Since Bentham's writings on international law and peace have not yet appeared in the new authoritative edition of The Collected Works of Jeremy Bentham, ‘Principles of International Law’Footnote 1 remains the major text of reference, although it is highly problematic in its provenance and thus unreliable as a tool for definitively assessing Bentham's international thought.Footnote 2 However, the exploration of Bentham's original manuscripts reveals substantive new material which opens the way to a better and more complete view on this subject. Even if these manuscripts ‘remained in an unrealized and inchoate condition, from which it is impossible to make any definitive inference concerning his ultimate intentions’,Footnote 3 they contain important elements that cannot be ignored. Henceforth, and due to this ‘inchoate condition’, I aim to present a balanced interpretation of Bentham's international political theory grounded in unpublished original manuscripts and the new volumes of The Collected Works of Jeremy Bentham. More precisely, this article aims to present a philosophical reconstruction of Bentham's international political theory, in which states’ cosmopolitan responsibilities appear at its centre.
My analysis starts with an acknowledgement of the considerable scepticism that Bentham scholars have expressed about the assertion of any close relationship between Bentham's thought and cosmopolitanism, a scepticism which goes so far as to assert on the contrary an incompatibility between the two. Nancy L. Rosenblum expressed this view very clearly in her study devoted to Bentham's theory of the modern state.
In Bentham's hands, the principle of equal utility of states was a technique of reason of state. He accepted the egoism of states, not only as a fact but also as a norm of order. Certainly, he did not share the Enlightenment's characteristic longing for cosmopolitanism.Footnote 4
In her statement, she opposes the egoism of states commanded by the principle of utility with the cosmopolitan spirit of Enlightenment thinkers. She considers that the principle of utility is necessarily parochial because the calculus of the Legislator only applies to his own political community. In international affairs, Bentham's utilitarianism reveals itself as a new ‘reason of state’ where the sovereign adopts an international conduct centred on national concerns. Consequently, Bentham celebrates the egoism of states in international affairs and is radically opposed to Enlightenment cosmopolitanism.
Gunhild Hoogensen developed another major interpretationFootnote 5 of Bentham's international political theory. Unlike Rosenblum, her study benefits from an access to Bentham's original English manuscripts from which ‘Principles of International Law’ was later compiled. She offers a careful analysis of the manuscripts with important remarks and caveats that prevent her from over-interpreting the text. The general outline of her approach associates Bentham, along with Kant, with the rationalist branch of the liberal theory of international relations. In her view, the idea of ‘security of expectations’Footnote 6 is central to Bentham's liberal international theory. She shows that the sovereign aims to secure the expectations of his own people, but also that ‘security of expectations’ entails, to at least some minimal extent, a concern for the happiness of foreign populations. Hoogensen considers that secondary mechanisms of international cooperation are central to the sovereign's response to security of expectations. Bentham's ideas for a minimal international justice, even if not systematic and coherent, rely on these mechanisms. Hoogensen, like most commentators,Footnote 7 describes the series of proposals and institutional reforms (the creation of an international court, the role of treaties and diplomacy, etc.) enlisted by Bentham as part of his liberal internationalism. To conclude, while a large majority of handbooks in international relationsFootnote 8 relates Bentham to the liberal paradigm in international political theory, Hoogensen's assessment remains the most coherent and fully developed reading in support of this idea.
I argue that, overall, these readings have underestimated the critical dimension of Bentham's approach to international political theory. Repeatedly, Bentham's approach to international politics took the form of severe criticism of the ideas, concepts and practices inherited from the past. Bentham usually combined this critical evaluation with ideas and proposals for new institutions and new rules that would significantly improve everyday life in international politics. I will argue that Bentham developed two major lines of criticism in his international thought. Firstly, Bentham rejected the idea of the legal and moral personality of the state and the international realm understood as a community of states. Secondly, he disapproved of any appeal to virtues for guiding the action of the sovereign in international affairs. These criticisms are not only important in themselves. They also lead us to revise the standard interpretation of Bentham's international theory. Indeed, I argue that Bentham's international theory explains how to ensure that states’ responsibilities are discharged. I will demonstrate that in order to offer a utilitarian response to the most important issues of world politics, Bentham elaborated a new international political theory that aimed to create the conditions for a responsible state in the international realm.
