United States or Democratic Republic of the Congo ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
A 'Benthamite, therefore, whether he was a member of Parliament like Grote or Molesworth, or an official like Chadwick, or an organising politician like Francis Place, could always check his own feelings about 'rights of property, 'mischievous agitators, 'spirit of the Constitution, 'insults to the flag, and so on, by examining statistical facts as to the numerical proportion, the income, the hours of work, and the death rate from disease, of the various classes and races who inhabited the British Empire.
There were even, as we saw, possibilities of a thorough-going Socialism or of an authoritarian paternalism in the Benthamite principle. But two great considerations told in the opposite direction. One arose from the circumstances of the day.
I conceive that the description so often given of a Benthamite, as a mere reasoning machine, though extremely inapplicable to most of those who have been designated by that title, was during two or three years of my life not altogether untrue of me.
Once more, therefore, the limits of state action must be drawn by expediency, not by an absolute principle. The Benthamite formula applies again. Is the end good, and are the means adequate and not excessively costly? Mill's absolute principle would condemn the levy of a shilling for a school, if the ratepayer objected to the religious teaching.
His "representative government," valuable as it was as a philosophical discussion, offered no solution of the problem then pressing on the public minds in England, which bitter Radicals or Conservatives could consider comforting. The plan of having the number of a man's votes regulated by his calling and intelligence was thoroughly Benthamite.
Mill's leading tenet has been already stated; the only rightful ground of coercing our neighbours is self-protection. Using the Benthamite terminology, we may say that we ought never to punish self-regarding conduct, or again interpolating the utilitarian meaning of 'ought' that such punishment cannot increase the general happiness.
You cannot be a Platonist or a Benthamite in politics to-day. You cannot go to any of the great philosophers even for the outlines of a statecraft which shall be fairly complete, and relevant to American life. I returned to the sophomore mood: "Each of these thinkers has contributed something, has had some wisdom about events. Looked at in bulk the philosophers can't all be right or all wrong."
I wish some of my friends in this country would study the figures of what are called the lower castes, because they would then see the enormous difficulty and absurdity of applying to India the same principles that are excellent guides to us Westerns who have been bred on the pure milk of the Benthamite word one man one vote and every man a vote.
But I thought at one time you were half a Benthamite, and that your motto was, 'The greatest happiness of the greatest number." "The greatest number to me is number /one/. I agree with the Pythagoreans unity is the perfect principle of creation! Seriously, how can you mistake the principles of opinion for the principles of conduct?
But I thought at one time you were half a Benthamite, and that your motto was, 'The greatest happiness of the greatest number." "The greatest number to me is number one. I agree with the Pythagoreans unity is the perfect principle of creation! Seriously, how can you mistake the principles of opinion for the principles of conduct?
Word Of The Day