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Bentham's International Political Theory: Taking States’ Responsibilities Seriously

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2021

Benjamin Bourcier Open the ORCID record for Benjamin Bourcier [Opens in a new window]
Benjamin Bourcier*
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European School of Political and Social Sciences, Catholic University of Lille
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Abstract

In this article, I defend the idea that Bentham's international political theory entails a cosmopolitan dimension. First, I explain that Bentham rejects two pillars of internationalism, namely, the sovereign's unconstrained autonomous power and authority in international politics, and the legal and moral personality of the state in the international realm. This critique leads Bentham to construct a complex international political theory which places the issue of states’ responsibility at its centre. Bentham's international theory articulates a minimalist international system of cooperation between states (Part II) and an institutional model of public officials’ responsibilities that together play the crucial role in securing the greatest happiness of the greatest number in the world (Part III). In this last part, I explain how Bentham's international political theory relies heavily on the responsibilities of states, a set of responsibilities that encompasses both national and cosmopolitan responsibilities that public officials in each state hold.

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Utilitas , Volume 33 , Issue 3 , September 2021 , pp. 287 - 303
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Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

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References

1 The Works of Jeremy Bentham, ed. J. Bowring, 11 vols (Edinburgh, 1843), vol. ii, pp. 534–61 [UC, xxv-1–135v].

2 Principles of International Law is a text compiled by Bowring from Bentham's manuscripts with the exclusion of 52 of 135 folios in French and English. I want to thank Professor Philip Schofield for his generous welcome at the Bentham Project and Dr Michael Quinn, Dr Kris Grint and Dr Tim Causer for making my stay at the Project such a pleasant experience. I am grateful to participants to ISUS 2018 for their insightful comments. I want to thank Dr Michael Quinn for his substantive comments and improving the English of this article.

3 Editorial Introduction, in Bentham, J., Writings on Political Economy, vol. I, ed. Quinn, M. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2016), p. livGoogle Scholar.

4 Rosenblum, N. L., Bentham's Theory of the Modern State (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1978), p. 106CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 Hoogensen, G., International Relations, Security and Jeremy Bentham (New York: Routledge, 2005)Google Scholar. For a fuller critical analysis of the readings of both Rosenblum and Hoogensen see: B. Bourcier, ‘Le plus grand bonheur pour le plus grand nombre de Jeremy Bentham: un utilitarisme cosmopolitique’, in Special Issue, Cosmopolitisme et Utilitarisme Classique, ed. Bourcier, B. and Cléro, J.-P., Philosophical Enquiries: revue des philosophies anglophones, 9 (2017), pp. 59–77Google Scholar.

6 ‘The security of expectation plays the pivotal role in determining the extent and breadth of sovereign power.’ Hoogensen, International Relations, Security and Jeremy Bentham (New York: Routledge, 2005), p. 73.

7 R. Marchetti, Classical International Utilitarianism, in Special Issue, Cosmopolitisme et utilitarisme classique, ed. Bourcier, B. et Cléro, J.-P., Philosophical Enquiries: revue des philosophies anglophones, 9 (2017), pp. 9–38Google Scholar; Archibugi, D., Models of International Organization in Perpetual Peace Projects, Review of International Studies 18 (1992), pp. 295–317CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Doyle, M. W., Ways of War and Peace (New York: W. W. Norton, 1999), p. 226Google Scholar.

8 Battistella, D., Théorie des relations internationales, 4th edn (Paris: Presses de Sciences Po, 2012)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Traditions of International Ethics, ed. T. Nardin and D. R. Mapel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992); The Oxford Handbook of International Political Theory, ed. C. Brown and R. Eckersley (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018).

9 Emer de Vattel, Le droit des gens, ou Principes de la loi naturelle appliqués à la conduite et aux affaires des nations et des souverains, 1st edn (1758).

10 Bentham, J., An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (CW), ed. Burns, J. H. and Hart, H. L. A. (London: Athlone Press, 1970), ch. 16, p. 188Google Scholar. Bentham, J., Preparatory Principles (CW), ed. Long, D. G. and Schofield, P. (Oxford: Oxford Clarendon Press, 2016), pp. 233Google Scholar, 254. Notable exceptions to individualisation are mentioned by L. J. Hume and include the board of National Charity Company and the Board of Police. See, for instance, Hume, L. J., Bentham and Bureaucracy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), pp. 158–59CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

11 Bentham, J., An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (CW), ed. Burns, J. H. and Hart, H. L. A. (London: Athlone Press, 1970), ch. 13, pp. 160–61Google Scholar; Bentham, J., Preparatory Principles (CW), ed. Long, D. G. and Schofield, P. (Oxford: Oxford Clarendon Press, 2016), p. 118Google Scholar.