I
Bentham took the potential wrongness – that is, consequent pain not outweighed by a greater countervailing pleasure, or, in a word, unjustified harm – of sovereigns’ decisions and actions in international affairs very seriously. While his writings show that he carefully acknowledged the difficulties of identifying the relevant sources and causes of wrongness resulting from sovereigns’ conduct, my analysis starts by focusing on two ideas criticised by Bentham for their role in creating negative outcomes in the international realm. Firstly, I will explain Bentham's critique of the idea of the legal and moral personality of the state, which led him to revise the standard ontology of the international order as a community of states. Second, I will rehearse Bentham's use of that critique in demonstrating that when virtue ethics discourse informs the conduct of sovereigns in the international sphere, it leads them to sacrifice the interests of the greatest number in pursuit of ‘false glory’, ‘honour’ and ‘admiration’.
Bentham conducted an analysis of the concept of the state which led him to criticise the idea developed by Emer de VattelFootnote 9 (1714–67) that states are persons endowed with their own will, that is legal and moral persons who can contract with each other freely up to the point of constituting a society of nations. Although this idea acquired great popularity towards the end of the eighteenth century and became one of the most important elements in the classical doctrine of international law, Bentham rejected this conception of the state and of the international order. He developed his criticism of the legal and moral personality of the state according to two arguments. First, for Bentham the state is a ‘fictitious entity’, and equating the state with a person involves ascribing a non-existent substance to this fiction. This reification of the state creates a first legal difficulty. Indeed, if the state is a person, a subject endowed with a will, then sanctions must be applicable to that subject. But since the qualification for inclusion in any rational table of offences and sanctions is based on a rigorous individuation in which each legal actor must be identified in its singularity,Footnote 10 the state understood as a person contradicts what is at the heart of Bentham's thinking on offences. Further, any penal sanction can only make sense and be effective insofar as the subject of that sanction can feel pain and pleasure,Footnote 11 and since the state is not a sensitive person it cannot feel the pain associated with the sanction. From this it must be concluded that the state should not be thought of as a legal and moral person.
Ascribing a personality to the state in this way is an essentialisation that also raises a second question, this time of a political nature. Indeed, making this ‘fictitious entity’ a substance has immediate repercussions on the way in which state action will be thought of and perceived on the international scene. Bentham believed that the idea of the state as a person necessarily had as its correlate the tendency on the part of sovereigns to confuse their own interests with those of the state. This confusion, fuelled by the ‘pleasures of reputation’, as Bentham calls them, leads the sovereign to sacrifice the interests of his own people and of foreign populations. In this case, the visceral preference of the sovereign for his interests gives free rein to the sinister sacrifice of the interest of the greatest number, undermining both the equal right to happiness of each and every person and the utilitarian ends of international politics. The sovereign's partiality can then lead to the worst crimes, wars, acts of aggression and violence. Consequently, rather than facilitating the pacification of the world, the personality of the state contributes to encouraging warmongering among sovereigns.Footnote 12 The global utilitarian policy developed by Bentham is opposed to this promotion of the warmongering of rulers. Bentham is led to present his position within the framework of the debate that developed during the eighteenth century on the status and value of ‘glory’ in international morality. Indeed, he contrasts ‘false glory’ with the ‘true glory’ that any sovereign guided by the utilitarian principle must cultivate.
Honour and glory are certainly the most common moral concepts used to refer to the action of sovereigns at the international level. Bentham condemned a particular use and meaning given to these notions. More precisely, Bentham's criticism of virtue ethics discourse was intended to be part of a much broader attack against the persistence of mercantilist thought. Indeed, following the path of Adam Smith, Bentham saw the legacy of mercantilist practices and ideas in the appetites for conquest, honour, admiration and jealousy that qualify the sovereign's egoistic conduct at the end of the eighteenth century.Footnote 13 The pursuit of ‘false glory’ was reflected in the international economy with aggressive trade barriers, an effort to accumulate precious metals, commercial blockades, and severe tax policies over the exchange of goods. All of these policies fostered the promotion of warmongering attitudes among sovereigns. The virtue ethics discourse applied to the sovereign's conduct was for Bentham a natural ally to the mercantilist's agenda. In order to explain his criticism, Bentham focused on how the essentialisation of the state could influence the sovereign's understanding of his role and interests.Footnote 14 The confusion between particular and state interests is explained psychologically through an analysis of emotions. Both honour and glory of a nation are specifically derived from ‘pleasures of good reputation’ or ‘pleasures of good repute’, says Bentham:
The pleasures of a good name are the pleasures that accompany the persuasion of a man's being in the acquisition or the possession of the good-will of the world about him; that is, of such members of society as he is likely to have concerns with; and as a means of it either their love or their esteem, or both: and as a fruit of it, of his being in the way to have the benefit of their spontaneous and gratuitous services. These may likewise be called the pleasures of good repute, the pleasures of honour, or the pleasures of the moral sanction.Footnote 15
Examination of this ‘pleasure’ or ‘love of good reputation’ shows that it is based on a social superiority acquired on the basis of a bias constituted to the advantage of a person. The most eloquent form of this ‘pleasure of good repute’ is at the heart of the appetites of rulers for glory and honour, and lies behind the seemingly arbitrary causes of war.
