Jeremy Bentham’s Writings
Jeremy Bentham is most famously known for his writings on utilitarianism theory, although he was also a jurist and a social reformer. This essay will review Bentham’s article ‘The Psychology of Economic Man.’
The article by Bentham deals with the psychological aspects of man in relation to economic wants. He starts off with the foundational premise of his article by stating that one’s primary aim is happiness and for attaining this aim one would do any that that would satisfy this tendency of self-preference. He argues that others cannot look after one’s happiness and that one has to seek out one’s happiness by oneself. (Bentham, 1954, p. 422) Therefore, it follows that a man takes an interest, performs and acts in only those matters that give him happiness. In doing so, Bentham examines the psychological desire and the questions that motivate this desire in man to strive for the possession of an object that gives happiness. This aspect leads the author to the understanding that man is governed by nothing else but his own self-interest.
With this aspect, the author proceeds to draw an axiom that in any action the sole efficient cause is interest. (p. 424) In order to draw kindness and the goodwill of others, one could display a higher amount of benevolence when one’s inducement for obtaining something is more profound. It is self-interest that motivates a person to act and which also determines the essence of human conduct. The author further proceeds to equate the desires of self preservation and gain, while the author, further, considers labor considered as the means to acquire wealth that, in turn, furthers the cause of self preservation.
At this point, Bentham addresses his critics who might feel that his writings constantly highlight the negative aspects of human nature vis-à-vis the positive ones. While he admits that positive aspects such as philanthropy, self-sacrifice et.al., do exist, he asserts that quite often self interests take a higher place in the mind of the common people. (p.432) Using this argument, he further says that commonly self interest always takes a higher place than social interest, while the opposite is true in some rare exceptions. He describes personal interest as “an influence that is most powerful, most constant, most uniform and most general among mankind.” (p. 433) The author, further, highlights seven circumstances that determine the value of a pleasure or pain, namely Intensity, Duration, Certainty/Uncertainty, Propinquity/ Remoteness, Fecundity, Purity and the Extent. (p.436) The author states that money is the most accurate measure of pain or pleasure that one can receive and that each of the seven circumstances play an important role in that measure. Of suffering produced by a loss, the magnitude is not as dependant on the absolute sum lost as it is on the relative amount, depending on the financial status of the person who lost the money.
With this as the background, he introduces the concept of the principle of utility or the greatest happiness principle. Using the seven circumstances mentioned earlier, he highlights how the happiness and the utility principle work. He explains that the principle of happiness is a subjective one and is not necessarily dependent on the quantity, and most importantly, that happiness cannot be accurately quantified with respect to money. He further identifies that the concept of practicable equality and attempts to apply it to the principle of happiness. Through this analysis, the author shows that subsistence might bring more happiness than abundance since it is impossible to quantify the amount of happiness with an increase in abundance. The same cannot be said of subsistence. A similar condition happens in case of labor since absence of it might draw a negative social image, but draws a positive image of happiness of a person who has experienced the toils of hard labor.
Reference
Bentham. J (1954). Jeremy Bentham’s Economic Writings. W.Stark (Ed.). London: George Allen and Unwin Ltd. (PDF File)
