Quotation
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“The interest of the community then is, what?—the sum of the interests of the several members who compose it.”
Jeremy Bentham · Utilitarianism · Enlightenment · 1789
What does it mean?
The usual reading is deflationary: talk of the community's interest means something only when it means the sum of the interests of the members, because the community is a fictitious body. A competing reading hears a permission to add up pleasures and override a person, which is a later argument, not this sentence. He says it is vain to talk of the community's interest without understanding the individual's, and a person's interest is promoted by adding to pleasures or diminishing pains. The sentence is in chapter 1, shortly after he has said that nature has placed us under pain and pleasure. It ties the principle of utility to individuals so that 'the public' cannot float free. Sum is the whole of his composition. There is no extra interest of the group hovering above them.
Did Jeremy Bentham really say this?
The library’s label is Well attested. Bentham's own English, chapter 1, in the paragraph that calls the community a fictitious body made of its members. The wording 'what?—the sum' is the one in the standard text of that paragraph. It is a definition, not yet the slogan about the greatest number.
Where it comes from
An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, chapter 1
Approximate date: 1789.
How to use it
A council in Liverpool that says a closure is 'in the community's interest' without being able to say whose pains and pleasures were counted has used the phrase he thinks has lost its meaning. The sentence does not say the sum is easy to do. It says that if you will not even try to talk about the members, you are not talking about the community. A resident who is an inconvenient data point is still one of the several. Fictitious body is a warning against treating the council's comfort as the public good.
A mindset reading
Whenever you hear 'the community', ask for the list of members whose interests are being added. The habit blocks both mysticism about the group and the pretence that a subset is the whole. Bentham will go on to judge acts by their tendency to augment or diminish happiness. This sentence is the prior claim that the happiness in question is people's, added up, not an abstraction's.
Understand the philosophy
Chapter 1 defines the principle of utility. The key terms are community, fictitious body, and sum of interests. Pain and pleasure, already quoted here, are the sovereign masters. The greatest-happiness formula, also here, is the principle people remember. This sentence is what he thinks stops that principle becoming a word for whatever the speaker wants. A community that is not its members is, in his phrase, a form of words that has lost its meaning.
- ethics
- society
- justice
FAQ
What does it mean?
The usual reading is deflationary: talk of the community's interest means something only when it means the sum of the interests of the members, because the community is a fictitious body. A competing reading hears a permission to add up pleasures and override a person, which is a later argument, not this sentence. He says it is vain to talk of the community's interest without understanding the individual's, and a person's interest is promoted by adding to pleasures or diminishing pains. The sentence is in chapter 1, shortly after he has said that nature has placed us under pain and pleasure. It ties the principle of utility to individuals so that 'the public' cannot float free. Sum is the whole of his composition. There is no extra interest of the group hovering above them.
Did Jeremy Bentham really say this?
Well attested. Bentham's own English, chapter 1, in the paragraph that calls the community a fictitious body made of its members. The wording 'what?—the sum' is the one in the standard text of that paragraph. It is a definition, not yet the slogan about the greatest number.
Which work is it in?
An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, chapter 1 Approximate date: 1789.