The English Utilitarians Volume I Part 15

[375] Here Bentham coincides with Horne Tooke, to whose 'discoveries' he refers in the _Chrestomathia_ (_Works_, viii. 120, 185, 188).

[376] _Works_, iii. 286; viii. 119.

[377] _Ibid._ ('Ontology') viii. 196 _n._

[378] _Ibid._ viii, 197 _n._

[379] _Ibid._ viii. 263.

[380] _Works_ ('Ontology'), viii. 119.

[381] _Ibid._ viii. 198.

[382] _Ibid._ viii. 199.

[383] _Ibid._ viii. 206, 247.

[384] Helvetius adds to this that the only real pains and pleasures are the physical, but Bentham does not follow him here. See Helvetius, _OEuvres_ (1781), ii. 121, etc.

[385] _Works_, i. 211 ('Springs of Action').

[386] _Ibid._ i. 206.

II. SPRINGS OF ACTION

Our path is now clear. Pains and pleasures give us what mathematicians call the 'independent variable.' Our units are (in Bentham's phrase) 'lots' of pain or pleasure. We have to interpret all the facts in terms of pain or pleasure, and we shall have the materials for what has since been called a 'felicific calculus.' To construct this with a view to legislation is his immediate purpose. The theory will fall into two parts: the 'pathological,' or an account of all the pains and pleasures which are the primary data; and the 'dynamical,' or an account of the various modes of conduct determined by expectations of pain and pleasure. This gives the theory of 'springs of action,' considered in themselves, and of 'motives,' that is, of the springs as influencing conduct.[387] The 'pathology' contains, in the first place, a discussion of the measure of pain and pleasure in general; secondly, a discussion of the various species of pain and pleasure; and thirdly, a discussion of the varying sensibilities of different individuals to pain and pleasure.[388] Thus under the first head, we are told that the value of a pleasure, considered by itself, depends upon its intensity, duration, certainty, and propinquity; and, considered with regard to modes of obtaining it, upon its fecundity (or tendency to produce other pains and pleasures) and its purity (or freedom from admixture of other pains and pleasures). The pain or pleasure is thus regarded as an ent.i.ty which is capable of being in some sense weighed and measured.[389] The next step is to cla.s.sify pains and pleasures, which though commensurable as psychological forces, have obviously very different qualities. Bentham gives the result of his cla.s.sification without the a.n.a.lysis upon which it depends. He a.s.sures us that he has obtained an 'exhaustive' list of 'simple pleasures.' It must be confessed that the list does not commend itself either as exhaustive or as composed of 'simple pleasures.' He does not explain the principle of his a.n.a.lysis because he says, it was of 'too metaphysical a cast,'[390] but he thought it so important that he published it, edited with considerable modifications by James Mill, in 1817, as a _Table of the Springs of Action_.[391]

J. S. Mill remarks that this table should be studied by any one who would understand Bentham's philosophy. Such a study would suggest some unfavourable conclusions. Bentham seems to have made out his table without the slightest reference to any previous psychologist. It is simply constructed to meet the requirements of his legislative theories.

As psychology it would be clearly absurd, especially if taken as giving the elementary or 'simple' feelings. No one can suppose, for example, that the pleasures of 'wealth' or 'power' are 'simple' pleasures. The cla.s.ses therefore are not really distinct, and they are as far from being exhaustive. All that can be said for the list is that it gives a sufficiently long enumeration to call attention from his own point of view to most of the ordinary pleasures and pains; and contains as much psychology as he could really turn to account for his purpose.

The omissions with which his greatest disciple charges him are certainly significant. We find, says Mill, no reference to 'Conscience,'

'Principle,' 'Moral Rect.i.tude,' or 'Moral Duty' among the 'springs of action,' unless among the synonyms of a 'love of reputation,' or in so far as 'Conscience' and 'Principle' are sometimes synonymous with the 'religious' motive or the motive of 'sympathy.' So the sense of 'honour,' the love of beauty, and of order, of power (except in the narrow sense of power over our fellows) and of action in general are all omitted. We may conjecture what reply Bentham would have made to this criticism. The omission of the love of beauty and aesthetic pleasures may surprise us when we remember that Bentham loved music, if he cared nothing for poetry. But he apparently regarded these as 'complex pleasures,'[392] and therefore not admissible into his table, if it be understood as an a.n.a.lysis into the simple pleasures alone. The pleasures of action are deliberately omitted, for Bentham pointedly gives the 'pains' of labour as a cla.s.s without corresponding pleasure; and this, though indicative, I think, of a very serious error, is characteristic rather of his method of a.n.a.lysis than of his real estimate of pleasure.