A King, for the sake of gaining the admiration annexed to the name of conqueror (we will suppose power and resentment out of the question) engages his kingdom in a bloody war. His motive, by the multitude (whose sympathy for millions is easily overborne by the pleasure which their imagination finds in gaping at any novelty they observe in the conduct of a single person) is deemed an admirable one. Men of feeling and reflection, who disapprove of the dominion exercised by this motive on this occasion, without always perceiving that it is the same motive which in other instances meets with their approbation, deem it an abominable one; and because the multitude, who are the manufacturers of language, have not given them a simple name to call it by, they will call it by some such compound name as the love of false glory or false ambition.Footnote 16
In this example, Bentham condemns the ‘false glory or false ambition’ that is at the core of the sovereign's conduct and its harmful effects: war and the arbitrariness of one man's power. The pleasure taken in admiration leads the sovereign to ignore the effects of his decisions and actions on the greatest number. In this demonstration, Bentham also identifies a second moral issue related to the essentialisation of the nation. The honour of the nation exerts a very powerful motive for the King in his appetite for pleasures that leads him to declare war. Bentham introduces the term ‘multitude’ to emphasise that the indefinite number of people contributing mistakenly to the admiration of the sovereign's conduct constitute an alliance of opinion of sufficient effect to create the image of a nation united behind its sovereign. Thanks to this perception, and the action of the moral sanction of public opinion in extending it, the ruler's quest for appetite and power meets with the ill-informed approval of the people.Footnote 17 Seeking to satisfy ‘love of reputation’ of rulers is one of the ways in which the sovereign's power is exercised to the detriment of the general welfare. The sovereign's conductFootnote 18 is then entirely dedicated to the satisfaction of his own pleasures, of his own greatness, leading in all likelihood to arbitrary abuse of power and its utmost dangers: aggression, violence and war.
II
In this section, I will explain that Bentham revised considerably the standard conception of the international system and endorsed a deflationary approach to international theory. Indeed, Bentham's criticisms of discourses on the international order led him to adopt a sceptical stance towards international theory, nourished by his utilitarian concern for the interest of the greatest number. Is the standard international system capable of promoting the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people? In this international system, will states act in concert according to the utilitarian end or, conversely, will they act in a selfish manner always preferring the happiness of their own particular community, and especially of its rulers, to the detriment of the happiness of all? How can the impartiality of the utilitarian principle be translated into global politics? These questions were at the core of Bentham's approach to investigating the international sphere.
Bentham believed that the existing international system tended to favour ‘false glory’, the vain appetites of sovereigns, and that consequently it carried with it a high probability of unjustified wars and aggression. This belief led Bentham to reconsider the value of internationalism. Indeed, insofar as states remain necessary political entities, then the international system must be rethought as a system of cooperation which has the capacity to organise the role of the state in international politics and, at the same time, provides securities against the replication of the dangers of the effects of selfish state politics which characterise the existing system. Contrary to the temptations of liberal internationalism, conceived as an optimistic response to international affairs, Bentham proposed a set of international institutions that accepts certain practices of international cooperation for prudential reasons in order to constitute a system of international cooperation.
More precisely and more strikingly, this system of international cooperation is only valid or practicable as part of Bentham's political theory, in which states are never to be conceived as persons, the subjects of international morality, but participate in a world order only insofar as the rulers of such states are ultimately the guarantors of world politics. Only the rulers of the stateFootnote 19 (and not states as persons) must bear responsibility, because they are the persons responsible for the state's actions in the international realm and because they are subject to popular as well as legal sanctions. Thus, Bentham's revised theory of internationalism places the model of the international system under the control and domination of the central part of his political theory, which is a theory of the state and representative democracy. In the last section of the article, I will explain that Bentham's political theory contains a plan for organising the responsibilities of the rulers in such a way that they will act internationally in the interest of the greatest number and under the scrutiny of the greatest number. In the remainder of this section, I will explain the deflationary and minimalist vision of the international system of cooperation defended by Bentham.
Addressing the impasses in the international system
Bentham makes several criticisms of the international system in which states (understood as persons) are primarily defined as the first and fundamental entities in international political ontology. This critique led him to consider the principle of utility for codifying custom and practices in international relations which led him to revise the status and moral value of international treaties and alliances between states, and to offer proposals for new international institutions. These proposals aim to obviate the dangers of the essentialisation of the state and to build a system of cooperation which, because it is minimal, will avoid reproducing all the risks accompanying the international policies of states driven by the private interests of their rulers.
