Jeremy Bentham was arguably the first virtuous intellectual in the modern era to seriously and irrevocably separate theory from practice -- the ideal from the real -- in quotidian life. This type of conceptual apartheid is immensely immoral and unworkable in both one's personal and social philosophy. It is itself an intellectual approach and paradigm which is evil and destructive in both theory and practice.
Bentham lived during the absolute height of human civilization and liberal culture. Intellectually and spiritually, no time or place was ever better than his. He thrived in London from 1748 to 1832. This moralist and political theorist published his main work -- 'An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation' -- in 1789, the same year the US Constitution was founded.
Bentham also invented the philosophy of Utilitarianism. He tried to be scientific about all of his intellectualizing. He also created the social/political ideal and "sacred truth" that "the greatest happiness of the greatest number is the foundation of morals and legislation." Personally, Jeremy Bentham was a serious intellectual, joyous pleasure-seeker, and clearly a good man. But his ultimate impact on the world was pretty much dreadful.
Bentham is most known for creating the relatively untheoretical and pretty much unprincipled, amoral, hard-to-utilize, practical philosophy of "utilitarianism." A century later William James built on this ill-constructed and deleterious platform by creating the similarly idealless, counterproductive, practical philosophy of "pragmatism."
Not that these two philosophic greats were so bad, relatively speaking. Earlier and considerably more profound abstract philosophers were certainly much worse than either. The main intellectual evildoers of his magnificent liberal era -- and of all time, probably -- were Bishop Berkeley in the early 1700s, David Hume in the middle 1700s, and Immanuel Kant in the late 1700s (who was a Bentham contemporary). All three were a tour de force of irrationality and illiberalism.
But these three flagicious early nihilist philosophers and (loosely) "evil, stupid, empty, silly, malicious nonsense babblers" could perhaps be safely written off and ignored by society as irrelevant. Gorgias and Zeno (the Paradoxist) of Greece were seemingly treated as such 2200 years previous. Thus the world of the Enlightenment could possibly legitimately regard this horrifically evil triad as being merely overeducated, pretentious, arrogant jerks who championed childishly overthought, overwrought, rubbish theories fit only for gudgeons, rubes, and dolts. Indeed, that's how almost all the aristocratic and mass-men contemporaries of Berkeley, Hume, and Kant did regard them. The people of the 1700s Age of Reason tended to see their irrational, illiberal, counter-Enlightenment ideas as genuinely malicious and loathsome -- but also as ultimately vain and impotent nonsense-stuff which wasn't going to fool anybody.
Jeremy Bentham thought this especially. But how wrong he was! These senseless, irrational, illiberal, nihilist philosophers of the 18th century had ideas which were far more pernicious, insidious, powerful, and destructive than he -- or anyone -- realized. The abstract theoretical philosophy of Berkeley, Hume, and Kant ultimately trumped the applied practical philosophy of Bentham. Their unreasonable and hateful ideas also formed a perfectly vicious compliment to his relatively innocuous ones. In some deep sense -- and against his will -- Bentham's Utilitarianism ultimately agrees with the hideously malevolent theory ('Critique of Pure Reason') and practice ('Critique of Practical Reason') of Immanuel Kant -- the lowest stupidest man that ever lived.
The overwhelming fact of the universe is you can't separate theory from practice, or the ideal from the real, in either applied, practical philosophy or abstract, theoretical philosophy. If you try, this eventually leads to such egregious falsity and patent nonsense as socio-economic beliefs which are "good in theory, but bad in practice" and political goals which are "the lesser of two evils" and "necessary evils."
Bentham naively thought that his incomplete and poorly realized personal (and social) philosophy was nonetheless immune to the abstract philosophic tomfoolery of the illiberal intellectual thugs above. Indeed, he specifically made Utilitarianism to be thus. But he was wrong about the first, and he failed at the second.
Within a generation or two of him, some serious, important, and far-reaching "utilitarian" ideas arose, which were mostly based upon Bentham's thought. This ended up a social, economic, and political catastrophe.