n.o.body could have found more pleasure than Bentham in intellectual labour, but he separated the pleasure from the labour. He therefore thought 'labour,' as such, a pure evil, and cla.s.sified the pleasure as a pleasure of 'curiosity.' But the main criticism is more remarkable. Mill certainly held himself to be a sound Utilitarian; and yet he seems to be condemning Bentham for consistent Utilitarianism. Bentham, by admitting the 'conscience' into his simple springs of action, would have fallen into the very circle from which he was struggling to emerge. If, in fact, the pleasures of conscience are simple pleasures, we have the objectionable 'moral sense' intruded as an ultimate factor of human nature. To get rid of that 'fict.i.tious ent.i.ty' is precisely Bentham's aim. The moral judgment is to be precisely equivalent to the judgment: 'this or that kind of conduct increases or diminishes the sum of human pains or pleasures.' Once allow that among the pains and pleasures themselves is an ultimate conscience--a faculty not constructed out of independent pains and pleasures--and the system becomes a vicious circle. Conscience on any really Utilitarian scheme must be a derivative, not an ultimate, faculty. If, as Mill seems to say, the omission is a blunder, Bentham's Utilitarianism at least must be an erroneous system.

We have now our list both of pains and pleasures and of the general modes of variation by which their value is to be measured. We must also allow for the varying sensibilities of different persons. Bentham accordingly gives a list of thirty-two 'circ.u.mstances influencing sensibility.'[393] Human beings differ in const.i.tution, character, education, s.e.x, race, and so forth, and in their degrees of sensibility to all the various cla.s.ses of pains and pleasures; the consideration of these varieties is of the highest utility for the purposes of the judge and the legislator.[394] The 'sanctions' will operate differently in different cases. A blow will have different effects upon the sick and upon the healthy; the same fine imposed upon the rich and the poor will cause very different pains; and a law which is beneficent in Europe may be a scourge in America.

We have thus our 'pathology' or theory of the pa.s.sive sensibilities of man. We know what are the 'springs of action,' how they vary in general, and how they vary from one man to another. We can therefore pa.s.s to the dynamics.[395] We have described the machinery in rest, and can now consider it in motion. We proceed as before by first considering action in general: which leads to consideration of the 'intention' and the 'motive' implied by any conscious action: and hence of the relation of these to the 'springs of action' as already described. The discussion is minute and elaborate; and Bentham improves as he comes nearer to the actual problems of legislation and further from the ostensible bases of psychology. The a.n.a.lysis of conduct, and of the sanctions by which conduct is modified, involves a view of morals and of the relations between the spheres of morality and legislation which is of critical importance for the whole Utilitarian creed. 'Moral laws' and a 'Positive law' both affect human action. How do they differ? Bentham's treatment of the problem shows, I think, a clearer appreciation of some difficulties than might be inferred from his later utterances. In any case, it brings into clear relief a moral doctrine which deeply affected his successors.

NOTES:

[387] _Works_, i. 205; and Dumont's _Traites_ (1820), i. xxv, xxvi. The word 'springs of action' perhaps comes from the marginal note to the above-mentioned pa.s.sage of Locke (bk. ii. chap. xxvi, -- 41, 42).

[388] _Morals and Legislation_, chaps. iv., v., vi.

[389] See 'Codification Proposal' (_Works_, iv. 540), where Bentham takes money as representing pleasure, and shows how the present value may be calculated like that of a sum put out to interest. The same a.s.sumption is often made by Political Economists in regard to 'utilities.'

