Allison Dube - The Theme of Acquisitiveness in Benthams Political Thought

ROUTLEDGE LIBRARY EDITIONS: SOCIAL AND POLITICAL THOUGHT IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

Volume 1

THE THEME OF ACQUISITIVENESS IN BENTHAM'S POLITICAL THOUGHT

Allison Dube

First published in 1991 by Garland Publishing, Inc.

This edition first published in 2017
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1991 Allison Dube

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ISBN: 978-1-138-69658-7 (Set)
ISBN: 978-1-315-52405-4 (Set) (ebk)
ISBN: 978-1-138-68864-3 (Volume 1) (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-53810-5 (Volume 1) (ebk)

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Allison Dube

Reading this work twenty-five years after its initial publication, two of Proust's ideas haunted my thoughts. First, and perhaps most obvious as it relates to memory, "a thing which we have looked at in the past brings back to us, if we see it again, not only the eyes with which we looked at it but all the images with which at the time our eyes were filled." One memory of my beginning study of Bentham, one of the times surrounding the book's composition, and one of a feeling that grew during that process may provide background to the original project.

I arrived in London to work on my Ph. D. having modest knowledge of Bentham, based on reading parts of An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation and what others had written. It seemed that most commentators did not like Bentham, and even those who did found his work lacking in depth. John Stuart Mill had said that Bentham could teach merely the "business part of social arrangements;" and as I had found the Introduction as compelling as a repair manual that assessment rang true. Bentham was not my first choice for study, and the evening my supervisor, Frederick Rosen, directed me to him I left feeling chagrined. I felt like a new student at Political Philosophy High star struck by the cool kids, the inspiring and seductive thinkers in the lunchroom; yet my teacher had pointed to Bentham and said "go talk with him." Who would want to spend time with the kid nobody seemed to like?

Yet as I began to appreciate my eccentric new friend a question formed: could people with such opposing views as Marx and Hayek really both be right to condemn him? What if their own preconceptions had prevented them from seeing something greater than ever dreamt of in their philosophies? I had previously found Hayek's Law, Legislation and Liberty disarming in clarity and scope, and this image resonated with many at the time as the Thatcher government strove to align British political life to Hayekian principles. But as a comparison of Hayek and Bentham progressed, it seemed clear that Hayek had misread, even misrepresented Bentham. This was not just a matter of textual interpretation. Keynes had said that even a "defunct economist" could turn people who felt exempt from any intellectual influence into slaves. Nobel laureate Hayek was no defunct economist, his influence was huge; and clearly he had no desire to turn people into slaves. But the lens of Bentham's writing revealed Hayek to be (as he had proclaimed) an "unrepentant old Whig" in every sense. As my study finished I still felt Hayek's work was disarming: it disarmed anyone from arguing that the results "of human action but not the execution of human design" may as easily be sinister as good, and that these sinister results would constrain people from following a most fundamental human motivation.

This fundamental human inclination, the "main spring" of acquisitiveness, and how Bentham understands and works with it are central themes in this study. Following the steppingstones of his accountfrom people's definition and pursuit of self-actuated motion, through expectation, to the process of "expansion" and the changeable nature of propertybrought back another memory: a constant feeling of surprise at how the better I had understood these and other elements the more comprehensive and interconnected Bentham's system of thought was revealed to be. This recalls a second Proustian insight: that "great works of art do not begin by giving us the best of themselves."

My stepsand those of othersin appreciating the "great work" of Bentham's system follows the pattern set by the masterpieces Proust describes. Such works contain "new and strange" elements one may not understand or even recognize. Yet over time these elements that were so novel they may have "become invisible and remained unknown," reveal themselves.

If ever there were a great work especially reluctant to reveal the best of itself, it would have to be the complete set of works that constituted Bentham's corpus. Philip Schofield has summarized the difficulties that have prevented even the most diligent from reading many of Bentham's works at allfrom the transcribing of his manuscripts, to poorly edited and myopia-inducing volumes, to funding issues hampering progress on compiling the definitive Collected Works . Critics have tried isolated components of Bentham's works by their own preferred modes of Scripture ever since.

Yet the core of Proust's insight remains: over time a great work will reveal more of itself both to the person who cares for it and to the community of minds it helped to spawn. If rewriting this book today, once I had recast it in gender inclusive language, I would illustrate better some themes that seemed novel at the time, but now appear more important and indeed may be more palatable to today's community of minds. Bentham's use of an "expanding" conception of property is one such theme; the need to foster an equality of understanding among citizens is another (this topic is prominent in my current project, a study of Chrestomathia ).

The newest generation forming the community of minds today understands the need to make the world habitable not just physically but socially for all. And for these tasks they must first repair the device that will be needed for them: government. A remarkably detailed repair manual for this most important device is part of the great work bequeathed by Bentham, but there are more parts waiting to reveal themselves still.