle men industrious’.Footnote 73
Within the framework of this study, however, what is particularly interesting is the passion for detail with which Bentham works from his desk on the complete rationalization of prison life. The position of the windows, the construction of the toilets, the condition of the bedding and clothing, a separation of the sexes without any wasting of space, concepts for hygiene and cooking: there is nothing which Bentham did not think through precisely and (in theory) optimize.Footnote 74
Numerous additional concrete ideas could be listed here as the emanation of political science.Footnote 75 But my few remarks on the Panopticon provide sufficient evidence that Bentham's work can be predominantly viewed as a practice-orientated elaboration of Helvétian ideas, as he himself indicates in the Bacon/Newton analogy. This brings me to my second assumption: that orientation to a practical realization of normative ideas is accompanied by a certain change in these ideas themselves.
III. THEORETICAL CONSEQUENCES OF THE DEMAND FOR FEASIBILITY
If Bentham views himself as an ‘architect’Footnote 76 or an ‘engineer’,Footnote 77 dedicated above all to a practical realization of the utility principle, then this does not remain inconsequential for his theoretical considerations; the translation of Helvétian ideas into practice does not occur without certain changes in meaning. The attempt to make theory fruitful for practice is accompanied by directly connected modifications to the theory. Certainly, there is no necessity for such changes, and the imperatives of practicability are not the only explanation for substantive deviations between Helvétius and Bentham. Nevertheless, it is possible to show how for Bentham certain modifications of Helvétian theory go hand in hand with practical application. This can be seen in at least three respects.
First, the claim to practical realization of the utilitarian principle coincides with a more strongly sociotechnological concept for shaping society. By this I mean that Bentham not only follows the (Helvétian) assumption that the form of government determines the lifestyle of citizens in general, but that he also assumes that concrete legislative measures in concrete fields of action can generate the unification of particular and general interests. Helvétius's main idea is that under the right form of government, desirable moral precepts develop automatically, in turn guiding the actions of individuals. By considering concrete measures through which the government can contribute to the convergence of personal and general interests, Bentham replaces this model with the concept of a direct guiding of society: concrete laws and mechanisms regulate the actions of individuals in specific situations.
This technical idea becomes particularly clear if we take a look at Bentham's deliberations on the application of law: he views this as being ideally a clear deductive procedure which is open to as little interpretation as possible.Footnote 78 For Bentham, human rights are unable to represent reasonable dictates of justice, in part because of their abstract nature.Footnote 79 Where Helvétius aims at improving general political principles, for Bentham such abstract principles are useless as instruments of political guidance. Even Bentham's understanding of science as art, in other words as a skill, points to its technical character. And if one looks at how criminals are ‘honed’ in the Panopticon, there can hardly be any doubt remaining that Bentham presupposes in some sense a mechanistic model of how individuals can be integrated into social structures.
Second, his practical claim leads to the ideals of the theory being grasped differently. While Helvétius assumes the possibility of a comprehensive improvement in living conditions, Bentham's aims are considerable closer to reality in their orientation. In this context, first of all the role of virtue is relevant. Extolled by Helvétius in the classical sense as an honourable attitude, the virtue of citizens is an outstanding political goal. To this extent, the references to the strange customs on Formosa are not only amusing, but telling – Helvétius's philosophy aims at an enlightenment of the ideas rooted in ‘morality’. Bentham does not completely reject such an enthusiastic concept of virtue. In the words of Helvétius he speaks of human beings ‘of probity and public spirit’.Footnote 80 But it is only the virtue of an elite group of human beings which Bentham has in mind here.Footnote 81 The virtue of the citizens at large is, by contrast, not a predominant goal of the state.Footnote 82
Further ideals orientated to ‘realistic’ measures become visible if one looks at the picture Bentham paints of the ideal utilitarian state. A passage from his Essay of the Influence of Place and Time has found its way into the literature as his ‘utopia’;Footnote 83 here the orientation towards what is achievable becomes all too clear:
Every thing beyond this is chimerical. Perfect happiness belongs to the imaginary regions of philosophy, and must be classed with the universal elixir and the philosopher's stone. In the age of greatest perfection, fire will burn, tempests will rage, man will be subject to infirmity, to accidents, and to death. It may be possible to diminish the influence of, but not to destroy, the sad and mischievous passions. The unequal gifts of nature and of fortune will always create jealousies . . . Painful labour, daily subjection, a condition nearly allied to indigence, will always be the lot of numbers. Among the higher as well as the lower classes, there will be desires which cannot be satisfied; inclinations which must be subdued: reciprocal security can only be established by the forcible renunciation by each one, of every thing which might wound the legitimate rights of others.Footnote 84
For Bentham, Helvétius's prognosis that work will provide pleasure as soon as the appropriate circumstances are generated,Footnote 85 that all human beings can be happy, that everyone is to be sufficiently wealthy and have sufficient leisure time, are only pipe dreams. Instead of philosophers devoting themselves to chimaeras, they should measure out potential progress within the limits of the realizable; these limitations are still wide enough: ‘Let us seek only for what is attainable: it presents a career sufficiently vast for genius . . . ’Footnote 86 Bentham's ‘utopia’ is not a state full of flourishing human beings achieving personal fulfilment, but a state in which the worst types of poverty and crime are effectively prevented – a seemingly bold project in the light of the massive social distortions perceived by Bentham in freshly industrialized England.