[390] _Works_ ('Morals and Legislation'), i. 17 _n._

[391] It is not worth while to consider this at length; but I give the following conjectural account of the list as it appears in the _Morals and Legislation_ above. In cla.s.sifying pain or pleasures, Bentham is, I think, following the clue suggested by his 'sanctions.' He is really cla.s.sifying according to their causes or the way in which they are 'annexed.' Thus pleasures may or may not be dependent upon other persons, or if upon other persons, may be indirectly or directly caused by their pleasures or pains. Pleasures not caused by persons correspond to the 'physical sanction,' and are those (1) of the 'senses,' (2) of wealth, _i.e._ caused by the possession of things, and (3) of 'skill,'

_i.e._ caused by our ability to use things. Pleasures caused by persons indirectly correspond first to the 'popular or moral sanction,' and are pleasures (4) of 'amity,' caused by the goodwill of individuals, and (5) of a 'good name,' caused by the goodwill of people in general; secondly, to 'political sanction,' namely (6) pleasures of 'power'; and thirdly, to the 'religious sanction,' or (7) pleasures of 'piety.' All these are 'self-regarding pleasures.' The pleasures caused directly by the pleasure of others are those (8) of 'benevolence,' and (9) of malevolence. We then have what is really a cross division by cla.s.ses of 'derivative' pleasures; these being due to (10) memory, (11) imagination, (12) expectation, (13) a.s.sociation. To each cla.s.s of pleasures corresponds a cla.s.s of pains, except that there are no pains corresponding to the pleasures of wealth or power. We have, however, a general cla.s.s of pains of 'privation,' which might include pains of poverty or weakness: and to these are opposed (14) pleasures of 'relief,' _i.e._ of the privation of pains. In the _Table_, as separately published, Bentham modified this by dividing pleasures of sense into three cla.s.ses, the last of which includes the two first; by subst.i.tuting pleasures of 'curiosity' for pleasures of 'skill' by suppressing pleasures of relief and pains of privation; and by adding, as a cla.s.s of 'pains' without corresponding pleasures, pains (1) of labour, (2) of 'death, and bodily pains in general.' These changes seem to have been introduced in the course of writing his _Introduction_, where they are partly a.s.sumed. Another cla.s.s is added to include all cla.s.ses of 'self-regarding pleasures or pains.' He is trying to give a list of all 'synonyms' for various pains and pleasures, and has therefore to admit cla.s.ses corresponding to general names which include other cla.s.ses.

[392] _Works_ i. 210, where he speaks of pleasures of the 'ball-room,'

the 'theatre,' and the 'fine arts' as derivable from the 'simple and elementary' pleasures.

[393] _Works_ ('Morals and Legislation'), i. 22 etc.

[394] _Ibid._ i. 33.

[395] _Morals and Legislation_, ch. vii. to xi.

III. THE SANCTIONS

Let us first take his definitions of the fundamental conceptions. All action of reasonable beings implies the expectation of consequences. The agent's 'intention' is defined by the consequences actually contemplated. The cause of action is the hope of the consequent pleasures or the dread of the consequent pains. This antic.i.p.ated pleasure or pain const.i.tutes the 'internal motive' (a phrase used by Bentham to exclude the 'external motive' or event which causes the antic.i.p.ation).[396] The motive, or 'internal motive,' is the antic.i.p.ation of pain to be avoided or pleasure to be gained. Actions are good or bad simply and solely as they are on the whole 'productive of a balance of pleasure or pain.' The problem of the legislator is how to regulate actions so as to incline the balance to the right side. His weapons are 'sanctions' which modify 'motives.' What motives, then, should be strengthened or checked? Here we must be guided by a principle which is, in fact, the logical result of the doctrines already laid down. We are bound to apply our 'felicific calculus' with absolute impartiality. We must therefore a.s.sign equal value to all motives. 'No motives,' he says,[397] are 'constantly good or constantly bad.'

Pleasure is itself a good; pain itself an evil: nay, they are 'the only good and the only evil.' This is true of every sort of pain and pleasure, even of the pains and pleasures of illwill. The pleasures of 'malevolence' are placed in his 'table' by the side of pleasures of 'benevolence.' Hence it 'follows immediately and incontestably, that there is no such thing as any sort of motive that is in itself a bad one.' The doctrine is no doubt a logical deduction from Bentham's a.s.sumptions, and he proceeds to ill.u.s.trate its meaning. A 'motive'

corresponds to one of his 'springs of action.' He shows how every one of the motives included in his table may lead either to good or to bad consequences. The desire of wealth may lead me to kill a man's enemy or to plough his field for him; the fear of G.o.d may prompt to fanaticism or to charity; illwill may lead to malicious conduct or may take the form of proper 'resentment,' as, for example, when I secure the punishment of my father's murderer. Though one act, he says, is approved and the other condemned, they spring from the same motive, namely, illwill.[398] He admits, however, that some motives are more likely than others to lead to 'useful' conduct; and thus arranges them in a certain 'order of pre-eminence.'[399] It is obvious that 'goodwill,' 'love of reputation,' and the 'desire of amity' are more likely than others to promote general happiness. 'The dictates of utility,' as he observes, are simply the 'dictates of the most extensive and enlightened (that is, _well advised_) benevolence.' It would, therefore, seem more appropriate to call the 'motive' good; though no one doubts that when directed by an erroneous judgment it may incidentally be mischievous.