12 Jacques Antoine Hippolyte de Guibert's Éloge du Roi de Prusse (1787) illustrates perfectly the type of discourse that fosters sovereigns’ appetites for glory leading to unjustified war and violence. Bentham wrote a powerful critical analysis of Guibert's text composed in 1788–89 [UC, xxv-64–68].

13 ‘The mercantile system and the policy of Europe which is founded on it turn throughout in false hopes and panic terrors.’ [UC, xxv-123] composed in 1789.

14 [UC, xxv-118v], composed in 1789.

15 Bentham, J., An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (CW), ed. Burns, J. H. and Hart, H. L. A. (London, Athlone Press, 1970), ch. 5, p. 44Google Scholar.

16 Ibid., ch. 10, p. 107.

17 Frederick Rosen has made this point very clearly: ‘Bentham's opposition to rhetorical political language is based on his belief that words like “honour”, “glory”, “dignity”, etc. are delusive words “employed by rulers, for the purpose of engaging subject citizens to consent, or submit, to be led, for the purpose of depredation, to the commission of murder upon the largest scale”. This belief is of crucial importance to him, as he needs it to account for the fact that people willingly ignore their true interests.’ Jeremy Bentham and Representative Democracy: A Study of the Constitutional Code (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983), p. 128.

18 In Bentham's attack against Jacques Antoine Hippolyte de Guibert, the sovereign of France is deemed the ‘greater criminal’ [UC, xxv-66].

19 Bentham's views on the responsibility for rulers seems to have undergone several different arguments during the year 1789. For instance, Bentham's draft constitution for France written in 1789 shows that Bentham assumed France would remain a monarchy and that the irresponsibility of the King would stand: ‘For the exercise of his political authority the King is not in any case responsible to any one’ (J. Bentham, Rights, Representation, and Reform, Nonsense Upon Stilts and other Writings on the French Revolution (CW), ed. P. Schofield, C. Pease-Watkin and C. Blamires (Oxford: Oxford Clarendon Press, 2002), p. 233). However, several manuscripts written during the summer 1789 conflict with that view and clearly stand for enforcing the responsibility for rulers in international affairs [UC, xxv-4; 23; 108; 115; 125]. There is evidence on both sides and there is risk of inconsistency here. At this stage, it is unclear whether Bentham's turn to radicalism and democratic political reform at the end of eighteenth century has any clear relation with his international theory. However, Bentham's writings from 1820s onward very clearly state that representative democracies will contribute to creating the conditions for responsible rulers and responsible states in the international realm.

20 [UC, xxv-106, 108, 113, 114, 122].

21 See, Hoogensen, International Relations, Security and Jeremy Bentham, p. 83; Rosenblum, Bentham's Theory of the Modern State, pp. 100–101. See also [UC, xxv-031v].

22 [UC, xxv-5].

23 See, for instance: Bentham, J., Of the Limits of the Penal Branch of Jurisprudence (CW), ed. Schofield, P. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), p. 39Google Scholar: ‘It may be observed here for the sake of regularity, though after what has been said in the last article it is but repetition, that a treaty made by one sovereign with another is not itself a law; from which indeed it is plainly distinguished by the definition we set out with giving of the word law.’ Bentham, J., Preparatory Principles (CW), ed. Long, D. G. and Schofield, P. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), p. 129Google Scholar, ‘Treaties are the Statute Law of Nations’.

24 See, Postema, G. J., Utilitarian International Order: Bentham on International Law and International Order, in, Utility, Publicity and Law: Essays on Bentham's Moral and Legal Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019), ch. 11, pp. 247–66Google Scholar.

25 [UC, xxv-119, 132].

26 [UC, xxv-32]. The original text is in French (composed in 1789).

27 [UC, xxv-38]. The original is in French (composed in 1789).

28 [UC, xxv-135v]. The original is in French (composed in 1789).

