Bentham's Political Radicalism Reexamined

Abstract

It was Elie Halevy's view that the term "radical" was first used adjectivally in a political sense in the year 1797, possibly 1798, and that between 1810 and 1819 it came increasingly to be prefixed to the substantive "reformer" to refer, in the main, to the supporters of annual parliaments and universal suffrage.' Jeremy Bentham is a central figure in Halevy's account of this transitional phase in the usage of the term and the form of politics it signified, but a complete account of the "radical" nature of Bentham's thought would have to begin far earlier, starting when he first developed the philosophical principles of his system in the 1770s.2 It would also include aspects of his work on ethics, legal and penal reform, political economy, poor law reform, education, and religious institutions, which cannot be adequately treated in this essay. Naturally, Bentham's views on political institutions cannot be omitted. Yet it is here that we encounter a fundamental problem of