Those who attempt to study the causes and consequences of suffering among humans have much to learn from Jeremy Bentham, born in London on February 15, 1748. A prodigy, he received his undergraduate degree from Oxford at 16 and was a foremost utilitarian at a time when utilitarianism had England’s intellectual and philosophical community in its grip.

He believed that "Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure." These physical and mental states above all determine, according to utilitarian principles, what we do, he thought. No one interested in Panetics can ignore the work of Bentham, particularly his treatment of the use of pain for punishment in the criminal justice system. Thus, according to him, the principle of utility in human behavior, accompanied by the neurophysiological servo-mechanisms of pleasure and pain, give both direction and meaning to human behavior in the most comprehensive sense possible.

Bentham believed that utility for any individual is determined, in part, by his or her positive interests and values toward which there is constant striving to obtain pleasure, to avoid pain, and thereby, to achieve happiness. To fail to realize interests is the source of pain and unhappiness. These interests, of course, have to be compatible with what is sanctioned by society's rules, norms and culture. Pain, frustration, fear, anxiety and unhappiness arise when interests are not met.

It is hard to argue with the validity of this formulation of Bentham's, as far as it goes. As one recent author points out, it is the particular unique form taken by the experience of pleasure and pain that adds the richness and enormous complexity to individual differences in behavior. He anticipated some of Freud's arguments in "Civilization and its Discontents" as well as Freud's "pleasure principle" by stressing pleasure's ultimate role in happiness.

Bentham initially used four main factors (physical, political, moral and religious) to analyze the causes associated with pain and pleasure, and to distinguish among different sanctions, as he calls them. He would use such factors to define what today would be called controlling values and social norms. In exerting control and punishment, these sanctions also play a large part in the rise and presence of human suffering. Bentham's wider interpretation of man’s activities in nature and society, far from being focused upon the uses of suffering as sanctions, seems to be clearly attached to the idea of pleasure as a positive force. Greater freedom and opportunity to develop as an individual, therefore, are high in his schema, thereby associating the reduction of suffering with democracy.

Much of his work was spent in attempts to reduce suffering in governance, among other things. He recognized that pleasure is used as "reward power" by politicians. The concept of "social power" is useful in that it draws attention to the role of power in social relations that lead to suffering. He explained that "Pleasures then, and the avoidance of pains, are the ends which the legislator has in view: it behoves him therefore to understand their value. Pleasures and pains are the instruments he has to work with: it behoves him therefore to understand their force, which is again, in other words, their value." With reference to suffering, the implication of the term, "value", is that it may sometime become a quantitative and not only a qualitative measure. More recent views on suffering and its measurement have been expressed by members of the International Society for Panetics, particularly in the excellent work of Ralph G. H. Siu.

We should note that Bentham is quite specific when he writes: "To a person considered by himself, the value of a pleasure or pain considered by itself, will be greater or less, according to the four following circumstances: 1. Its intensity; 2. Its duration; 3. Its certainty or uncertainty; 4. Its propinquity or remoteness.. This constitutes the fecundity of the first pain, and the impurity of the first pleasure." He follows up with . . . . "These are the (basic) circumstances which are to be considered in estimating a pleasure or a pain considered each of them by itself. But when the value of any pleasure or pain is considered for the purpose of estimating the tendency of any act by which it is produced, there are two other circumstances to be taken into the account; these are: 5. Its fecundity, or the chance it has of being followed by sensations of the same kind; that is, pleasures, if it be pleasures; pains if it be pain. 6. Its purity, or the chance it has of not being followed by sensations of the opposite kind; that is, pains, if it be a pleasure; pleasures, if it be a pain."

He explains: "These two last, however, are in strictness scarcely to be deemed properties of the pleasure or the pain itself; they are not, therefore, in strictness to be taken into the account of the value of that pleasure or that pain. They are in strictness to be deemed properties only of the act, or other event, by which such pleasure or pain has been produced; and accordingly are only to be taken into the account of the tendency of such act or such event."

Bentham further explains in summarized form: "To a number of persons, with reference to each of whom the value of a pleasure or a pain is considered, it will be greater or less, according to seven circumstances . . . . 1. Its intensity; 2. Its duration; 3. Its certainty or uncertainty; Its propinquity or remoteness; Its fecundity; Its purity. And one other . . . . 7. Its extent.; that is, the number of persons . . . . who are affected by it."

Bentham's further instructions for applying this system of accounting are: "To take an exact account then of the general tendency of any act, by which the interests of a community are affected, proceed as follows. Begin with any one person of those whose interests seem most immediately to be affected by it: and take an account,

1. Of the value of each distinguishable pleasure which appears to be produced by it in the first instance.

2. Of the value of each pain which appears to be produced by it in the first instance.

3. Of the value of each pleasure which appears to be produced by it after the first. This constitutes the fecundity of the first pleasure and the impurity of the first pain.

