This book is a welcome return to the views of classical utilitarians on empire and imperialism. The volume brings out the richness of the utilitarian tradition, not only but mainly with respect to the empire. Some of the essays have previously been published, but the value of the book lies in the collection and organization of this material alongside new essays. It is most successful in constructing a conversation, sometimes muted, at times agitated, between the various papers. Most edited collections fail to create such a reading experience, and the editors are to be commended for choosing the right authors and papers and for organizing the book in a logical fashion.
The book can roughly be divided into three parts. Following a quite long introduction by the editors (more on which below), the first part consists of three essays that deal with the views of Bentham and James Mill regarding slavery, empire and race. In two brilliant essays by Frederick Rosen and Jennifer Pitts, we are supplied with a nuanced and generally positive view of Bentham and his opposition to slavery, the slave trade and colonialism. Contrary to (much) received wisdom, Rosen and Pitts present Bentham as a principled radical with a sense for the particular and the politically possible. For Pitts, the utilitarian turn to empire (which is described in more detail in her monograph A Turn to Empire, Princeton University Press, 2005) begins with the writings of the elder Mill and culminates in the cultural paternalism of John Stuart Mill. Javed Majeed examines James Mill's History of India and reaches conclusions that are compatible with those of Pitts, but in an interesting reading, he also finds in the elder Mill's prejudiced history a stimulus to criticize and reform the mother country.
The second part of the book deals with the towering figure of John Stuart Mill and consists of five chapters that are somewhat uneven in quality and focus, but which nevertheless manage to speak to each other thanks in large part to the final accomplished, stock-taking essay by H. S. Jones. A highly suggestive essay by Martha Nussbaum opens and is followed by David Theo Goldberg's short essay, which manages to read John Stuart Mill as a ‘polite’ liberal racist, despite using as his source Mill's retort to Carlyle's racism in a provocative essay on ‘the Negro Question’ and despite Mill's contemporary reputation as an anti-racist. Goldberg's claims are dissected and discussed in Varouxakis's updated article on Mill and race, which presents a plea for precision when scholars make claims about prejudices in general and racism in particular. Varouxakis's argument is convincing, and his conclusion that the term ‘racism’ ‘should be reserved for the attitudes of those who believed in the all-importance of biologically transmitted characteristics and in the existence and great significance of inherent traits that are there to stay’ (p. 144) deserves to be heeded. That Mill was no racist does not, of course, mean that he was free from prejudices about ‘savages’ or ‘barbarians’. Yet, despite these prejudices, Mill's support for colonialism was founded on a notion of good government, and when Mill encountered other, harsher visions of colonialism, he displayed the moral outrage of an uncompromising radical as J. Joseph Miller demonstrates in his piece on Mill's involvement in the effort to prosecute Governor Eyre.
Two chapters on Herbert Spencer and Henry Sidgwick make up the final part of the book. In an elegant essay, David Weinstein succeeds in linking his previous reading of Spencer as a (rational) utilitarian to Spencer's fervent anti-imperialism. Weinstein makes a solid case for according Spencer more attention and for revisiting him properly before deploying stock accusations of the imperialist tendencies of ‘Social Darwinism’. The final and by far the longest chapter of the book is by Bart Schultz. It is based on material from the author's bulky intellectual biography of Henry Sidgwick that appeared in 2004, and laments – in a self-declared provocative tone – what is regarded as Sidgwick's ‘racism’. Incidentally, this critique takes little note of Varouxakis’ argument about racism, as Schultz notes that Sidgwick for all his faults ‘did not appeal to any biologically reductionistic notion of race’ (p. 244).
Despite all its merits, Utilitarianism and Empire is open to various criticisms. I will focus on three themes. The first quibble is perhaps relatively trivial and concerns the style of writing of the two editors in particular. Varouxakis and Schultz use many, and often quite long, quotes from lead and supporting actors, be it J. S. Mill, Henry Sidgwick, contemporary commentators or modern-day interpreters, in order to illustrate a line of argument, to give the reader a flavour of the tone or style of writing in question, or to bring out the complexity and context of points made. This is a potentially rewarding method, and in the main, both editors display considerable skill in highlighting quotations that support and qualify their arguments; both master their material. Occasionally, however, the text is in a danger of turning into a kind of commentary that loses track of the larger argument(s) pursued. This stylistic problem, weighing down the text with extensive quotations, blights Schultz's essay and the generally helpful introduction. The more general part of the introduction to the book and its themes takes up less than six pages (of which at least one page is taken up by extensive quotations by Bertrand Russell and Michel Foucault), whereas the more detailed introduction to the various essays fills the remaining twenty-three pages and is full of quotations and paraphrases from the contributions that follow the introduction.