29 The conclusion of this section offers a new revision of David Lyons’ interpretation: ‘Thus, in siding with internationalism Bentham does not reject the standard of national interest.’ D. Lyons, In the Interest of the Governed: A Study of Bentham's Philosophy of Utility and Law (New York: Oxford University Press, 1973), p. 103.

30 Bentham, J., First Principles preparatory to Constitutional Code (CW), ed. Schofield, P. (Oxford: Oxford Clarendon Press, 1989), pp. 53–54Google Scholar. Bentham, J., Constitutional Code, vol. I (CW), ed. Rosen, F. and Burns, J. H. (Oxford: Oxford Clarendon Press, 1983)Google Scholar.

31 [UC xxv-123]. The original is in French (composed in 1789).

32 Bentham's principle of ‘single-seatedness’ is central in the organisation of the democratic state. See Bentham, J., Constitutional Code, vol. I (CW), ed. Burns, J. H. and Rosen, F. (Oxford: Oxford Clarendon Press, 1983), p. 28Google Scholar. See also, Hume, L. J., Bentham and Bureaucracy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), pp. 209–38CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rosen, Frederick, Jeremy Bentham and Representative Democracy: A Study of the Constitutional Code (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983), pp. 80–82Google Scholar.

33 J. Bentham, Constitutional Code, vol. I (CW), ed. J. H. Burns and F. Rosen (Oxford: Oxford Clarendon Press, 1983), p. 24.

34 Ibid. (CW), pp. 24–25.

35 Ibid. (CW), p. 25.

36 Constitutional Code, in The Works of Jeremy Bentham, ed. J. Bowring, 11 vols (Edinburgh, 1843), vol. ix, p. 446.

37 Writings on Political Economy, vol. I (CW), ed. M. Quinn (Oxford: Oxford Clarendon Press, 2016).

38 Constitutional Code, Bowring, vol. ix, p. 447.

39 Ibid., Bowring, vol. ix, p. 438.

40 It is important to note that the expression ‘citizen of the world’ appears only five times in Bentham's works, while as yet no occurrences of the words ‘cosmopolitan’ or ‘cosmopolitanism’ have been uncovered in his manuscripts. Bentham's long-standing aversion to and criticisms of natural law theory might presumably lead Benthamites, but also cosmopolitan theorists, to conclude that it is dubious to call Bentham a cosmopolitan theorist, because enlightenment cosmopolitanism was, in his time, philosophically connected with natural law theories. However, for a defence of the cosmopolitan reading of Bentham see: Peter Niesen, ‘The West Divided’? Bentham and Kant on Law and Ethics in Foreign Policy, Part. II, in Rethinking Ethical Foreign Policy, Pitfalls, Possibilities and Paradoxes, ed. D. Chandler and V. Heins (London: Routledge, 2007), pp. 93–115; Peter Niesen, Varieties of Cosmopolitanism: Bentham and Kant on International Politics, in Kant's Perpetual Peace: New Interpretative Essays, ed. L. Caranti (Rome: Luiss University Press, 2006), pp. 247–89; Benjamin Bourcier, Jeremy Bentham et le cosmopolitisme juridique, in Le Cosmopolitisme Juridique, ed. O. de Frouville (Paris: Pedone, 2015), pp. 99–111; Loring, Robert, The Role of Universal Jurisprudence in Bentham's Legal Cosmopolitanism, Revue d’études benthamiennes, 13 (2014)Google Scholar, <http://etudes-benthamiennes.revues.org/749> [accessed April 2016].

41 Bentham, J., Constitutional Code, vol. I, (CW), ed. Rosen, F. and Burns, J. H. (Oxford: Oxford Clarendon Press, 1983)Google Scholar, ch. VII, § 8, 1983, pp. 142–44.

42 Frederick Rosen, Jeremy and Representative Democracy, pp. 204–07; Niesen, Varieties of Cosmopolitanism; Kaino, Michihiro, Bentham's Concept of Security in a Global Context: The Pannomion and the Public Opinion Tribunal as a Universal Plan, Journal of Bentham Studies, 10 (2008), pp. 1–29Google Scholar.

43 ‘Never, by force or intimidation, never by prohibition or obstruction, will I use any endeavour to prevent my fellow-countrymen, or any of them, from seeking to better their condition in any other part, inhabited or uninhabited, of this globe. In the territory of this State, I behold an asylum to all: a prison to none.’ Bentham, Constitutional Code, vol. I (CW), p. 144.