The Theme of Acquisitiveness in Bentham's Political Thought by Allison Dube

Author:Allison Dube [Dube, Allison]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, General, Europe, Great Britain, Modern, 19th Century
ISBN: 9781134969593
Google: xYauDAAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2016-07-15T16:18:02+00:00

b. The good will fund

The greatest area of development of property is in the services of other people. Bentham felt slavery to be the least efficient method of securing these services. As to the most efficient, Bentham is clear:

The stronger a man's need of the effective benevolence of others, the stronger the inducement he has for the manifesting effective benevolence as towards them....

And conversely,

the more extensively a man feels himself exposed to ill-treatment at the hands of others, the stronger is the inducement he has to bestow upon them good treatment, for the purpose of averting from him the effects of their ill-will.42

In Deontology. Bentham states why the completely self-interested pleasure seeker will exercise benevolence:

Over and above any pleasure with which the act may happen to be accompanied, the inducement which a man has for the exercise of benevolence is of the same sort as that which the husbandman has for the sowing of his seed, or that which the frugal man has for the laying up of money. Seed sown is not otherwise of any value than for the crops of which it is productive. Money is of no value but for the services of all sorts which it procures at the hands of other men: at the hands of the labourer, the services rendered by the performance of his labour; at the hands of the baker, the service performed by the delivery of his bread to the customer who gives the money for it.

By every act of virtuous beneficence which a man exercises, he contributes to a sort of fund-- a sort of Saving Bank-a sort of fund of general Good-will, out of which services of all sorts may be looked for as about to flow on occasion out of 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.43

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