Jeremy Bentham has frequently been regarded as the father of the ‘ticking bomb’ argument in defence of interrogational torture. The first part of this article draws attention to a transformation in his theory of torture between about 1777 and 1804. His later work anticipates the modern utilitarian case for torture to a striking extent, whereas his earlier writings – although they too defend the practice – are alien to widespread contemporary assumptions. In the second part I argue that those early torture writings have substantial implications for Bentham’s philosophy as a whole. Bentham equivocates as to whether or not physical pain can exert irresistible control over its victim’s will. Intense bodily hurt may become a kind of psychological absolute, one that is perhaps necessary to his thought but is at odds with his principle that all motivations can be traded off against others.
...MoreArticle Joanna Bourke; Carmen Mangion; Louise Hide (2012) Perspectives on Pain: Introduction. 19: Interdisciplinary Studies in the Long Nineteenth Century.
Similar Citations
Book
Ron E. Hassner;
(2022)
Anatomy of Torture
(/isis/citation/CBB586193994/)
Chapter
Sleigh, Charlotte;
(2005)
“This Questionable Little Book”: Narrative Ambiguity in Nineteenth Century Literature of Science
(/isis/citation/CBB000772453/)
Article
Philip Schofield;
(2015)
Jeremy Bentham on Utility and Truth
(/isis/citation/CBB041532650/)
Article
McOuat, Gordon;
(2003)
The Logical Systematist: George Bentham and His Outline of a New System of Logic
(/isis/citation/CBB000501811/)
Book
Philip Schofield;
Xiaobo Zhai;
(2022)
Bentham on Democracy, Courts, and Codification
(/isis/citation/CBB394231643/)
Article
Paola Rudan;
(2016)
Society as a Code: Bentham and the Fabric of Order
(/isis/citation/CBB678087108/)
Chapter
Cunningham, Andrew;
(2003)
Auto-Icon: Jeremy Bentham's Three Bodies, the Moral Laws of Nature, and the Ideology of Industrial Capitalism
(/isis/citation/CBB000670935/)
Book
Have, Henk ten;
(1983)
Geneeskunde en filosofie: De invloed van Jeremy Bentham op het medisch denken en handelen
(/isis/citation/CBB000008066/)
Book
Crimmins, James E.;
(1990)
Secular utilitarianism: Social science and the critique of religion in the thought of Jeremy Bentham
(/isis/citation/CBB000054571/)
Article
Jacobs, Struan;
(1990)
Bentham, science, and the construction of jurisprudence
(/isis/citation/CBB000049964/)
Book
Schofield, Philip;
(2006)
Utility and Democracy: The Political Thought of Jeremy Bentham
(/isis/citation/CBB000930086/)
Article
Maya A. Pilin;
(2021)
The past of predicting the future: A review of the multidisciplinary history of affective forecasting
(/isis/citation/CBB891419848/)
Chapter
Semple, Janet;
(1993)
Bentham's utilitarianism and the provision of medical care
(/isis/citation/CBB000032951/)
Article
Frank W. Stahnisch;
(2014)
„Schwellenwerte und Normwerte“: Untersuchungen zur psychophysiologischen Schmerzforschung zwischen Johannes Müller und Max von Frey aus den Neurowissenschaften des Neunzehnten Jahrhunderts (1840 bis 1890)
(/isis/citation/CBB888591496/)
Book
Boddice, Rob;
(2014)
Pain and Emotion in Modern History
(/isis/citation/CBB001202301/)
Chapter
Burney, Ian;
(2006)
Anaesthesia and the Evaluation of Surgical Risk in Mid-Nineteenth-Century Britain
(/isis/citation/CBB001221055/)
Article
A. J. Larner;
(2015)
Headache in the Writings of Elizabeth Gaskell (1810–1865)
(/isis/citation/CBB523092635/)
Article
R Gregory Lande;
(2020)
American Civil War medical practice, the post-bellum opium crisis and modern comparisons
(/isis/citation/CBB124135559/)
Article
John Jarrell;
Frank W. Stahnisch;
(2021)
Contextualizing ovarian pain in the late 19th century — Part 2: Ovarian-based treatments of “hysteria”
(/isis/citation/CBB149729279/)
Thesis
Conti, Meredith Ann;
(2011)
Stages of Suffering: Performing Illness in the Late-Nineteenth-Century Theatre
(/isis/citation/CBB001567295/)
Be the first to comment!