Quotation
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“The question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?”
Jeremy Bentham · Utilitarianism · Enlightenment · 1789
What does it mean?
The mainstream reading moves the moral boundary from rational speech to the capacity to suffer: a horse or a dog that can be hurt has the relevant interest, and an infant who cannot yet talk is not outside morality either. A competing reading takes the line as a complete theory of animal rights, but it is a footnote in a book about what the penal law should punish, not a treatise on personhood. It sits in the argument about which interests the law should notice. The question is a test for who counts.
Did Jeremy Bentham really say this?
The library’s label is Well attested. Bentham's own English, in the long footnote to chapter 17, section 1, on the limits of the penal law. The note argues that animals have been left to cruelty for reasons that would not justify the same treatment of a human infant. The punctuation varies slightly across editions.
Where it comes from
An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, chapter 17, §1, footnote
Approximate date: 1789.
How to use it
A housing association in Sheffield deciding whether a rule about dogs is only about human convenience can be pulled up by the footnote. If the animal can suffer, the nuisance calculation is not the whole sum. The sentence does not write the pet policy. It says that 'they cannot reason' is the wrong entrance exam, for a dog and also for a neighbour with limited speech.
A mindset reading
When you are about to exclude a being from consideration, ask which test you are using and why that test follows from the morality you claim. If your morality is about pain and pleasure, reasoning was always a strange gate. The habit is Bentham's: follow the principle you announced in chapter 1 into the cases it makes awkward.
Understand the philosophy
The Introduction grounds morals and legislation in utility, the tendency to produce pleasure and prevent pain. The key term in the footnote is suffering, which does not require language. Chapter 17 is about the limits of penal jurisprudence, and the note is attached to the discussion of what interests the law should notice. Peter Singer and others later treated the sentence as a founding text. It is still a footnote. Reading the note shows he is talking about torment, not about every later claim made in his name.
- ethics
- justice
FAQ
What does it mean?
The mainstream reading moves the moral boundary from rational speech to the capacity to suffer: a horse or a dog that can be hurt has the relevant interest, and an infant who cannot yet talk is not outside morality either. A competing reading takes the line as a complete theory of animal rights, but it is a footnote in a book about what the penal law should punish, not a treatise on personhood. It sits in the argument about which interests the law should notice. The question is a test for who counts.
Did Jeremy Bentham really say this?
Well attested. Bentham's own English, in the long footnote to chapter 17, section 1, on the limits of the penal law. The note argues that animals have been left to cruelty for reasons that would not justify the same treatment of a human infant. The punctuation varies slightly across editions.
Which work is it in?
An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, chapter 17, §1, footnote Approximate date: 1789.