James E. Crimmins - Utilitarianism in the Early American Republic

In Utilitarianism in the Early American Republic James E. Crimmins provides a fresh perspective on the history of antebellum American political thought.

Based on a broad-ranging study of the dissemination and reception of utilitarian ideas in the areas of constitutional politics, law education, law reform, moral theory, and political economy, Crimmins illustrates the complexities of the place of utilitarianism in the intellectual ferment of the times, in both its secular and religious forms, intersection with other doctrines, and practical outcomes. The pragmatic character of American political thought brought to lightculminating in the postbellum rise of the philosophy of Pragmatismstands in marked contrast to the conventional interpretations of intellectual history in this period.

Utilitarianism in the Early American Republic will be of interest to academic specialists, and graduate and senior undergraduate students engaged in the history of political thought, moral philosophy, and legal philosophy, particularly scholars with interests in utilitarianism, the trans-Atlantic transfer of ideas, the American political tradition, and modern American intellectual history.

James E. Crimmins is Professor Emeritus and Research Fellow at Huron University College, Canada, and a Fulbright Fellow. He is a leading authority on utilitarianism and the history of utilitarian thought, on which subject he has published extensively, including The Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Utilitarianism (2013; rept 2017), Utilitarian Philosophy and Politics: Benthams Later Years (2011; rept 2013), On Bentham (2004), Utilitarians and Religion (1998), and Secular Utilitarianism: Social Science and the Critique of Religion in the Thought of Jeremy Bentham (1990). He has also edited Religion, Secularization and Political Thought: Thomas Hobbes to J.S. Mill (1989; rept 2013), Church-of-Englandism and its Catechism Examined (with Catherine Fuller) for The Collected Works of Jeremy Bentham (2011), Utilitarians and Their Critics in America, 17891914 (with Mark G. Spencer), 4 vols (2005), and Benthams Auto Icon and Related Writings (2002), among other anthologies and collections.

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For more information about this series, please visit: https://www.routledge.com/Routledge-Innovations-in-Political-Theory/book-series/IPT

First published 2022

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2022 James E. Crimmins

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ISBN: 978-0-367-54526-0 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-0-367-54809-4 (pbk)

ISBN: 978-1-003-09067-0 (ebk)

DOI: 10.4324/9781003090670

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For Johanne

In executing a project such as this an author incurs many debts. Two of my former students Meg Laws and Noel Platte exemplified all the best in their liberal arts education in conducting archival work and producing meticulous accounts of relevant material. Nina Reid-Maroney, my esteemed colleague at Huron University College, graciously read several chapters and set me right on the complexities of Benjamin Rushs religious convictions. Also at Huron, for many years I have enjoyed tremendous support from my colleagues in the Department of Political Science and in the faculty at large, providing a stimulating and joyful venue for teaching and research. Elsewhere, Bart Schultz at the University of Chicago and Sam LaSelva at the University of British Columbia offered encouragement at crucial moments in this project, more valuable and valued than they perhaps realise. A spontaneous discussion with Sam, a long-time friend, pushed me to think deeper about the relationship between utilitarianism and pragmatism, and I hope I have done that exchange justice in the Epilogue to the book. For generous financial assistance I must thank Huron University College and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and also Fulbright Canada for funding a visiting fellowship in the Department of Philosophy at Vanderbilt University. I am grateful to Professor Robert Talisse who arranged for administrative support during my time at Vanderbilt, provided a warm welcome into the congenial scholarly life of the department, lent me books by and on the pragmatists, and kindly entertained my nave conjectures about the thought of John Dewey.

Versions of several chapters were presented at scholarly forums and benefited from the generosity and criticisms of commentators and discussants, including at Vanderbilt University and in the meetings of the Northeast American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, Canadian Society for Eighteenth-century Studies, Midwest Political Science Association, International Society for Utilitarian Studies, and Northeast Conference of British Studies. A shorter version of Chapter 2 appeared in