4. Of the value of each pain which appears to be produced by it after the first. This constitutes the fecundity of the first pain and the impurity of the first pleasure;

5. Sum up all the values of all the pleasures on the one side and those of the pains on the other. The balance, if it be on the side of pleasure, will give the good tendency of the act upon the whole, with respect to the interests of that individual person; if on the side of pain, the bad tendency of it upon the whole.

6. Take account of the number of persons whose interests appear to be concerned; and repeat the process with respect to each. Sum up the numbers expressive of the degrees of good tendency, which the act has, with respect to each individual, in regard to whom the tendency of it is good upon the whole; do this again with respect to each individual, in regard to whom the tendency of it is good upon the whole. Take the balance; which, if on the side of pleasure, will give the general good tendency of the act, with respect to the total number or community of individuals concerned; if on the side of pain, the general evil tendency, with respect to the same community."

It is surprising how modern Bentham's formulations were and how he anticipated critical issues in the study of suffering. The most striking is his insight about the importance of the use of measurement in the formation of public policy, and the recognition that pleasures and pains are instruments of that formative process. History teaches that in the practice of politics, policy formation and governance, particularly in the uses of pain and punishment, physical and psychological motivaters have always been used to control behavior. The preponderant method has been to use pain and suffering to control others, often in the most highly grotesque forms in earlier times. The use of positive incentives as general policies to deter antisocial behavior appear to have developed only recently. Retribution for a criminal act by undue use of pain and suffering still remains in certain cultures around the world where these practices continue.

Intensity and duration are basic dimensions for measurement that deal with the psychophysical response of pain or pleasure. Bear in mind that Bentham worked in a pre-statistical period and lacked many of the modern advances in statistics and quantitative measurement. By those standards, given his times, his insights are noteworthy. Bentham's use of the words, "certainty or uncertainty", for example, suggest that he may have suspected the role of probability, as contrasted with purely deterministic explanation, in explaining some forms of behavior. This is definitely a more modern concept that takes us in yet another direction in understanding causation, away from strict determinism, and even further away from teleological explanations of causation still popular in his time.

Distance of an event in space and time is a dimension awaiting the appearance of modern statistical techniques. Looking back, it must have been difficult without them, yet Bentham tried to define proximal and distal events. Fecundity (an event that leads to others of a similar or different kind) and purity (uniqueness as an isolated event) round out his list with the exception of one other, extent, which means in this case, distribution over space and time. And here we have the possible anticipation of the science of biostatistics and epidemiology, as well as modern measures of variation, which techniques, incidentally, would have allowed Bentham to map the incidence and prevalence of a painful or pleasurable event in different environments, organizations and other contexts. If we allow ourselves to see beyond his language and methodological limitations, he surely was at the forefront of his times.

Apart from suggesting that measurement was necessary in order to deal with the policy issues present in his time, he strongly suggested that an accounting system should be developed with profit and loss replaced by pleasure and pain. One's calculation of one's quality of life, therefore, would be summarized by the ratio of pleasure (the numerator) to pain (the denominator) in any given case. The debate over measurement in the ISP continues the search for improved ways to accomplish this, but does so in the shadow of Jeremy Bentham who helped to pave the way.

Social indicators, for example, are another technique for measuring social trends and were anticipated under Bentham’s form of social accounting of pain and pleasure related behavior. This discussion ends here because our point has been made about the contribution of Jeremy Bentham to the study of pain and suffering. Later on in "The Principles" there is an interesting discussion not only of an early form of personality theory and characterology, but of early forms of social engineering in governance, criminal justice and the penal aspects of jurisprudence. It is a remarkable story.

FOOTNOTES

1. Professor of Public Policy and Management, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio.

2. Bentham, Jeremy, The Principles of Morals and Legislation, New York, Promethus Books, 1988, 1-2.

3. Higgins, E. Tory, "Beyond Pleasure and Pain", American Psychologist, (1997), 1280- 1300.

4. Freud, Sigmund, Civilization and its Discontents, (Tr. Joan Riviere), London: Hogarth Press, 1930.

5. French, John R. P., Jr. and Bertam Raven, in Cartwright (ed.), Studies in Social Power, Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan, 1959, 150-167.

6. Siu, Ralph, G. H., Panetics and Dukkha: An Integrated Study of the Infliction of Suffering and the Reducation of Infliction, Panetics Trilogy, Volume II, Washington, D.C.: The International Society for Panetics, 1993.

7. Bentham, 24-25.