Profiles In Atheism: The Jurist of Jurisprudence

Not long ago, I had a theist who kept trying to engage me in a conversation about the is-ought problem (I'm fairly sure the fellow was trying to trap me in the naturalistic fallacy, but it's hard to be sure - he was a slippery clown, to be sure). He kept referring to it as a fallacy, but it's really not...quite that distinct.

He also kept using the word jurisprudence - again, it was unclear as to the inference (I assume it was that it was 'gawd' that had huge ramifications in the Western legal system).

Truth is, I was terribly distracted at the time, and with multiple items to juggle, I shrugged and evaded the issue (between a lack of concern and allocating hours to analyze/view just exactly what the hell he was talking about).

But, as is my wont, I dipped into the subject as my schedule permitted, and one name kept popping up: Jeremy Bentham:

(February 15 , 1748 O.S. (February 26, 1748 N.S.) – June 6, 1832) was an English jurist, philosopher, and legal and social reformer. He was a political radical and a leading theorist in Anglo-American philosophy of law. He is best known as an early advocate of utilitarianism and animal rights^[1][2] who influenced the development of liberalism.

Bentham was one of the most influential utilitarians, partially through his writings but particularly through his students all around the world. These included his secretary and collaborator on the utilitarian school of philosophy James Mill, James Mill's son John Stuart Mill, and several political leaders (and Robert Owen, who later became a founder of socialism).

He argued in favour of individual and economic freedom, including:

• Separation of church and state;
• Freedom of expression;
• Equal rights for women;
• Animal rights;
• Abolition of slavery;
• Abolition of physical punishment (including that of children);
• The right to divorce;
• Free trade;
• The defence of usury;^[3] and
• the Decriminalization of sodomy^[4]

He was in support of:

• Inheritance tax;
• Restrictions on monopoly power;
• Pensions; and
• Health insurance

Life

Bentham was born in Spitalfields, London, into a wealthy Tory family. He was a child prodigy and was found as a toddler sitting at his father's desk reading a multi-volume history of England. He began his study of Latin at the age of three.^[5]

He went to Westminster School, and in 1760 his father sent him to The Queen's College, Oxford, where he took his Bachelor's degree in 1763 and his Master's degree in 1766. He trained as a lawyer and (though he never practised) was called to the bar in 1769. He became deeply frustrated with the complexity of the English legal code, which he termed the "Demon of Chicane".

Among his many proposals for legal and social reform was a design for a prison building he called the Panopticon. Although it was never built, the idea had an important influence upon later generations of thinkers. Twentieth-century French philosopher Michel Foucault argued that the Panopticon was paradigmatic of a whole raft of nineteenth-century 'disciplinary' institutions.

Bentham was in correspondence with many influential people. Adam Smith, for example, had opposed free interest rates before Bentham's arguments convinced him on the subject. As a result of his correspondence with Mirabeau and other leaders of the French Revolution, he was declared an honorary citizen of France, but Bentham was an outspoken critic of the revolutionary discourse of natural rights, and of the violence which arose after the Jacobins took power (1792).

In 1823, he co-founded the Westminster Review with John Stuart Mill as a journal for the "Philosophical Radicals" - a group of younger disciples through whom Bentham exerted considerable influence in British public life.^[6]

Jeremy Bentham's Auto-Icon in University College London

Bentham is frequently associated with the foundation of the University of London, specifically University College London (UCL), though in fact he was 78 years old when UCL opened in 1826, and played no active part in its establishment. However, it is likely that without his inspiration, UCL would not have been created when it was. Bentham strongly believed that education should be more widely available, particularly to those who were not wealthy or who did not belong to the established church, both of which were required of students by Oxford and Cambridge. As UCL was the first English university to admit all, regardless of race, creed, or political belief, it was largely consistent with Bentham's vision, and he oversaw the appointment of one of his pupils, John Austin, as the first Professor of Jurisprudence in 1829.

He was an odd duck (aren't we all?), as observed in the following snippet:

As requested in his will, his body was preserved and stored in a wooden cabinet, termed his "Auto-icon". Originally kept by his disciple Dr. Southwood Smith,^[7] it was acquired by University College London in 1850. The Auto-Icon is kept on public display at the end of the South Cloisters in the main building of the College. This has led to the familiar, but untrue story that the Auto-Icon is occasionally brought to meetings of the Council (at which Bentham is listed on the roll as "present but not voting").

The Auto-Icon has always had a wax head, as Bentham's head was badly damaged in the preservation process. The real head was displayed in the same case for many years, but became the target of repeated student pranks including being stolen on more than one occasion. It is now locked away securely.

There is a plaque on Queen Anne's Gate, Westminster commemorating the house where Bentham lived, which at the time was called Queen's Square Place.

Yet, according to this account, he was perhaps not so odd:

Bentham was not in the least given to odd. The conditions of his will stand paradoxically to the acts if his long life. Bentham lived the utilitarian principle. He lived/preached that AN ACT IS MORALLY RIGHT IF IT PRODUCES THE GREATEST BALANCE OF PLEASURE (HAPPINESS) OVER PAIN--and each person counted as one. This principle of utilitarianism expressed his singular commitment to the public’s wellbeing. He was a respected public figure life not given to being offensive. Yet in death he violated Victorian sensibilities: bodies endured a church service followed by internment in holy ground--and dissection was a crime. This review of Bentham’s life and teachings reveals how exceptional the cabinet is.

For more on the works and life of this amazing fellow, see here, here, and here is a great quote:

Said Bentham, "There is no pestilence in a state like a zeal for religion, independent of morality."* One of the founders of the philosophy of Utilitarianism, and a mentor to John Stuart Mill, in private Bentham was candid about his Atheism: he called Christianity "Jug" or "Juggernaut" in unpublished manuscripts.** With English historian George Grote he wrote Analysts of the Influence of Natural Religion on the Temporal Happiness of Mankind (1822), under the pseudonym "Philip Beauchamp," a work in which both attacked religion and professed Atheism.

And one more for the road (alas, I can't find Analysis of the Influence of Natural Religion On the Temporal Happiness online for free - so if you're intrigued, guess you'll have to order it, sorry):

“No power of government ought to be employed in the endeavor to establish any system or article of belief on the subject of religion.

. . . in no instance has a system in regard to religion been ever established, but for the purpose, as well as with the effect of its being made an instrument of intimidation, corruption, and delusion, for the support of depredation and oppression in the hands of governments.”
-- Jeremy Bentham, Constitutional Code

Enjoy.