Chapter 12: Prudence and Benevolence

Nowhere is a more logical, better-organized, or more stimulating discussion of private ethics to be found than in the two volumes of Jeremy Bentham's Deontology: or The Science of Morality. Yet these two volumes have had an unfortunate history. They were published posthumously, in 1834. They do not profess to be wholly by Bentham, even on their title page. That title page is for several reasons worth quoting in full: "Deontology: or The Science of Morality: in which the harmony and coincidence of Duty and Self-Interest, Virtue and Felicity, Prudence and Benevolence, are explained and exemplified. From the MSS. of Jeremy Bentham. Arranged and Edited by John Bowring."

The whole of Bentham's work, partly because of its sheer range and mass, partly because of its stylistic eccentricities, partly because of his own carelessness and indifference regarding publication, and his refusal to do his own revision and editing of most of his manuscripts, has lain in comparative neglect until recently. Though his influence has been enormous, it has been mainly indirect, through Dumont, John Austin, James Mill, and above all John Stuart Mill. Yet the neglect of the Deontology has exceeded even the general neglect of Bentham's work. It has been considered of doubtful authenticity. It has been suspected that much was filled in between Bentham's notes by his editor Bowring. Whatever the truth may be, the greater part of the book seems to me to show the hand of the master.

The purpose of this chapter is primarily, taking off from the presentation in Bentham's Deontology, to discuss the "harmony and coincidence" of Prudence and Benevolence. But because the Deontology has been out of print since its original edition, and because the volumes in the original are very difficult to come by, I shall give a somewhat wider summary of their contents than would otherwise be warranted merely by a discussion of the relations between Prudence and Benevolence.

The Deontology opens with a general statement of the utilitarian theme, seeking to emphasize "the alliance between interest and duty." "To a great extent ... the dictates of prudence prescribe the laws of effective benevolence .... A man who injures himself more than he benefits others by no means serves the cause of virtue, for he diminishes the amount of happiness" (1, 177). "Prudence is man's primary virtue. Nothing is gained to happiness if prudence loses more than benevolence wins" (1, 189-90).

Bentham contends that "prudence and effective benevolence ... being the only two intrinsically useful virtues, all other virtues must derive their value from them, and be subservient to them" (1, 201). He seeks to apply this standard systematically to the virtues mentioned by Hume -- to sociability, good nature, humanity, mercy, gratitude, friendliness, generosity, beneficence, justice, discretion, industry, frugality, honesty, fidelity, truth (veracity and sincerity), caution, enterprise, assiduity, economy, sobriety, patience, constancy, perseverance, forethought, considerateness, cheerfulness, dignity, courage, tranquillity, politeness, wit, decency, cleanliness, chastity, and allegiance.

Bentham rightly points out that Hume's list of virtues is unsystematic, disorderly, and disjointed; that many of them overlap and others are merely different names for the same thing. Nor does he find that all of them deserve the name of virtue. "Courage," he declares courageously, "may be a virtue or may be a vice. ... For a man to value himself on his courage, without any reference to the occasions on which it is exercised, is to value himself on a quality possessed in a far higher degree by a dog, especially if the dog is mad" (1, 251).

Bentham even writes a chapter on what he calls "False Virtues," among which he lists Contempt for Riches (sarcastic paragraphs directed against Socrates and Epictetus), Love of Action, Attention, Enterprise, and Dispatch. At all points he warns:

The affections may be so engaged with one side of a question, as to interfere with a right judgment of its moral merit. A mother steals a loaf to satisfy the hunger of a starving child. How easy it would be to excite the sympathies in favor of her maternal tenderness, so as to bury all consideration of her dishonesty in the depth of those sympathies. And, in truth, nothing but an enlarged and expansive estimate, such as would take the case out of the regions of sentimentality into the wider regions of public good, could ever lead to the formation of a right judgment in such matters (1, 259-60).