International treaties and alliance systems
Bentham assessed the moral value of international treaties and their ability to promote world peace in sceptical fashion. International treaties enshrine the idea that sovereignty is fundamentally understood as absolute, and thus celebrate its authority and power through the exercise of its autonomy and independence. In the design of a system of international cooperation in which international treaties have an important role, sovereignty is then independent, autonomous, free from publicity, transparency and accountability, and fosters the separation of the interests of those exercising sovereignty from the interest of the domestic majority. Bentham believed that the practices and behaviours adopted by the sovereign when he wrote were fundamentally characterised by a power of unscrutinised decision-making, exclusive arbitration, the capacity to conduct secret exchanges and activities and to maintain the opacity of their procedures. All this inevitably led to the reign of arbitrariness, injustice, and the promotion of ‘sinister interest’ against the interest of the greatest number. The rulers participating in diplomatic and international life were above all motivated by their interest, which remains the interest of the social class of rulers, or the ruling few as Bentham called them. This class interest is then a ‘sinister interest’ because it opposes the ‘universal interest’. Consequently, the moral value of international treaties could not automatically be taken as the touchstone of the international order. The suspicion of arbitrariness, abuse of power, favouring the interests of the few and sacrificing the interest of the many, always weighs on international treaties.
Following a similar line of reasoning, Bentham was very sceptical of treaties intended to form alliance systems.Footnote 20 In particular, he highlighted the fact that the pursuit of self-interest induces sovereigns to engage in games of duplicity by which alliances between states are fundamentally parasitised by the double games of sovereigns in the pursuit of their own self-interest. The conduct of such sovereigns is fundamentally opportunistic, proceeding through lies, illusions and deceptions. No alliance system can, therefore, escape the influence of sovereign selfishness, and all are condemned to more or less inevitable failure.
Thus, the international system must be framed in order to avoid the known impasses and dangers. Bentham ascribes a minimum moral value to international treaties and diplomatic activities by considering them as forms of prudential rules for interaction between states that allow them provisionally to ensure more reliable security. Indeed, international treaties can only be valid as a form of defensive rule for the security of the states that sign the treaties (against the dangers of conquest, war, or aggressive trade policies, for instance trade blockades). In this sense, it is easy to understand why, as Hoogensen and others have pointed out,Footnote 21 Bentham only gives a positive role to international treaties that are already in place, and, in seeking to promote a peaceful international order, does not put his faith in the development of an international system based on international treaties.
Bentham's attempt to codify international law and treaties has been explicitly connected to the principle of utility under the name of ‘common utility’. Defined as the ‘[greatest] common and equal utility of all nations,’Footnote 22 the principle was designed to pacify international relations by the effects of the twin virtues of clarity and promulgation of the rules of war and peace. However, the legal value of international treaties is subject to controversyFootnote 23 in Bentham's writings. Indeed, it seems that, at first, international treaties cannot be considered as laws according to Bentham's legal theory.Footnote 24 Besides, giving an obligatory value and power to sanction to international treaties runs the risk of fostering the irresponsible conduct of sovereigns so that they sacrifice the interests of the greatest number. However, Bentham seems to concede that such treaties can become part of the laws of the state insofar as their provisions are so enacted, in which case international treaties could help to enhance the responsible conduct of the state in the international realm.
The usefulness of a treaty stems from its ability to guarantee greater security for states and for regions of the world. Although this positive utility might be significant, Bentham also believes that international politics cannot rely completely on international treaties. The source of such caution lies partly in the fact that treaties are created by the ruling class and lie beyond the control of popular sanction. Bentham is therefore cautious about the importance and functions to be accorded to classical diplomatic activities and treaties in the international realm.
