Justice_ What's the Right Thing to Do_ - Michael Sandel [16]
Bentham’s argument for the principle that we should maximize utility takes the form of a bold assertion: There are no possible grounds for rejecting it. Every moral argument, he claims, must implicitly draw on the idea of maximizing happiness. People may say they believe in certain absolute, categorical duties or rights. But they would have no basis for defending these duties or rights unless they believed that respecting them would maximize human happiness, at least in the long run.
“When a man attempts to combat the principle of utility,” Bentham writes, “it is with reasons drawn, without his being aware of it, from that very principle itself.” All moral quarrels, properly understood, are disagreements about how to apply the utilitarian principle of maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain, not about the principle itself. “Is it possible for a man to move the earth?” Bentham asks. “Yes; but he must first find out another earth to stand upon.” And the only earth, the only premise, the only starting point for moral argument, according to Bentham, is the principle of utility.3
Bentham thought his utility principle offered a science of morality that could serve as the basis of political reform. He proposed a number of projects designed to make penal policy more efficient and humane. One was the Panopticon, a prison with a central inspection tower that would enable the supervisor to observe the inmates without their seeing him. He suggested that the Panopticon be run by a private contractor (ideally himself), who would manage the prison in exchange for the profits to be made from the labor of the convicts, who would work sixteen hours per day. Although Bentham’s plan was ultimately rejected, it was arguably ahead of its time. Recent years have seen a revival, in the United States and Britain, of the idea of outsourcing prisons to private companies.
Rounding up beggars
Another of Bentham’s schemes was a plan to improve “pauper management” by establishing a self-financing workhouse for the poor. The plan, which sought to reduce the presence of beggars on the streets, offers a vivid illustration of the utilitarian logic. Bentham observed, first of all, that encountering beggars on the streets reduces the happiness of passersby, in two ways. For tenderhearted souls, the sight of a beggar produces the pain of sympathy; for hardhearted folk, it generates the pain of disgust. Either way, encountering beggars reduces the utility of the general public. So Bentham proposed removing beggars from the streets and confining them in a workhouse.4
Some may think this unfair to the beggars. But Bentham does not neglect their utility. He acknowledges that some beggars would be happier begging than working in a poorhouse. But he notes that for every happy and prosperous beggar, there are many miserable ones. He concludes that the sum of the pains suffered by the public is greater than whatever unhappiness is felt by beggars hauled off to the workhouse.5
Some might worry that building and running the workhouse would impose an expense on taxpayers, reducing their happiness and thus their utility. But Bentham proposed a way to make his pauper management plan entirely self-financing. Any citizen who encountered a beggar would be empowered to apprehend him and take him to the nearest workhouse. Once confined there, each beggar would have to work to pay off the cost of his or her maintenance, which would be tallied in a “self-liberation account.” The account would include food, clothing, bedding, medical care, and a life insurance policy, in case the beggar died before the account