In the second volume (which is surprisingly self-contained and complete in itself) Bentham (1) opens again with an Introduction and "General Statement" of general principles. Here we find him shifting from the emphasis on "pleasures" and "pains" in his Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation to an almost exclusive reference to the effect of conduct on "happiness" and "misery." While he still rejects "any distinctions drawn between pleasures and happiness," while he still insists that "happiness is the aggregate of which pleasures are the component parts" (11, 16), the shift is none the less significant. Bentham seems eager to prevent the accusation or misunderstanding that he is concerned purely with physical or sensual pleasures and pains.

But he retains the essentials of his "hedonistic calculus." The inquiries of the moralist, he contends, may in the abstract ... be reduced to a single inquiry. At what cost of future pain or sacrifice of future pleasure is a present pleasure purchased? What repayment of future pleasure may be anticipated for a present pain? Out of this examination morality must be developed. Temptation is the present pleasure-punishment is the future pain; sacrifice is the present pain-enjoyment is the future recompense. The questions of virtue and vice are, for the most part, reduced to the weighing of that which is, against that which will be. The virtuous man has a store of happiness in coming time, the vicious man has prodigally spent his revenues of happiness. Today the vicious man seems to have a balance of pleasure in his favor; tomorrow the balance will be adjusted, and the day after it will be ascertained to be wholly in favor of the virtuous man. Vice is a spendthrift, flinging away what is far better than wealth, or health, or youth, or beauty -- namely, happiness: because all of these without happiness are of little value. Virtue is a prudent economist that gets back all her outlay with interest (11, 27-8).

"Morality," continues Bentham, "is the art of maximizing happiness: it gives the code of laws by which that conduct is suggested whose result will, the whole of human existence being taken into account, leave the greatest quantity of felicity" (11, 31).

2. How Prudence Leads ...

Bentham proceeds to reduce the virtues to two, Prudence and Effective Benevolence, but he divides each of these, respectively, into Self-Regarding Prudence and Extra-Regarding Prudence and into Negative Efficient Benevolence and Positive Efficient Benevolence, and devotes a long separate chapter to each of these four divisions.

On these four cornerstones Bentham builds his palace of morality. He is concerned to show that each one of these virtues leads naturally and almost inevitably into the next. He begins with Self-Regarding Prudence, which refers to actions whose influences do not reach beyond the actor; he moves next to "that prudence which is demanded from him in consequence of his intercourse with others; a prudence which is closely connected with benevolence, and especially with abstential benevolence" (11, 81).

As regards external actions, "what prudence can do, and all that prudence can do, is to choose between the present and the future; and in so far as the aggregate of happiness is increased, thereby to give preference to the greater future over the lesser present pleasure" (11, 82). But, he warns, the sacrifice of an immediate pleasure that does not promise to increase our own or somebody else's future happiness to an amount greater than that immediately sacrificed "is mere asceticism; it is the very opposite of prudence; it is the offspring of delusion"; it is "folly"; it is not virtue, it is vice (11, 34).

Bentham then shows the application of the dictates of self regarding prudence to sexual morality: "The option is often between the enjoyment of a moment and the pain of years; between the excited satisfaction of a very short period and the sacrifice of a whole existence; between the stimulation of life for an hour, and the consequent adjacency of disease and death" (11, 85).

After rejecting asceticism as applied to sexual morality, Bentham asks: "Is not chastity, then, a virtue? Most undoubtedly, and a virtue of high deserving. And why? Not because it diminishes, but because it heightens enjoyment.... In fact, temperance, modesty, chastity, are among the most efficient sources of delight" (11, 87-88). He proceeds to apply the same standards in discussing why intoxication, irascibility, gambling, and extravagance tend to produce in the long run more misery than happiness to the person who indulges in them.

We come next to Bentham's chapter on "Extra-Regarding Prudence."

Of man's pleasures, a great proportion is dependent on the will of others, and can only be possessed by him with their concurrence and co-operation. There is no possibility of disregarding the happiness of others without, at the same time, risking happiness of our own. There is no possibility of avoiding those inflictions of pain with which it is in the power of others to visit us, except by conciliating their good will. Each individual is linked to his race by a tie, of all ties the strongest, the tie of self-regard (11, 132-3).