A third respect which serves to illustrate how theory is changed by a claim to practice concerns the agents of political guidance, and the role of the philosopher. In order to clarify this point, I now turn to the role of citizens in Helvétius and Bentham.
IV. THE ACTIVE ROLE OF CITIZENS
With his writing, Helvétius contributed substantially to the public debates of his time. However, his works were not intended to contribute to a political agenda in a narrower sense. The predominant interest behind Helvétius's theory seems to be the mere revelation of retention-of-power mechanisms, not overcoming them: he soberly analyses how barely enlightened princes perpetuate their barely useful rule by putting barely enlightened persons into crucial positions and thus denying public judgement any influence over political matters.Footnote 87 Certainly, this revelation is linked to a conviction that improvement of the political situation is possible, at least in principle. But a political programme showing the way towards a better society is not what Helvétius envisages.Footnote 88 If at all – following a top-down model of politics – it is up to an enlightened monarch to introduce such reforms.Footnote 89 The philosopher Helvétius does not see himself as politically responsible: ‘As to what regards myself, I have accomplished my task’, leaving concrete implementation to the ‘magistrate’.Footnote 90
It is certainly true that Bentham also clings to the idea that it is ultimately down to a strong state to guide society. But whereas Helvétius regarded the actions of citizens as the mere function of decisions made by rulers (even as puppets!), for Bentham the citizens are assigned an active role. Remember that in Bentham the idea of an informed public plays a crucial role. This ‘motto of a good citizen’ is already to be found in his early works: ‘To obey punctually; to censure freely.’Footnote 91 For Bentham, the citizen assumes a control function towards his or her fellow citizens (see his ‘indirect legislation’) and towards officialdom. If, as we could exaggeratedly say about Helvétius, the ruler is required to make citizens virtuous, then it makes no sense to view these citizens as the authority in turn controlling the ruler.Footnote 92 By contrast, the active role of the citizens in Bentham becomes especially obvious in his extolling of freedom of the press and freedom of speech – Bentham even talks about the ‘Public Opinion Tribunal’.Footnote 93 Public opinion is therefore seen as an important motor of social change.Footnote 94
The controlling role of the citizens is also to be found in its democratic participation. Following the outbreak of the French Revolution and a brief ‘flirtation’ with democratic ideas, Bentham was for a while critical of the dominion of that ‘sorry majority’Footnote 95 which, in his opinion, had driven the political system of France against the wall. However, after the English parliamentary monarchy had proved itself equally incapable of learning, Bentham finally ‘converts’ to being a democrat after 1800.Footnote 96 Because the rulers are no more capable of being persuaded away from their private interests through moral arguments than the Pope would allow himself to be persuaded towards Protestantism as a result of arguments, the basic idea behind Bentham's theory of democracy states that only a democratic system can lead to the happiness of all citizens being taken into account.Footnote 97
Within the group of all citizens, Bentham to some extent highlights the role of its middle-class members, who, according to him, form the ‘most virtuous’Footnote 98 part of society. While Bentham's political goal is to increase everyone's happiness, it is not the case that Bentham regards everyone equally as active co-creators of civil life. Though he seems not to share the enthusiastic appraisal of the middle class we find in James Mill,Footnote 99 I would like to give two examples of how the middle class is judged at least to have a special active role.