Reforming the international order through institutions: the European Diet and the Peace Tribunal
The system of minimum international cooperation is a voluntary association of states organised around two institutions. The ‘European Congress’Footnote 25 is presented as a system of cooperation between European states that would aim at establishing common control by each and every state under the auspices of the moral or popular sanction (the critical and controlling role of the public) so that peace between nations can result. The creation of this ‘European Congress’ raises questions about the role of the public or the peoples of Europe. It is important to stress here that Bentham is opposed to the idea of elevating the public to the status of a ‘European people’, which would act as the guardian of European interests and peace. The creation of the ‘European Congress’ is not correlated with the creation of a ‘European people’. Popular sanctions are expressed in the space of the respective national communities, since each national public opinion takes note of and judges the decrees issued by the ‘European Congress’. Lastly, in this draft institutional proposal, Bentham does not discuss in detail either which states should be included in the ‘European Congress’ or how the decision-making processes should be organised within it. Although Bentham does not address either question at length, it seems that the ‘European Congress’ was to be organised around the Franco-British dyad. Despite his strong criticisms of France's colonial and international policy at the end of the eighteenth century, he recognised that the fate of Europe and of world peace is necessarily closely linked to the quality of Franco-British relations:
Ask an Englishman what is the great obstacle to securing and solidifying peace, his answer is ready: it is the ambition, and perhaps he will add, the perfidy of France. May God grant that the main obstacle he has to fight is the dispositions and feelings of France! That his whole plan should not have to wait long for its adoption. The most visionary part of this visionary project is undoubtedly that for the emancipation of distant dependencies. What will our Englishman say when he sees two French Ministers of the highest reputation, by their competence and experience, both at the head of their respective departments, both of them agreeing in the opinion that no more than the accomplishment of such an event, the acceleration of its inevitable advancement is not, as one of them says with his lips, eminently desirable? This only brings things back to where they were before the discovery of the Americas. Europe then had no Colonies, no distant garrisons, no standing armies.Footnote 26
In this passage, Bentham builds on his criticisms of the French government's appetite for glory and honour in the international realm and draws a parallel between the carving up of the Americas and the development of French colonies. Although Bentham does not detail the composition of the ‘European Congress’, the following list of members can be derived from his manuscripts: France, the United Kingdom, Spain, Portugal, Holland, Switzerland, and Prussia are associated with this proposal.
The second institution participating in this system of international cooperation is the Tribunal for Peace, which is a necessary instrument to promote peace in the new international system of states. Its creation is described in a few manuscripts outlining his proposal. It has a function in the pacification of the world, which Bentham introduces in the manuscripts:
That the maintenance of such pacification should be greatly facilitated by the establishment of a common judicial court for the adjudication of differences between several nations, although such a court were not armed with coercive powers.Footnote 27
Remedy for Wars of Good Faith: the Peace Tribunal.Footnote 28
The ‘Peace Tribunal’ thus acts as a committee where speeches and reasons are presented and brought to the attention of the state that is the subject of complaint. The state in question would not be subject to any legal obligation to appear before the ‘Peace Tribunal’. Conversely, it is only through regular public hearings that the formal organisation that is the ‘Peace Tribunal’ will be able to play a useful and effective critical function in modifying the conduct of states. The ‘Peace Tribunal’ is therefore not ‘visionary’, as Bentham says, that is, it does not offer a magical guarantee that the state complained of will not enter into war, nor does it guarantee that the reasons made available will lead to pacification or other positive consequences for the plaintiffs (cessation of threats, aggression, and so on). In this respect, the Tribunal for Peace is a critical institution, a forum for the exchange of reasons made available by and to states with the aim of pacifying relations between states. However, it must be stressed that Bentham does not give any further details of the direct aims and mode of organisation of the ‘Peace Tribunal’.
To conclude, Bentham believed that the existing system of international, that is inter-state, relations was incompatible with the utilitarian approach to international politics. It led to the replication of evils: harmful conduct, wrong decisions taken by sovereigns nourished by egoism, jealousies and antipathies between states which, in world politics, too often resulted in devastating damage to the innocent populations living in the countries directly affected. Bentham adopted a different approach to international theory that led him to examine the existing practices and institutions of the international community and to sketch new rules and institutions, reforms and proposals that could diminish the risks of unjustified and arbitrary violence in the world. Although Bentham never developed or presented a systematic and coherent view of the international system of cooperation between states, the different reforms and proposals listed in his works and manuscripts indicate its general outlines.
Thus described, it becomes clearer how and why the minimal and deflationary vision of the international system, understood as a system of cooperation, should be interpreted as a response both to the impossibility of guaranteeing the impartiality of the existing international system, and to the inevitable failure of actors in international political life to promote the interest of the greatest number. However, his revisions of the standard model of the international system and the theory of the state require a delicate balance to be maintained between the need to promote a system of international cooperation that is organised and controlled by states on the one hand, and the fact that the rulers of each state must be held accountable for the fulfilment of the responsibilities of the states which they lead on the other. Bentham's international thought necessarily led him to go beyond a standard conception of internationalismFootnote 29 in favour of a response in which organisational political arrangements for uniting the interest of the ruling few in each state with their duty (that is, the promotion of the universal interest) were the core component, and worked by making the fulfilment of their responsibilities and the promotion of that interest a necessary condition for their continued possession of political power and the fruits of office.
