Happiness and Utility: Jeremy Bentham's Equation

Utilitas

Volumn 17, Issue 1, 2005, Pages 46-61

  Burns, J H ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON   (United Kingdom)

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EID: 85008536269     PISSN: 09538208     EISSN: 17416183     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0953820804001396     Document Type: Article

References (46)

1. A Comment on the Commentaries and A Fragment on Government, ed. J. H. Burns and H. L. A. Hart, in The Collected Works of Jeremy Bentham [hereafter CW] (London, 1977), p. 393.
2. R. Shackleton, 'The Greatest Happiness of the Greatest Number: The History of Bentham's Phrase', Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century 90 (1972).
3. The Works of Jeremy Bentham, published under the superintendence of... John Bowring, 11 vols. (Edinburgh, 1838-43) [hereafter Bowring], vol. 10, p. 54.
4. Cf. The Works of Jeremy Bentham, published under the superintendence of... John Bowring, pp. 79-80.
5. However, in the seventeenth chapter (which was to grow into the continuation now known as Of Laws in General), Bentham does say that 'Ethics at large may be defined, the art of directing men's actions to the production of the greatest possible quantity of happiness, on the part of thosewhose interest is in view' (An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, ed. J. H. Burns and H. L. A. Hart, in CW (London, 1970), p. 282). In material seemingly intended for a concluding chapter in Of Laws in General (ed. H. L. A. Hart, in CW (London, 1970), p. 289), Bentham says that the 'direct and positive' purpose of legislation is 'to add to the happiness of the community'.
6. Bowring, vol. 6, p. 6: 'Of legislation the proper end may... be stated as being... in every community, the creation and preservation of the greatest happiness to the greatest number.'
7. Fragment, in CW, pp. 415-16.
8. In CW, pp. 11-12.
9. In CW, pp. 173-4.
10. In CW, p. 11 n.
11. Bowring, vol. 4, p. 447 n.
12. Bentham MSS, University College London, lxix.79: 'I dreamt t' other night that I was a founder of a sect... It was called the sect of the Utilitarians.'
13. In the Interest of the Governed: A Study of Bentham's Philosophy of Utility and Law (Oxford, 1973).
14. In the Interest of the Governed: A Study of Bentham's Philosophy of Utility and Law, p. 24.
15. Cf. In the Interest of the Governed: A Study of Bentham's Philosophy of Utility and Law, pp. 29-30.
16. In CW, p. 285.
17. In the Interest of the Governed, pp. 56-7.
18. In CW, p. 219.
19. In CW, p. 290.
20. In CW, p. 219.
21. In the Interest of the Governed, p. 4.
22. In CW, p. 1. It is worth noting that the pagination of the 1789 edition is, for this reason, in lower-case roman numerals.
23. In the Interest of the Governed, pp. 102-3, citing Bowring, vol. 2, p. 537.
24. Cf., contrastingly, Lyons, In the Interest of the Governed, p. 32: 'The interests to be promoted are the interests of those being "directed" rather than those who may be affected.'
25. In the Interest of the Governed, p. 24.
26. Cf. Lyons's exemplification of the two categories in Bentham's writings: In the Interest of the Governed, p. 25 n. 3.
27. Bowring, vol. 2, p. 269.
28. First Principles Preparatory to Constitutional Code, ed. P. Schofield, in CW (Oxford, 1990), pp. 211-12 n. The text is essentially that cited (from Bowring, vol. 2, p. 6) by Lyons, In the Interest of the Governed, p. 101. It was written in August 1822. For the last seven words cf. Luke 2.14: 'peace, good will toward men'.
29. R. A. Fenn (ed.), A Textbook for Utilitarians: James Mill's Articles in the Encyclopædia Britannica, 1818-1823 (Toronto, 1991), p. 272.
30. Shackleton, 'Greatest Happiness of the Greatest Number', p. 1480.
31. Cf. n. 6 above.
32. See Comment/Fragment, in CW, p. xxxii n. 3. No reference to this project has been found in Bentham's correspondence at the time or later, not is it mentioned in Alexander Bain's James Mill: A Biography (London, 1882), which otherwise records much of Bentham's activity in the relevant period.
33. See J. R. Dinwiddy, 'Bentham's Transition to Political Radicalism, 1809-10', in his Radicalism and Reform in Britain, 1750-1850, ed. H. T. Dickinson (London and Rio Grande, 1992), pp. 273-90.
34. 'Legislator of the World': Writings on Codification, Law and Education, in CW, ed. P. Schofield and J. Harris (Oxford, 1998), p. 209. A year or so later, writing on 'Economy as applied to Office', Bentham said that 'the particular interest of the ruling class is in a state of natural and diametrical opposition to that of the whole people considered in the correspondent character of subjects': in First Principles preparatory to Constitutional Code, in CW, ed. P. Schofield, p. 16.
35. 'Constitutional Code Rationale', in First Principles (as in n. 34), p. 232: cf. Bowring, vol. 9, p, 5.
36. First Principles, p. 234 and n. 3, where the editor directs attention to the discussion of the matter in An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, in CW, pp. 11-12.
37. Constitutional Code, vol. 1, in CW, ed. J. H. Burns and F. Rosen (Oxford, 1983), p. 18: 'Of this constitution, the all-comprehensive object or end in view, is, from first to last, the greatest happiness of the greatest number, namely, of the individuals, of whom, the political community or state, of which it is the constitution, is composed'.
38. The editor, Thomas Perronet Thompson, made strictly limited use of some of Bentham's material in the published article - the context being the controversy precipitated by Macaulay's attack, in the Edinburgh Review, on James Mill's essay on Government.
39. Deontology together with A Table of the Springs of Action and the Article on Utilitarianism, in CW, ed. A. Goldworth (Oxford, 1983), p. 309.
40. CW, pp. 309-10.
41. CW, pp. 310-11.
42. Cf. Chrestomathia, in CW, ed. M. H. Smith and W. H. Burston (Oxford, 1983), pp. 209-10.
43. In that context, it may be noted, Bentham used the term 'Eudaimonics' to denote 'the universal trunk of Arts', while 'Ontology' fulfilled the same function in respect of 'Sciences'. He had found the 'emblem' in, especially, the work of d' Alembert: cf., e.g., Chrestomathia, pp. 159-60.
44. The Greek-derived terminology Bentham adopted in Chrestomathia (and would perhaps have adopted elsewhere, had not wiser counsels prevailed) has not tended to make this a more accessible text.
45. Chrestomathia, in CW, p. 204.
46. Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, in CW, p. 10.