-
Random History
- New Cults: Cybele, Isis, Mithra | Judaism and Christianity
- Painting in Northern Europe | The Renaissance
- The English Renaissance: The Elizabethan Era | The Great Powers in Conflict
- Innocent III, 1198-1216 | Church and Society in the Medieval West
- Monasticism | Judaism and Christianity
- Slavery in the Early Middle Ages
- The Art of Daily Living | The Renaissance
- A First Step: Manchuria, 1931 | The Second World War
- Architecture and the Art of Living in The Baroque Era | The Problem of Divine-Right Monarchy
- The United States Civil War and Reconstruction, 1861-1877 | The Modernization of Nations
-
Recent Comments
- Scozyjof-online on Le Grand Monarque
- Agnes on Nobles and Serfs, 1730-1762 | The Enlightenment
- Rolanda on Nobles and Serfs, 1730-1762 | The Enlightenment
- Denali on Twentieth Century Thought and Letters
- LOL on A Second Step: German Rearmament, 1935-1936 | The Second World War
- Bree on France After World War One | The Democracies
- Chumani on Music | The Renaissance
- Finn on Dazzling the Barbarian
- Suki on Conflict in Asia, 1953-1970 | The Second World War
- Marmara on Oliver Cromwell
Tags
Between The World Wars Byzantium and Islam Church and Society in the Medieval West European Exploration and Expansion Judaism and Christianity Modern Empires and Imperialism Romanticism, Reaction, and Revolution The Beginnings of the Secular State The Democracies The Early Middle Ages in Western Europe The Enlightenment The First Civilizations The First World War The French Revolution The Great Powers in Conflict The Greeks The Industrial Society The Late Middle Ages in Eastern Europe The Late Twentieth Century The Modernization of Nations The Non-Western World The Old Regimes The Problem of Divine-Right Monarchy The Protestant Reformation The Renaissance The Rise of the Nation The Romans The Russian Revolution of 1917 The Second World War The Written Record Twentieth-Century Thought and LettersPages
The Utilitarians | The Industrial Society
One path of retreat from stark laissez-faire doctrines originated with Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832), an eccentric philosopher. Bentham founded his social teachings on the concept of utility: that the goal of action should be to achieve the greatest good for the greatest number.
Ordinarily, he believed, governments could best safeguard the well-being of the community by governing as little as possible. In social and economic matters, they should act as “passive policemen” and give private initiative a generally free hand. Yet Bentham realized that the state might become a more active policeman when the pursuit of self- interest by some individuals worked against the best interests of other individuals, since the goal was the greatest good for the greatest number. If the pains endured by the many exceeded the pleasures enjoyed by the few, then the state should step in.
Twentieth-century doctrines of the welfare state owe a considerable debt to the utilitarianism of analysts like Bentham, and James Mill (1773-1836) and his son the young John Stuart Mill (1806-1873). By the time of his death, Bentham was already gaining an international reputation. He had advised reformers in Portugal, Russia, Greece, and Egypt, and his writings were to exert a broad influence.
His most important English disciples, the Philosophic Radicals, pressed for reform of court procedures, local government, and poor relief so as to free humanity from the artificial constraints of the environment. The argument over whether nature (genetic inheritance) or environment (education, family, and state) most determined one’s fate was now fully joined.