III
As explained above, Bentham's criticisms of ‘false glory’ characterised the irresponsibility of the sovereign in international affairs. Yet ‘glory’ is not only a negative moral concept. Indeed, Bentham distinguishes very clearly between two forms of ‘glory’: ‘false glory’ and ‘true glory’. From his early writings in the late 1780s to the Constitutional Code of 1830, Bentham associates the idea of a good sovereign with the idea of ‘true glory’. More precisely, ‘true glory’ designates the right action conducted by the sovereign when he acts according to the principle of utility, that is to say, when he acts with benevolence for the greatest good of the international community. Promoting the greatest happiness for the greatest number is, for the sovereign, acting with responsibility, as Bentham repeats in many texts.Footnote 30
Those who do not like taxes should not like war, those who do not like war should not like what is called national glory, that is, insolence and injustice. Glory consists in the act of giving what cannot be taken violently.Footnote 31
In this passage, Bentham clarifies the terms of the opposition between ‘false glory’ and ‘true glory’, in which, once again, mercantilism is associated with ‘false glory’, and the critique of ‘false glory’ with free trade, peace and justice. The concept of ‘true glory’ is connected to ‘responsibility’ and this conceptual relation is both consistent in Bentham's writings and indicates the central role of the notion of responsibility in his international thought. I argue that in order to elucidate Bentham's international political thought it is necessary to understand how Bentham thinks about the responsibilities of states. If the sovereign should remain responsible for his conduct in the international realm, and if the international system of states cannot provide the conditions for meeting that challenge, what can be done towards creating a stable and just international order? How should we think about the responsibility of the state for its actions in the international realm? In this final section, I will argue that Bentham's international political theory is an application of his theory of the state, in which ministers and public officials are responsible, that is, publicly accountable, for the discharge of both national and cosmopolitan responsibilities.
For Bentham, the responsibility of the state can only be properly understood to mean the responsibilities of the rulers of the state, while those responsibilities in turn rely for their discharge on the existence of mechanisms or means of making ministers and public officials accountable for their decisions in such a way that fulfilling those responsibilities will satisfy the necessary conditions for a responsible state in the international realm. Bentham's political theory is a modern theory of the bureaucratic state in which the people are allocated a central and crucial role. Bentham's democratic state is organised in such a way that the government in pursuit of the interests of all is always carried out under the guarantees of the rule of law and institutional mechanisms which operate under the watchful eye of the people. Transparency and publicity are the twin pillars through the strength of which public institutions are rendered responsive to the control, judgement and criticism of popular opinion in the public space. The constitutional organisation and composition of the bureaucratic state establishes the responsibility of the rulers through their membership of a Ministry and their relationship with the people. Thirteen ministries make up the entire central administration. The powers of each Minister and his Ministry are integrated in a hierarchical vertical relationship in which the Prime Minister is at the apex, and exercises his power over each of his subordinate Ministers. A parallel hierarchical structure prevails in the judicial branch of the executive, with the Minister of Justice at the apex, answerable, like the Prime Minister, to the Legislature.
Following Constitutional Code, it appears clearly that Bentham develops a specific approach to responsibility. Assigning responsibilities in the state means, for him, responding to the problem of collective responsibility with this question: who is responsible, and to what degree, for which part, of what? Indeed, Bentham's principle of ‘single-seatedness’Footnote 32 aims to attach responsibilities for the exercise of particular functions very specifically to particular positions, denominated by particular individually differentiated names, without considering the persons who will occupy those positions and exercise those functions. By deploying this principle, Bentham attempts to create the most accurate and precise individuation of responsibilities attached to offices and functions (not persons) described and identified in the administration of the state. Contrary to the holistic approach that tends to think of the state as a person, the principle of ‘single-seatedness’ is crucial to Bentham's approach to administrative ethics.