Morality can be nothing but the sacrifice of a lesser for the acquisition of a greater good. The virtue of extra-regarding prudence is only limited by our intercourse with our fellow men; it may even extend far beyond the bounds of our personal communion with others, by secondary, or reflected influences.... Both national and international law may be said to constitute a proper ground for the introduction of that prudence which concerns others (11, 135).

In our relations with others, prudence no less than benevolence suggests the two simple precepts: "Maximize good, minimize evil" (11, 164). Hence the rules of good manners; the rule of sparing our neighbor's feelings; the rule of avoiding the ill will and cultivating the good will of others towards us.

3. To Benevolence

Just as self-regarding prudence must lead us to be considerate and kind to others, because our own happiness depends on their good will towards us or at least the absence of their ill will, so this extra-regarding prudence leads on in turn to "Negative Efficient Benevolence." "A due regard to the felicity of others is the best and wisest provision for our own" (11, 190). The first requirement is to avoid doing evil to others. Never do evil to any other except in so far as that may be necessary to accomplish a greater good. Never do evil to any other solely on the ground that it is "deserved," but only if this is unavoidable to accomplish a greater good. Even in sport or as a joke, say nothing and do nothing that will cause uneasiness to another. The justifications for inflicting pain on others by your discourse are seldom tenable. "Remember, on all occasions, that kind costs a man no more than unkind language" (11, 217). Blame nobody except to prevent some future cause of blame. Never do or say anything to wound or humiliate another.

Bentham comes next to his chapter on "Positive Efficient Benevolence." (He draws a frequent distinction between benevolence, or the disposition and desire to do good for others, and beneficence, which is the actual doing of such good, and insists that any truly moral action must be both benevolent and beneficent.) He begins by pointing out the strong prudential reasons which a man has for the exercise of benevolence:

Over and above any present pleasure with which an act of beneficence may be accompanied to the actor, the inducement which a man has for its exercise is one of the same sort as that which the husbandman has for the sowing of his seed; as that which the frugal man has for the laying up of money .... By every act of virtuous beneficence which a man exercises, he contributes to a sort of fund, a savings-bank, a depository of general good-will, out of which services of all sorts may be looked for, as about to flow from other hands into his; if not positive services, at any rate negative services; services consisting in the forbearance to vex him by annoyances with which he might otherwise have been vexed (11, 259-60).

Negative beneficence is exercised in so far as mischief is not done to others .... Negative beneficence is a virtue, in so far as any mischief which without consideration might have been produced, is by consideration forborne to be produced. In so far as it is by the consideration of the effect which the mischievous action might have upon a man's own comfort, the virtue is prudence -- self-regarding prudence: in so far as it is by the consideration of the effect which the mischievous action might have upon the comfort of any other person, the virtue is benevolence.

A main distinction here is, between beneficence which cannot be exercised without self-sacrifice, and beneficence which can be exercised without self-sacrifice. To that which cannot be exercised without self-sacrifice there are necessarily limits, and these comparatively very narrow ones ....

To the exercise of beneficence, where it is exercised without self-sacrifice, there can be no limits; and by every exercise thus made of it, a contribution is made to the good-will fund, and made without expense ....

Described in general terms, the inducement to positive beneficence, in all its shapes, is the contribution it makes to the man's general good-will fund; to the general good-will fund from which draughts in his favor may come to be paid: the inducement to negative beneficence is the contribution it keeps back from his general ill-will fund ....

He who is in possession of a [good-will] fund of this sort, and understands the value of it, will understand himself to be the richer by every act of benevolent beneficence he is known to have exercised. He is the richer, and feels that he is so, by every act of kindness he has ever done ....

Independently of the rewards of opinion, and the pleasures of sympathy, the acts of positive benevolence tend to the creation of the habits of benevolence. Every act adds something to the habit; the greater the number of acts, the stronger will be the habit; and the stronger the habit, the larger the recompense; and the larger the recompense, the more fruitful in producing similar acts; and the more frequent such acts, the more will there be of virtue and felicity in the world.

Employ, then, every opportunity of beneficent action, and look out for other opportunities. Do all the good you can, and seek the means of doing good (11, 259-266).

