The Un-Benthamite Utilitarianism of Joseph Priestley

Bibliographic Data

ID4816673
AuthorsMargaret Canovan (corresponding author)
Year1984
Volume45
Issue3
Pages435
Publication date1984-07-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of the History of Ideas (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0022-5037 • E-ISSN: 1086-3222
PublisherJSTOR (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/2709234
OpenAlexW2327643513
LanguageEN
Citations received10

Historians tracing development of ideas are alert to possibility of discovering plagiarism, but they do not always make enough allowance for its opposite. Besides writer who steals another's ideas and parades them as his own, we need to keep a lookout also for that more attractive character, author who proclaims himself disciple of another, but actually holds quite different views from his supposed teacher. A thinker may gratefully remember moment of revelation he experienced as he was reading another writer's book, when what he actually learned was not what his predecessor wanted to teach. When, therefore, we find a vigorous and original thinker citing another writer as source for one of his central ideas we would be wise to treat claim with caution. If we investigate further, we may find that earlier writer was but a hapless catalyst, setting in motion an independent train of thought while his own views remained unappreciated by his supposed disciple. I. The subject of these moralizing reflections is Joseph Priestley, who is often given credit (or blame) for inspiring Benthamite utilitarianism. It was Jeremy Bentham who traced his central idea to Priestley. In Short History of Utilitarianism which he composed late in life, he recalled day in 1768 when, idly turning over books in an Oxford coffee house, he had picked up Priestley's Essay on First Principles of Government (1768) and begun to read. One phrase in particular caught his eye: the greatest happiness of greatest number. With discreet cries of Eureka, Bentham embarked upon his life's work.1 Scholars with no nose for red herrings with which paths of intellectual influence are strewn have jumped (understandably, but too hastily) to conclusion that if Bentham was influenced by Priestley, then Priestley must have been a kind of proto-Benthamite-though no doubt a muddled one-unaware of full implications of his ideas.2 It

Economics · Epistemology · Neoclassical economics · Positive economics · Utilitarianism · Economic Theory and Institutions · History of Science and Medicine · Philosophy · Philosophy and History of Science

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