Based on this idea, Bentham's theory of responsibility follows a classical causal theory of responsibility, where one's responsibility is defined by the causal relations between one's decisions and actions (or inactions) and states of affairs resulting from those decisions. Responsibility is inseparable from the effects of the action to be prevented (or encouraged), which triggers a series of events leading to the decrease (or increase) of happiness. Responsibility is fundamentally about the amount of happiness that exists in a social state of affairs, regulated by laws and institutions and created by the actions of officials. Building on this idea, Bentham introduced a twofold division of ‘responsibility’ in Constitutional Code: ‘punitive responsibility’ and ‘satisfactional responsibility’. ‘Punitive responsibility’ applies where an official has broken the law and punishment is proper. ‘Satisfactional responsibility or Compensatory responsibility’Footnote 33 involves the possibility of making good any loss or harm wrongly inflicted by official decisions. The ‘satisfaction’ provided by this form of ‘compensatory responsibility’ lies precisely in the payment of the monetary equivalent of the cost or damage suffered. Bentham presents this type of responsibility as being preferable to the bare application of punishment, since it adds the possibility of ‘cure’ to that damage to the infliction of pain on the offender which is the only direct effect of punishment. Bentham then discusses ‘legal responsibility’, which consists of two branches: judicial and administrative. Considering the effect of ‘legal responsibility’, the judicial branch merely denominates the legal punishment, thereby attesting to the consideration of the responsibility of the individual in question. The administrative branch is concerned with the consideration of the dismissal of an official, as decided on by superior authority. The field of ‘legal responsibility’ is another fundamental term which permeates the utilitarian order of the state. The last branch deals with ‘pecuniary responsibility’.Footnote 34 This determines the terms of compensation, which is established according to the wealth of the individual who has failed in his or her responsibility. Bentham ends his presentation with a return to ‘moral responsibility’. This is of decisive importance and is of primary concern even to rulers, for even a despot or tyrant depends upon the continued acquiescence of his subjects for the maintenance of his position: a general withdrawal of their disposition to obey would threaten his removal in short order. Moral responsibility thus necessarily refers to political responsibility.Footnote 35 Ultimately, Bentham's approach to the responsibilities of officials aims to guarantee the perfect internalisation of the utilitarian moral and legal code by officials. With this short description in mind, I shall now describe the responsibilities of ministers that have a direct impact on the state's responsibilities in the international realm.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs has a direct impact on the conduct of the state in international affairs. By virtue of his office, he is in charge of foreign policy and compliance with international treaties in the international community. His first responsibilities are thus to undertake several actions and decisions which support the laws and policies initiated by the Legislature concerning international relations. He is accountable for diverse administrative tasks which include the ‘hospitial function’ which entails ‘reception and entertainment’Footnote 36 of foreign diplomats and officials during their stays or visits. He also undertakes the supervision of diverse tasks such as negotiations with different officials commissioned by foreign states and officials from other sub-departments of his own state. He shares with the Navy Minister several responsibilities, such as hiring commanders and the general management of ships and marines. He is expected to write a comprehensive annual report on the general ‘observance or non-observance’ of international treaties. In conjunction with the Minister of Finance, he is responsible for presenting a further report at the beginning of the new legislative year, detailing the conflicting policies which different states have in relation to commerce. He is accountable for the exercise of the powers allocated to his office, which means that, due to his hierarchical position, he is accountable for the decisions of all public officials attached to his office and sub-departments and for their respect of the rules defining their functions.
Although Bentham defends free trade very strongly and clearly in his writings on political economy,Footnote 37 he considers that the role of the Trade Minister is necessary. His first responsibility in international affairs is to evaluate the impact of laws ‘giving factitious encouragement to trade’.Footnote 38 He is responsible for reporting on the impact of taxation on prices and commodities, for proposing to the Legislature measures for the prevention of fraud, for regulating temporary monopolies, and for improving the quality of information in order to increase trade and commerce.
The Navy MinisterFootnote 39 is responsible for the department of maritime defensive force, including not only armed and non-armed vessels, and marines, but harbours, docks and storehouses. His responsibilities are largely associated with international security and the use of force at sea.
These three ministers bear the largest part of the state's responsibilities in the international realm. However, the prerogatives of the powers exercised by the Minister of Finance, the Preventive Service Minister and the Indigence Relief Minister, among others, might in particular circumstances affect more or less indirectly the state's conduct in the international realm.
The responsibilities of several ministers and their public officials have direct consequences on the responsibility of the state in international affairs. For Bentham, even if their responsibilities include an international dimension, they remain national responsibilities because they are scrutinised and controlled by the public opinion of the state and the securities against misrule detailed as part of the bureaucratic organisation of the state. Although they act internationally in the favour of the greatest happiness of the world, the ‘field of service’ of their responsibilities invites and allows them to frame an international policy for the utilitarian state, which acknowledges the independent and autonomous character of the omnicompetent legislature's decisions. Bentham's description of the responsibilities held by ministers and public officials is central to ensuring the discharge of the state's responsibilities in the international realm.