Only one decade after Bentham's morality/legality book, Robert Malthus published his disastrous theories on society and politics. A Malthusian "solution" to our problems was now on the horizon for all of us.
Only two decades after Bentham's morality/legality book, David Ricardo published his disastrous theories on economics and politics. A Communist "solution" to our problems was now on the horizon for all of us.
When Malthus spoke of the good(!) aspects of war, murder, plague, pestilence, fires, floods, catastrophes, etc., he was being inadvertently, but truly, malicious and bizarre. When Ricardo invented econo-babble, "class war," and "the economic model" -- and all his hideous hilarious theories about wages, prices, profits, rents, etc. -- he was also being inadvertently, but truly, malicious and bizarre.
From these two clowns and ghastly soi-dissant "free marketeers" there flowed -- ineluctably and quickly -- massive abuse and wanton mistreatment of workers, especially factory and poor ones. Bentham, Malthus, and Ricardo -- Englishmen all -- essentially created the newly cruel and remarkably inhuman socio-economic conditions of northern and southern England. The infamous Industrial Revolution hellholes of Manchester and London in the 1820s was a direct product of the extravagantly perverse and viciously demented socio-economic theories of these last two supposedly liberal and (now) classic "free enterprise" thinkers.
The basic attitude and philosophy of Malthus and Ricardo seems to have been "you've got to be cruel to be kind" and, anyway, "deliberate meanness and cruelty is good." Soon enough, Friedrich Engels made mincemeat of their egregious nonsense. And of political freedom.
Ultimately, and with great pathos, most of this hellacious intellectual offspring seems to be a natural result and direct product of Bentham's ill-created philosophy. The fountainhead of it all was his anticonceptual, unprincipled, amoral, in-utile "utilitarian" applied personal and social philosophy -- both of which separate theory from practice, and the ideal from the real, dooming all. Jeremy Bentham simply wasn't a very good moral theorist. Bentham's forever undefined-and-unexplained "greatest good of the greatest number" social/moral ideal was sadly interpreted in a collectivist and self-sacrificial manner from Day One. Totalitarianism followed rather easily.
Indeed, historically, right after Bentham, Malthus, and Ricardo did their evil ideological deeds, the notorious 1832 Stadler Hearings were upon us. Tragically, all the resultant highly coercive labor laws which emerged in 1833 Britain and 1834 America came as a positive relief to everyone.
And who can blame them? The "utilitarian" result of the late 1830s was a lot less overt, calculated, and provocative Big Business and Big Government symbiotic socio-economic cruelty. And without those tyrannical laws, think of the almost indescribable nightmare Darwin portended (1859)! In the end, even tho' it was sad, the new laws sort of worked. All those purposefully vicious Malthusian-Ricardian societal and worker abuses -- based upon laughably untrue and malicious socio-economic theories -- were significantly vitiated by the world's newly invented (ugh!) Welfare State.
But now there was no stopping this "reform" legislation and new style of politics. 250 years plus of "good ideas" from "good people" with "good intentions" were on their way. This new-style Orwellian tyranny eventually spread like wildfire.
That was because, as might be expected, the great, new, "pro-freedom" ideas and ideals just kept on a-comin'. By 1840, Louis Blanc presented to the world the lovely social concept of "from each according to his abilities to each according to his needs." That same year, Pierre Proudhon introduced to the planet the beautiful economic concept of "property is theft." And so by 1848 we had European revolutions everywhere, the publication of 'The Communist Manifesto,' and the beginning of today's World-Wide Welfare-State.
In the final analysis, Jeremy Bentham was the father of John Malthus and David Ricardo, who in turn were the fathers of Marx and Engels. Thus, Bentham was the great-grandfather of communism, marxist-leninism, bolshevism, stalinism, fascism, nazism, and even islamic fundamentalism.
Thanks, Jerry. Nowadays, we are all Jerry's kids.