First, in economic life the members of the middle class are the people who make greatest use of the above-mentioned economic freedoms. The poor, in contrast, in Bentham's thinking, have a more reactive role. According to Bentham, a nationwide company should build so-called ‘Industry Houses’ where the poor are able to apply for housing and working under given conditions they cannot change.Footnote 100
Second, although Bentham follows Helvétius in the demand that all parts of society should have access to public education,Footnote 101 he designs two different types of school. On the one hand, his well-known school project Chrestomathia is explicitly intended for the ‘middle ranks’, who should be specially prepared to participate in political debates.Footnote 102 On the other hand, his courageous demand for pauper education is linked with eliminating from the curriculum all politically relevant knowledge as ‘useless studies’,Footnote 103 and Bentham emphasizes that, regarding education, a ‘Gentleman tells for more in the general account, than a common man: his conduct has more weight, more influence in society.’Footnote 104
Bentham's theorizing about the role of the citizens is reflected in his own political commitment. How strongly his utilitarian theory is interwoven with societally relevant action from the outset can be seen in the characteristic missionary style with which he aligns his students with his utilitarian programme. He presents himself as ‘a founder of a sect, of course a personage of great sanctity and importance. It was called the sect of the utilitarians.’Footnote 105 Asked by an influential personality what can be done to save the English nation, Bentham replies by paraphrasing Jesus: ‘take up my book, & follow me’.Footnote 106
And Bentham does indeed attempt to exert his influence on politics. Such attempts can first be seen in the way he drafts laws and then presents them to those in power. As early as the 1770s, he tried to arouse the attention of Catherine the Great, and up to the 1820s he agitated for his ideas in letters to political leaders in the whole world.Footnote 107 Paradigmatic for his ‘advisory’ understanding of political influence is, for example, the subtitle of his Projet d'un corps de loix: ‘Offre faite par un Anglois aux Souverains de l'Europe’.
Having converted to democracy himself, the manner of Bentham's political activity changes after the turn of the century. Despite continuing to try to convince political leaders, he now tries to exert direct political influence more vehemently over existing democratic paths. His publications are no longer directed only at monarchs, but at a broader public audience; the title of his Letter to the Citizens [!] of the American United States (1817) and his founding of the Westminster Review (1823) are both paradigmatic. To acquire democratic influence, Bentham lacked, however, talent, and the group of Philosophic Radicals was necessary to bring his ideas to the public.Footnote 108
V. CONCLUSION: FROM THEORY TO PRACTICE
Whereas it seems hard to prove that Bentham takes certain aspects of his thinking exclusively from Helvétius rather than from other writers, it could be shown that Bentham follows Helvétius in using these three axioms: (1) human beings act according to their self-interests; (2) the actions of human beings ought to be guided according to the principle of the greatest utility for the general community; (3) the means with which the actions of human beings are to be guided are politics and law.
Searching through the works of Helvétius for ideas concerning how the utility principle could be applied proves disappointing, however, for the few thoughts he leaves in his legacy are very general indeed. The way Bentham approaches Helvétian ideas can therefore largely be described as the transition from theory to practice. On the one hand, this transition refers to the theoretical work of Bentham, who would like to be the ‘Newton of legislation’, presenting realizable results of his philosophic studies. It is in this sense that Bentham writes in a later review of the emergence of utilitarianism with reference to Helvétius's De l'esprit: ‘In this work, a commencement was made of the application of the principle of utility to practical uses’; its continuation, however, ‘was reserved for a later period, of which presently’.Footnote 109 On the other hand, this transition refers to the role of the philosopher, who is no longer content with the elaboration of theories and instead himself becomes politically active.
This result is a refinement of the general claims on Bentham and Helvétius I mentioned initially. Likewise, it gives support to an alternative interpretation of the differences between the two authors which Frederick Rosen refers to. As I argued, Helvétius is more concerned with the general bias of the form of government, without discussing specific arrangements of governments. Bentham, however, obviously is willing to restrict personal freedom whenever this could serve happiness. Therefore, it should not be taken for granted that Bentham favours stricter limits of the private sphere than Helvétius. If it is true, as Rosen claims, that Helvétius views citizens’ virtue as a political goal more strongly than Bentham did, the question of whether citizens are active political agents or rather reactive ‘puppets’ seems to be the crucial one here.
Additionally, my claims could also contribute to the description of a broader shift in philosophical theorizing. I cannot elaborate this here, but in my view Bentham's thinking should be seen as an important link between the Enlightenment and the nineteenth century: his elaborating of the ideas of Helvétius is a prime example of the increasing ‘politicization’ of philosophy marking the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and stands for a shift towards practice that is later followed across Europe by, say, Comte and Fourier, by the German Left Hegelians, and by sociotechnical models of society in Marxist as well as capitalist theories.Footnote 110
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