Bentham is a utilitarian thinker and is considered as one the leading theorists of liberalism. He is also known as a philosophic radical. The utilitarian doctrine has its beginning, like all doctrines falling within the framework of liberalism, the individual psychology. Bentham’s utilitarian doctrine conceives two impulses, ‘two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure’, which are integral to human emotions and nature. These two opposite impulses of human psychology determine what is evil and what is good. What brings happiness is good and the opposite of this is evil. Pleasure is always desirable and pain is always avoided. In fact, in case of priority, any pleasure is better than any pain; a pleasure, which gives more happiness, is preferable over which gives less (the quantitative measure). Accordingly, test of an action of an individual or society or government is its utility to cause pleasure and avert pain. If so, then as Wayper says, ‘the doctrine of utility must therefore also be a doctrine that teaches how pleasure can be measured.’19 Utility is what brings happiness and is good. If happiness can be measured quantitatively, scale of utility or hedonistic calculus/felicific calculus can be devised.
To know which action has utility and its scale as compared to other actions, Bentham suggests the following criteria:20 (i) intensity—strength of feeling; (ii) duration—how long it lasts; (iii) certainty—how certain or uncertain it is; (iv) propinquity—proximity/accessibility or remoteness/in accessibility of pleasure; (v) fecundity—chances of being followed by sensation of pleasure; (vi) purity—no chance of pain; and (vii) extent—affect others or not, more relevant to judge public policy.
The upshot of Bentham’s utilitarian principle is that happiness or search for pleasure being the individual psychology, the organizing principle of society and governmental action should also be the same. Government should, then pursue ‘greatest happiness for the greatest number’ as this is ‘the only scientifically defensible criterion … of the public good’;21 a policy of the government is good if it serves a larger section of society by bringing more happiness than to larger section by bringing less happiness. The principle of greatest happiness for the greatest number has four ‘subsidiary goals: to provide subsistence, to produce abundance, to favour equality, to maintain security’.22 To produce in abundance is self-motivated as each seeks to maximize own wealth without limit. The State becomes ‘a group of persons organized for the promotion and maintenance of utility—that is happiness or pleasure.’ The purpose of legislation by the State is promotion and maintenance of happiness. Punishment and rewarding has to subscribe to this principle of utility; Bentham argued not for retributive justice (e.g., eye for an eye) but for corrective justice—punishment to a person is for setting an example for others not to do the same than to provide ‘eye for an eye’ justice; punishment only for increasing ‘net balance of pleasure or decreasing net balance of pain.’
Bentham grounds state action and individual obligation not on the basis of any contract or natural rights as the social contractualist did. He rejected the doctrine of natural rights as ‘natural and imprescriptible rights rhetorical nonsense—nonsense upon stilts’.23 For Bentham, the State is the source of rights and right to property is necessary for security. He makes the individual interest as the basis for social and public policy. However, in this, he makes maximum happiness as the end of the State rather than maximum liberty. Bentham advocates Civil Liberty—liberty consistent with interest of the community. But the community interest is nothing more than ‘the sum of the interests of the several members who compose it,24 The utility principles also amount to ‘each to count as one, and no one for more than one’ in the political arena. Bentham’s state is a negative state, as it has no relation with moral life of people, except ensuring their happiness by removing conditions of pain.
Now what implication this utilitarian argument has for the functions of the state, role of public policy and individualism, Bentham makes individual psychology as the basis of state action and public legislation. He treats the State as contrivance and trustee of the individual. But he gives the State chance of ‘social engineering’—to legislate for greatest happiness for the greatest number. By making maximum happiness as the end of the State rather than maximum liberty and giving chance of social engineering with illiberal implications, is it not that he appears as ambivalent liberal. Commentators like Wayper and Nelson are of the view that Bentham’s views may not be clear-cut statement of laissez faire liberalism. However, notwithstanding ambivalence, his is a theory of a liberal democratic state, which is to ensure conditions for the individual to pursue his happiness by removing the risks. It remains a negative state and individual’s utility remain the basis of state policy.
Leave a Reply