This leads me to the second point. As one would expect from the title of the book, the main focus is on the view of different utilitarians on the British empire or imperialism in general. However, quite a few of the essays deal first and foremost with race and only secondarily with empire and imperialism, and in the introduction the aim of the book is stated as highlighting and engaging with ‘the different aspects of the utilitarian legacy that bear directly on questions of race and empire’ in a way that brings out the historical complexity surrounding these entities (p. 5). This naturally raises questions about the relationship between race/racism and empire/imperialism, and although many of the individual essays touch upon such questions, a more sustained stage-setting discussion in the introduction would have been helpful – particularly when many of the contributions in the volume work against any simple equation among these themes. Moreover, an afterword or epilogue that followed up on the various discussions of race, racism, empire, imperialism, utilitarianism, and the views of individual utilitarians, could have tied together the volume more successfully. H. S. Jones's essay fulfils part of this function, but it would have been helpful if his discussion had covered the late-Victorian ground in more detail. Certainly, his ability to portray and synthesize debates and draw out contentious issues and conceptual problems could have thrown more light on, for example, the character of the assumed ‘sharp increase’ in overt racist thinking that became ‘a very prominent feature of the intellectual landscape’ or on the interplay between various kinds of racism and their political implications at the end of the century (the quotes are from Schultz's essay, pp. 220, 213).
The final issue is perhaps the most contentious. Striking a balance between the recording angel and the hanging judge is always difficult when practising history in relation to delicate issues like racism or sexism. Lord Acton famously castigated those who thought they could pass over thorny matters with a suspended judgement and a pair of white gloves. The balance is no less difficult when it comes to interpreting historical figures who wrote – or sometimes, and more tellingly perhaps, did not write – about systematic exploitation and injustice. Questions about the demands we can place on historical figures and the relativization of values in different historical contexts often appear charged, perhaps due to the personal political interests that scholars pursue through their historical subjects (and their adversaries), contemporary or historical. This book is rich in different ways to approach such questions, but one of these – the for too long preferred option of neglecting or ignoring ‘Orientalist’ assumptions of superiority or racial difference informing much ‘Western’ writing about empire and imperialism – is happily not on display. This is appropriate, as a ‘historiography of complacency’ is now widely discredited. But this still leaves plenty of room for differences. At the other end of the spectrum, we find the full-blown postmodern ire – contributing to a ‘historiography of indignation’ – inspired by the late Edward Said. This approach, which in different ways informs the contributions by Goldberg and Schultz, often ends up in a strange paradox, forsaking the anti-universalism of its postmodern ancestors. In effect, what is criticized is that the subjects under study did not hold the views we hold. Occasionally, this comes out directly, as when Schultz writes that Sidgwick's views are ‘worrisome’ and reflect ‘a very bad performance for a moral philosopher’ (pp. 219, 223). But more often it is a matter of tone, style and emphasis. Particularly in Schultz's contribution, one is left with an odd sense that the stern (interpreting) schoolmaster Schultz is disappointed in his star pupil Sidgwick: the brilliance of his mind, the values embedded in his moral philosophy, and the resources of his character should have led him to ‘examine’ rather than ‘swim in’ the prejudices of his times (p. 244). While there is little doubt that postmodern and post-colonial approaches (or elements of these) are indispensable when trying to map how assumptions of superiority and hierarchical relationships were produced and maintained and with what consequences, their extension into this form of reprimanding makes little historical sense. Surely there is a middle way between the historiography of complacency and the historiography of indignation, and most of the essays in this collection present different and successful ways of striking the balance. In particular, the essays by Pitts, Varouxakis, Miller and Jones are successful in this respect. Here, the mapping of those beliefs and assumptions that most people today would find untenable is in one way or another explained, understood and occasionally relativized, demonstrating not only interpretative skill but also a great deal of historical sensitivity.
As a result, the few disagreeable features of the book should not detract from its considerable achievements. Utilitarianism and Empire successfully provides a welcome fresh look at and an excellent introduction to the complex and multifaceted relationships between utilitarianism, race and empire. The book's different approaches, emphases and at times conflicting arguments provoke and stimulate reflection on a wide range of interesting and contentious political and historical themes. That, surely, is the mark of a successful edited collection.
