Jeremy Bentham

From Philosopedia

Bentham, Jeremy (15 February 1748 O.S. [26 February 1748 N.S.] - 6 June 1832)

Bentham, who was born in London, was a philosopher, utilitarian humanitarian, and atheist who began learning Latin at age four. He earned his B.A. from Oxford by age 15 or 16, and his M.A. at 18. His Rationale of Punishments and Rewards was published in 1775, followed by his groundbreaking utilitarian work, Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation.

Bentham propounded his principle of "the greatest happiness of the greatest number." He worked for political, legal, prison, and educational reform. Inheriting a large fortune from his father in 1792, Bentham was free to spend his remaining life promoting progressive causes.

The renowned humanitarian was made a citizen of France by the National Assembly in Paris. In published and unpublished treatises, Bentham extensively critiqued religion, the catechism, the use of religious oaths, and the Bible. Using the pen-name Philip Beauchamp, he co-wrote a freethought treatise, Analysis of the Influence of Natural Religion on the Temporal Happiness of Mankind (1822).

Bentham is author of An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789). His utilitarianism strongly influenced John Stuart Mill.

Mill’s and Bentham’s work, according to Corliss Lamont,

• was quite humanistic in its total effect . . . the philosophic counterpart of the profit-motive theory of Adam Smith and other exponents of laissez-faire economics.

According to G. W. Foote,

• Bentham exercised a profound influence on the party of progress for nearly two generations. He was the father of Philosophical Radicalism, which did so much to free the minds and bodies of the English people, and which counted among its swordsmen historians like Grote, philosophers like Mill, wits like Sydney Smith, journalists like Fonblanque, and politicians like Roebuck. As a reformer in jurisprudence, politicians like Roebuck. As a reformer in jurisprudence he has no equal. His brain swarmed with progressive ideas and projects for the improvement and elevation of mankind; and his fortune, as well as his intellect, was ever at the service of advanced causes. His skepticism was rather suggested than paraded in his multitudinous writings, but it was plainly expressed in a few special volumes. Not Paul, but Jesus, published under the pseudonym of Camaliel Smith is a slashing attack on the Great Apostle. ‘The Church of England Catechism Explained’ is a merciless criticism of that great instrument for producing mental and political slaves. But the most thorough-going of Bentham’s works was a little volume written by Grote from the Master’s notes - ‘The Influence of Natural Religion on the Temporal Happiness of Mankind’ - in which theology is assailed as the historic and necessary enemy of human liberty, enlightenment.”

His Deontology, or the Science of Morality was prohibited by the Vatican to be read, as were other of his works from 1819 to 1835. However, in none of his published works does the distinguished jurist profess atheism. Just the same, David Berman as well as A. Benn make the case that Bentham was an atheist. Joseph McCabe, similarly, wrote that Bentham was “a declared atheist and in unpublished manuscripts he contemptuously called Christianity ‘Juggernaut.’ In collaboration with the historian Grote he, under the pseudonym Philip Beauchamp, wrote an Analysis of the Influence of Natural Religion on the Temporal Happiness of Mankind (1822), in which all religion, natural or supernatural, is attacked.”

Bentham argued for a tolerant attitude to homosexuals. He attributed prejudice against them as being irrational hatred and antipathy. Louis Crompton of the University of Nebraska wrote that Bentham identified what is now called homophobia and directed his efforts to analyzing it: “In Bentham’s view, it was this negative bias that needed explanation, not the phenomenon of same-sex desire. He finds its origin in religious asceticism inspired by the superstitious fear of a vengeful deity and in the desire of men who lead profligate lives to gain a reputation for virtue by damning a sin they are not inclined to. He excoriates the contemporary press for intensifying popular prejudice by an unvaried tone of vituperation that made rational debate impossible. With respect to contemporary literature. Bentham takes to task Henry Fielding, Tobias Smollett, and certain French and Germany novelists for introducing homophobic episodes in their fiction.” For Bentham, so long as homosexual acts had no bad consequences such as unwanted pregnancies, abortion, infanticide, and female prostitution, there were “beneficial effects of certain of these modes of enjoyment.”

Death Mask]]

Bentham pre-planned his death, writing in “Auto-Icon, or Further Uses of the Dead to the Living” about the ultimate of utilitarianism: preserving “a population of illustrious Auto-Icons,” or preserved bodies. Upon his death, he directed that his body should be dissected in front of friends. His head was mummified. The skeleton was reconstructed and a wax head replaced the original, whereupon he is still displayed in his own clothes in University College, London. There is the wide-brimmed straw hat with a black ribbon tied in a bow, the black coat, the vest, the brown leather trousers, the woven leather slippers, brown gloves, and a ruff-embellished shirt. His skull resides in a small box, decorated with the college crest. Atop the philosopher’s body is a surrogate head consisting of a puffy wax image. Twice a year the philosopher’s followers still remove him from the case and in the main refectory of University College enjoy a Bentham Society dinner with their leader at the head of the table.

Tom Weil has written, “After Bentham’s demise technicians found his head difficult to embalm as the object exuded an unfreezable, oil-like substance which made the flesh intractable. When one observer suggested that the freeze-proof liquid might well serve to oil chronometers used in cold areas, a wit noted that this might lead to the killing of philosophers for their oil,” and the suggestion was not followed.

- That's Bentham's real head betwee his feet

Fred Whitehead, visiting in 1995, described making a pilgrimage to Bentham's auto-icon, his (un)hallowed remains:

• There, in a dark corridor, was a large wooden cabinet, with a man dressed up in 18th-century clothes, almost as if he had just sat down for a little rest. That is, indeed, the moral remains of Bentham. I was told that the head is a wax substitute for the original, which is housed in a vault on the College premises. . . . [At] the 150th annual meeting of the College Committee in 1976, the minutes recorded him “Present but not voting.”

Although he died in 1769, his will dating to 1769 had left his body for the purpose of science, “not out of affectation of singularity, but to the intent and with the desire that mankind may reap some small benefit in and by my decease, having hitherto had small opportunities to contribute thereto while living.” Dr. Southwood Smith delivered a lecture over Bentham’s remains, three days after his death, in the Webb Street School of Anatomy, in which he said,

• Some time before his death, when he truly believed he was near that hour, he said to one of his disciples, who was watching over him: “I now feel that I am dying; our care must be to minimize the pain. Do not let any of the servants come into my room and keep away the youth: it will be distressing to them, and they can be of no service. Yet I must not be alone: you will remain with me, and you only; and then we shall have reduced the pain to the least possible amount.” Such were his last thoughts and feelings.

[See gravesite photo by Timothy Madigan.]

{BDF; CB; CE; CL; EU, Delos B. McKown; FFRF; FO; Freethought History #18, 1996, contains photos of the head and of Jeremy; FUK; Louis Crompton, GL; HAB; ILP; JM; JMRH; PUT; RAT; RE; TRI; TYD; U; UU}