of political science, concerned with measuring and statistical analysis, and the
more traditional aspects, likepolitical theoryor political history, or institu-
tional/descriptive studies. These barriers are increasingly tending to break
down, partly as a result of a revival in political theory, and partly because the
skills and techniques used by behaviouralists are coming to be more widely
available and to be used by those with no theoretical preference for a
behavioural position in general.
Bentham
Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832) is deservedly known as the founding father of
utilitarianism, although its seeds can be found in the writings ofHobbesand
Hume. Bentham’s work, much of it done in collaboration with JamesMill,
was wide-ranging, covering political andmoral philosophy, jurisprudence,
and even practical topics such as prison reform. In jurisprudence he was an
early legalpositivist; in politics he was associated withLiberalism, but his
utilitarian position was most fully developed in his political theory and moral
philosophy. His general argument was that pain and pleasure were the two
driving forces of mankind, and that moral or political values had to be
translated into these terms. Treating man as mainly selfish, Bentham argued
that the only way to judge political institutions was to discover whether they
tended to produce a positive or negative balance of pleasure over pain. Strongly
influenced by natural science, he believed that such things should be capable of
precise measurement, and he proposed the construction of measuring devices
and their application, through what he called the ‘felicific calculus’, to both
constitutional engineering and detailed policy-making. James Mill developed
the more purely political aspects of this position into a rather limited defence of
representative democracywith more or less manhood suffrage. Bentham
attached great importance to the political role of the middle class (as, for similar
reasons, hadAristotle), which he believed less likely to push for policies of
extreme self-interest than either the aristocracy or the working class. No
separate value was given to any of the now-standard liberal democratic values
such ascivil liberties; indeed, Bentham scornfully dismissed all talk about
natural rightsas ‘nonsense on stilts’. Bentham and James Mill represent the
coldest and least attractive version of utilitarianism, though in practice their
basic position was a radical one, far closer to egalitarian and democratic values
than any of the orthodox political creeds of their time.
Bentley
Arthur Bentley (1870–1957) was an influential American political scientist of
the inter-war period. Methodologically he was a precursor of thebehavioural
Bentley