The doctrine that morality depends upon 'consequences' and not upon 'motives' became a characteristic Utilitarian dogma, and I shall have to return to the question. Meanwhile, it was both a natural and, I think, in some senses, a correct view, when strictly confined to the province of legislation. For reasons too obvious to expand, the legislator must often be indifferent to the question of motives. He cannot know with certainty what are a man's motives. He must enforce the law whatever may be the motives for breaking it; and punish rebellion, for example, even if he attributes it to misguided philanthropy. He can, in any case, punish only such crimes as are found out; and must define crimes by palpable 'external' marks. He must punish by such coa.r.s.e means as the gallows and the gaol: for his threats must appeal to the good and the bad alike. He depends, therefore, upon 'external' sanctions, sanctions, that is, which work mainly upon the fears of physical pain; and even if his punishments affect the wicked alone, they clearly cannot reach the wicked as wicked, nor in proportion to their wickedness. That is quite enough to show why in positive law motives are noticed indirectly or not at all. It shows also that the a.n.a.logy between the positive and the moral law is treacherous. The exclusion of motive justifiable in law may take all meaning out of morality. The Utilitarians, as we shall see, were too much disposed to overlook the difference, and attempt to apply purely legal doctrine in the totally uncongenial sphere of ethical speculation. To accept the legal cla.s.sification of actions by their external characteristics is, in fact, to beg the question in advance.

Any outward criterion must group together actions springing from different 'motives' and therefore, as other moralists would say, ethically different.

There is, however, another meaning in this doctrine which is more to the purpose here. Bentham was aiming at a principle which, true or false, is implied in all ethical systems based upon experience instead of pure logic or _a priori_ 'intuitions.' Such systems must accept human nature as a fact, and as the basis of a scientific theory. They do not aim at creating angels but at developing the existing const.i.tution of mankind.

So far as an action springs from one of the primitive or essential instincts of mankind, it simply proves the agent to be human, not to be vicious or virtuous, and therefore is no ground for any moral judgment.

If Bentham's a.n.a.lysis could be accepted, this would be true of his 'springs of action.' The natural appet.i.tes have not in themselves a moral quality: they are simply necessary and original data in the problem. The perplexity is introduced by Bentham's a.s.sumption that conduct can be a.n.a.lysed so that the 'motive' is a separate ent.i.ty which can be regarded as the sole cause of a corresponding action. That involves an irrelevant abstraction. There is no such thing as a single 'motive.' One of his cases is a mother who lets her child die for love of 'ease.' We do not condemn her because she loves ease, which is a motive common to all men and therefore unmoral, not immoral. But neither do we condemn her merely for the bad consequences of a particular action. We condemn her because she loves ease better than she loves her child: that is, because her whole character is 'unnatural' or ill-balanced, not on account of a particular element taken by itself.

Morality is concerned with concrete human beings, and not with 'motives'

running about by themselves. Bentham's meaning, if we make the necessary correction, would thus be expressed by saying that we don't blame a man because he has the 'natural' pa.s.sions, but because they are somehow wrongly proportioned or the man himself wrongly const.i.tuted. Pa.s.sions which may make a man vicious may also be essential to the highest virtue. That is quite true; but the pa.s.sion is not a separate agent, only one const.i.tuent of the character.

Bentham admits this in his own fashion. If 'motives' cannot be properly called good or bad, is there, he asks, nothing good or bad in the man who on a given occasion obeys a certain motive? 'Yes, certainly,' he replies, 'his disposition.'[400] The disposition, he adds, is a 'fict.i.tious ent.i.ty, and designed for the convenience of discourse in order to express what there is supposed to be permanent in a man's frame of mind.' By 'fict.i.tious,' as we have seen, he means not 'unreal' but simply not tangible, weighable, or measurable--like sticks and stones, or like pains and pleasures. 'Fict.i.tious' as they may be, therefore, the fiction enables us to express real truths, and to state facts which are of the highest importance to the moralist and the legislator. Bentham discusses some cases of casuistry in order to show the relation between the tendency of an action and the intention and motives of the agent.