In Bentham's mind, the constitutional edifice and new organisation of the bureaucratic state will have decisive effects for both the domestic and the international order. Following this idea we can say that the more responsible the state is, the better the system of cooperation between states will be, and consequently, the pacification of the world will achieve significant progress. There is no doubt that Bentham considers that the adoption of his Constitutional Code is necessary to achieve such political results. Yet, how far Bentham's approach to the responsibility of the ministers, public officials and governors will be satisfied in this minimal international system of cooperation is rather unclear. Indeed, in this new approach to the state's responsibility in the international realm, the public, which finds a specific institutionalisation with the Public Opinion Tribunal, remains the ultimate security against misrule. Bentham seems to consider that this institution gives the state's responsibilities another dimension, which is not only national but truly cosmopolitan in nature.
Although this reading might face several reasonable objections,Footnote 40 I argue that it is appropriate to use the concept of cosmopolitanism here, for the following reasons. Firstly, Bentham's moral egalitarianism is in accordance with the idea that human beings are the primary units of moral concern. Bentham's utilitarianism is a universalist moral theory. As such, two characteristics of modern cosmopolitanism (moral egalitarianism and universalism) are fulfilled by Bentham's thought. Secondly, because Bentham thinks that international theory is necessarily limited and cannot of itself resolve the problem of the responsibilities of the state in world politics, any such resolution can only be supplied by anchoring and subjecting those responsibilities of national officials which extend beyond national concerns to the scrutiny and judgement of the Public Opinion Tribunal. My analysis aims to demonstrate that Bentham's political theory explicitly embedded a set of cosmopolitan responsibilities for particular ministers, public officials and governors who are accountable for the direct impact of their decisions and actions on individuals’ happiness, regardless of criteria of nationality, community membership, ethnicity and religion.
The text of the ‘Legislator's Inaugural Declaration’ (section 8) from Bentham's Constitutional Code Footnote 41 has been the object of multiple commentaries, most of which mention explicitly the cosmopolitan dimension of the text.Footnote 42 Although the role and status of the Legislator is in itself an important difficulty in Bentham's thought, I argue that the cosmopolitan responsibilities and commitments declared by each new Member of Parliament immediately upon their election have to be acknowledged, since they demonstrate the extent to which Bentham's domestic political theory includes an international and indeed truly cosmopolitan dimension. In this text, each of the legislators, who together constitute the Legislature, declares that he will act in conformity with utilitarian responsibilities in order to achieve the greatest happiness of the greatest number. In his declaration, he commits himself to respecting an important set of duties and prohibitions and, in doing so, affirms in principle the limits to legitimate state or governmental action in the international realm. With this declaration, the individual members of the legislature emerge as the most important figures in Bentham's cosmopolitan thought.
The Legislator's declaration delineates the general principles of the rules on the basis of which the state will act in the international realm. Each member of the legislature makes the commitment not to act ‘at the expence of the opulence or power of any other State’, not to wage war based on non-utilitarian reasons, not to expand and colonise other territory, not to cultivate ‘false honour’, and (and this is the only positive commitment) to assure the universal right to immigration and emigration.Footnote 43 The declaration details a set of responsibilities which are cosmopolitan in nature because they entail a commitment to international duties such as no conquest, respect for conditions of jus ad bellum, no domination, no false glory, and lastly, a cosmopolitan commitment to free movement of persons in and out of the state. The cosmopolitan responsibilities of the legislators involve several political implications which frame Bentham's response to issues such as the defence of the absolute right to immigration, the end of colonisation, the progress of international justice and the pacification of the world. The legislators bear a core set of cosmopolitan responsibilities which are publicly declared, which are informed by Bentham's policies and proposals on the different matters listed above, and on which the ongoing judgment of the Public Opinion Tribunal is invited.
To conclude, this article argues that Bentham's international political theory relies in part on a division between a minimalist international theory and a much more comprehensive theory devoted to the delineation of the responsibilities of public officials and governors in well-governed states which will guide the responsible and just conduct of that state on the international scene. While Bentham's contribution to international modern thought is often neglected, this article argues that Bentham appears to be an original and complex theorist of international political theory who articulates together two apparently unconnected but compatible ideas. On the one hand, states remain the only agents with the capacity to prevent and deter wrongdoing in the world, and are also absolutely necessary to the achievement of the greatest happiness in the world. On the other hand, the state's responsibilities encompass both national and cosmopolitan responsibilities, and particular governors and public officials in well-governed states hold responsibility for the discharge of the latter. The state has a cosmopolitan dimension in the first sense because the state organises policies and proposals that are direct consequences of the cosmopolitan responsibilities held by the members of the legislature and by particular ministers and officials. Bentham's distrust of the internationalist paradigm and reconfiguration of international political theory in favour of a new articulation between state theory and national and cosmopolitan responsibilities raise many questions that remain unresolved. However, I think that this interpretation offers the best guide to answering them.