In illustrating the requirements of beneficence, Bentham applies in the ethical field the same lesson he had applied in the legal field in his Principles of Morals and Legislation:

In the application of evil for the production of good, never let it be applied for the gratification of mere antipathy; never but as subservient to and necessary for the only proper ends of punishment, the determent of others by example, the determent of the offenders by suffering. In the interest of the offender, reformation is the great object to be aimed at; if this cannot be accomplished, seek to disable him from inflicting the like evil on himself or others. But always bear in mind the maxim, which cannot be repeated too often: Inflict as much and no more pain than is necessary to accomplish the purpose of benevolence. Create not evil greater than the evil you exclude (11, 266-267).

4. No Exact Dividing Line

Bentham returns to a discussion of the relations between prudence and benevolence:

It is not always possible to draw the exact line between the claims of efficient benevolence, whether positive or negative, and those of prudence, self-regarding or extra-regarding; nor is it always necessary or desirable, for where the interests of the two virtues are the same, the path of duty is quite clear. But points of agreement and of difference may be easily pointed out, and a general definition may show what, in ordinary cases, is the distinction between the two qualities. As for example: you are called upon to do service to another. If he is in a condition to render you services in return, prudence as well as benevolence combine to interest you in his favor. If he is wholly removed from the occasions of serving you, your motives can be those of benevolence alone.

But though in a given case it may be difficult to show that the interests of prudence demand a particular act of beneficence, it is not the less true that the self-regarding consideration does, ill fact, occupy the whole ground of conduct. Whatever peculiar reasons benevolence may furnish for a given course of beneficent action, the universal principle remains, that it is in every man's interest to stand well in the affections of other men, and in the affections of mankind in general. A really beneficent act, which may seem to be removed from the prudential considerations always taking for granted that the act is itself no violation of prudence, and that it is one which has the sanction of the Deontological principle, by producing a balance of good -- such an act will, in its remoter consequences, serve the self-regarding interests, by helping to create, to establish, or to extend that general reputation for judicious benevolence, which it is every man's obvious interest to possess in the opinions of his fellow men (11, 268-270).

But because Bentham so often insists that the roots of benevolence are to be ultimately found in self-regarding prudence, it is a mistake to assume that he ever disparages benevolence. On the contrary, his pages are full of such passages as this:

To give exercise, influence, and extension to efficient benevolence, is one of the great consequences of virtue. Nor let it be thought that such benevolence is to be bounded in its consequences by the race of man .... Let men remember that happiness, wherever it is, and by whomever experienced, is the great gift confided to their charge.

It has been said that "Honesty is the best policy." This is not exactly true. There is a policy that is better -- the policy of active benevolence. Honesty is but negative: it avoids doing wrong; it will not allow intrusion into the enjoyments of others. It is, however, only an abstential, and not an active quality. The best policy is that which creates good; the second best is that which avoids evil (11, 272).

We need to forward virtue not merely by our actions, but through the judicious use of our approval and disapproval:

To that end we must labor, each for himself, and as far as he is able, marking out for his highest approbation in the conduct of others those actions which have produced, or are likely to produce, the greatest sum of happiness, and visiting with his loudest reprobation that conduct which leads to, or creates, the greatest amount of misery. By this means every man will do something to make the popular sanctions more useful, healthful, active, and virtuous. The alliances of true morality with the great interests of mankind man kind will soon discover (11, 274).

It often happens that, in the anxiety to get rid of [a political] evil, a greater evil is entailed on an individual or a class, than the evil got rid of by the community; that the sufferings experienced by the few are not counterbalanced by the benefits resulting to the many .... "Sweep abuses away" is undoubtedly the maxim of political wisdom; but so sweep them away that as little disappointment, vexation, or pain be created as possible (11, 285).

Despotism never takes a worse shape than when it comes in the guise of benevolence.... Pleasures and pains, the sweets and the bitters of existence, cannot be tried by the taste of another. What is good for another cannot be estimated by the person intending to do the good, but by the person only to whom it is intended to be done. The purpose of another may be to increase my happiness, but of that happiness I alone am the keeper and the judge ....

Refrain, then, from doing good to any man against his will, or even without his consent ....