Ravaillac murders a good king; Ravaillac's son enables his father to escape punishment, or conveys poison to his father to enable him to avoid torture by suicide.[401] What is the inference as to the son's disposition in either case? The solution (as he substantially and, I think, rightly suggests) will have to be reached by considering whether the facts indicate that the son's disposition was mischievous or otherwise; whether it indicates political disloyalty or filial affection, and so forth, and in what proportions. The most interesting case perhaps is that of religious persecution, where the religious motive is taken to be good, and the action to which it leads is yet admitted to be mischievous. The problem is often puzzling, but we are virtually making an inference as to the goodness or badness of the 'disposition' implied by the given action under all the supposed circ.u.mstances. This gives what Bentham calls the 'meritoriousness'[402]

of the disposition. The 'intention' is caused by the 'motive.' The 'disposition' is the 'sum of the intentions'; that is to say, it expresses the agent's sensibility to various cla.s.ses of motives; and the merit therefore will be in proportion to the total goodness or badness of the disposition thus indicated. The question of merit leads to interesting moral problems. Bentham, however, observes that he is not here speaking from the point of view of the moralist but of the legislator. Still, as a legislator he has to consider what is the 'depravity' of disposition indicated by different kinds of conduct. This consideration is of great importance. The 'disposition' includes sensibility to what he calls 'tutelary motives'--motives, that is, which deter a man from such conduct as generally produces mischievous consequences. No motive can be invariably, though some, especially the motive of goodwill, and in a minor degree those of 'amity' and a 'love of reputation,' are generally, on the right side. The legislator has to reinforce these 'tutelary motives' by 'artificial tutelary motives,' and mainly by appealing to the 'love of ease,' that is, by making mischievous conduct more difficult, and to 'self-preservation,' that is, by making it more dangerous.[403] He has therefore to measure the force by which these motives will be opposed; or, in other words, the 'strength of the temptation.' Now the more depraved a man's disposition, the weaker the temptation which will seduce him to crime. Consequently if an act shows depravity, it will require a stronger counter-motive or a more severe punishment, as the disposition indicated is more mischievous. An act, for example, which implies deliberation proves a greater insensibility to these social motives which, as Bentham remarks,[404] determine the 'general tenor of a man's life,' however depraved he may be. The legislator is guided solely by 'utility,' or aims at maximising happiness without reference to its quality. Still, so far as action implies disposition, he has to consider the depravity as a source of mischief. The legislator who looks solely at the moral quality implied is wrong; and, if guided solely by his sympathies, has no measure for the amount of punishment to be inflicted. These considerations will enable us to see what is the proper measure of resentment.[405]

The doctrine of the neutrality or 'unmorality' of motive is thus sufficiently clear. Bentham's whole aim is to urge that the criterion of morality is given by the consequences of actions. To say the conduct is good or bad is to say in other words that it produces a balance of pleasure or pain. To make the criterion independent, or escape the vicious circle, we must admit the pleasures and pains to be in themselves neutral; to have, that is, the same value, if equally strong, whatever their source. In our final balance-sheet we must set down pains of illwill and of goodwill, of sense and of intellect with absolute impartiality, and compare them simply in respect of intensity. We must not admit a 'conscience' or 'moral sense' which would be autocratic; nor, indeed, allow moral to have any meaning as applied to the separate pa.s.sions. But it is quite consistent with this to admit that some motives, goodwill in particular, generally tend to bring out the desirable result, that is, a balance of pleasure for the greatest number. The pains and pleasures are the ultimate facts, and the 'disposition' is a 'fict.i.tious ent.i.ty' or a name for the sum of sensibilities. It represents the fact that some men are more inclined than others to increase the total of good or bad.

NOTES:

[396] _Works_ ('Morals and Legislation'), i. 46.

[397] _Ibid._ i. 48.

[398] _Works_ ('Morals and Legislation'), i. 56.

[399] _Ibid._ i. 56.

[400] _Works_ ('Morals and Legislation'), i. 60.

[401] _Ibid._ i. 62.

[402] _Ibid._ i. 65.