To this pretension of doing good to others in spite of themselves, may be traced the worst of religious persecutions.

The most horrible of offenses, the most devastating and murderous of crimes, if followed up to their origin, will be found only a distortion of the happiness-seeking principle; the creation of a misery, intending to prevent a greater misery, but mistaking its purpose and miscalculating its means. And of such mistakes and such miscalculations none has been more prolific than the despotism of benevolent intention (11, 289-291).

Prudence must not allow the individual to sacrifice more happiness than he gains. Benevolence demands that, to the common stock of happiness, every man should bring the largest possible contribution (11, 292).

Let no man apprehend for himself or others, that he can produce too much good, or remove too much evil. It is not on the side of expansive benevolence that his mistakes are likely to be made. Let him do all the good he can, and wherever he can, he will never do too much for his own happiness, or the happiness of others (11, 193).

It may be laid down as a general principle, that a man becomes rich in his own stock of pleasures, in proportion to the amount he distributes to others (11, 295).

In his concluding chapter, Bentham tells us that reason and morality themselves must be made subservient to the great end of promoting human happiness. "Virtue is made up of pleasures, vice of pains, and ... morality is but the maximization of happiness" (11, 309).

5. The Role of Sympathy

I have been quoting from Bentham's (out-of-print) Deontology at this great length, not only because of the brilliant light it throws on the necessary relations of prudence and beneficence, but because it develops the Greatest Happiness Principle with more thoroughness and logic than any other work with which I am acquainted. By identifying morality not with a pointless "will to refrain" or self-sacrifice, but with the maximization of happiness, and by emphasizing the essential harmony between self-interest and the general interest, Bentham provides a far greater incentive to morality than the conventional moralist. His detractors, from Matthew Arnold to Karl Marx, have always been fond of dismissing him as crass and vulgar, but he is as superior to them in the breadth of his sympathies as he is in analysis and logic.

This is not to say that his discussion is definitive or lacking in faults. He too often assumes, for example, that an action can be taken on a direct calculation of the happiness or misery that would follow from that action considered in isolation. He failed to grasp the full weight of Hume's principle that we must inflexibly act according to rule, and that it is the goodness or badness of the rules of moral action, the tendency of the moral code to produce happiness or unhappiness, that is to be judged, rather than the assumed consequences of an isolated individual act.

There is also implicit in Bentham's discussion the assumption that benevolence can only grow out of enlightened and farseeing prudence. Most benevolence is, in fact, direct; it is the result of an immediate and spontaneous affection, love, kindness, or sympathy, a fellow-feeling with others (a theme that Hume and Adam Smith had developed), and not of any conscious calculation that its benefits will redound to the future advantage of the agent himself. The Biblical injunction, "Cast thy bread upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many days," implies, as Bentham does, that charity and other acts of benevolence will ultimately redound to the benefit of the one who performs them; but it implies, in addition, that the repayment is not necessarily dependable or proportional.

Yet Bentham was right in recognizing the essential long-run harmony between self-interest and the general interest, between the actions prescribed by "prudence" and the actions prescribed by "benevolence," between farsighted "egoism" and farsighted "altruism." And the recognition of this essential long-run harmony will be found to be the basis for solving one of the central problems of ethics -- the true relations of "egoism" and "altruism," and the relative roles that each should properly play.

Notes

1. Perhaps I should write Bentham-Bowring; for Bowring tells us, in a separate preface of three pages, that: "The materials out of which this volume has been put together are, for the most part, disjointed fragments, written on small scraps of paper, on the spur of the moment, at times remote from one another, and delivered into my hands without order or arrangement of any sort." The book, then, is probably at least a sort of collaboration; yet as the greater part of the reasoning and phrasing seem to me to be authentically Bentham's, I think we are justified in referring the work to him if he were the sole author.

In this second volume, even more than in the first, it is instructive to notice that Bentham shies away a little from the name Utilitarianism that he himself coined to describe his doctrine in its original form. At several points he gives reasons for regarding the term as inadequate and too vague. Though he does not suggest a substitute name (except, occasionally, "the Greatest Happiness Principle"), I think he would have finally come to call his doctrine Felicitism.

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