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Chapter VI, Reading 1 The Classical Statement of the Case Jeremy Bentham (1 748-1832) was the father of utilitarianism, the philosophical position that the good is that which fosters "the greatest happiness of the greatest number," as it is often popularly put. Given that premise, it is not difficult to see why Bentham might have been amenable to torture under some circumstances, and in a manuscript entitled "Of Torture," which is probably part of a larger work called Plan of a Penal Code that he worked on in the late 1770s, he describes what those circumstances would be and how torture ought to be applied. Keep in mind that Bentham was writing during a period when the abolition of torture had spread widely throughout Europe (see Chapter I, Readings 6 and 7) and that he was considered one of the most enlightened advocates of penal reform in his day. In a passage from this same essay not quoted below, Bentham gives an example of a case in which the use of torture might well be justified: to recapture an escaped arsonist before he strikes again. While arson may not sound as serious to us today as a "ticking bomb," it probably was just as frightening to the people of Bentham's day, given the wooden architecture prevalent in cities and the frequency of fire. Bentham's use of this example reminds us, however, that the justification for torture is often in the minds of the beholders and that what seems warranted in one generation may be hard to defend generations hence. Torture, as I understand it, is where a person is made to suffer any violent pain of body in order to compel him to do something or to desist from doing something which, [when] done or desisted from, the penal application is immediately made to cease. [...] Torture being thus explained it may do something perhaps towards removing the prejudices that are apt to be entertained against it, if I can show 1. That there are Cases in which it is customary to apply it, and in which nobody suspects the use of it to be improper. 2. That it is likely to be less penal, in other words productive of less hardship upon the whole than any other applications which are commonly employed for the same purposes and to which nobody objects. 3. That the very circumstance by which alone it stands, distinguished from what is commonly called punishment, is a circumstance that operates in its favor. First then there are Cases in which it is common to apply Torture itself, and in which nobody suspects it to be wrong. 222 Chapter VI These cases are occurring continually in the domestic jurisdiction. Ifa Mother or Nurse seeing a child playing with a thing which he ought not to meddle with, and having forbidden him in vain pinches him till he lays it down, this is neither more nor less than Torture: Ifa parent having put a question to his child and upon the child's obstinately refusing to answer whips him till he complies, this too is neither more nor less than Torture.1 Secondly it is apt to be less penal than other applications which are commonly applied for the same purposes and to which nobody objects. To have some method ofcompelling obedience to its decrees is essential to the very being ofa Court ofJustice. The ordinary process or expedient which Courts have and make use of for this purpose is that of simple Imprisonment. [...] Now it is the nature of simple Imprisonment to extend itself in duration. As much of it as is included in a short period is not very irksome: a considerable quantity of it may be endured before it is very irksome; a considerable quantity of it may be endured before it is become irksome enough to produce the effect expected from it; a considerable quantity then may have been employed before that purpose is attained: a considerable quantity ofit may have been expended before a man has been made to do what it was wanted he should do. But now then if such a compulsive force had been employed the nature of which was, instead of running out in duration, to run out in intensity; the force in a very short period of time, and when as yet but a small quantity ofit had been expended, might have risen to such a pitch as to have attained its purpose by surmounting the...

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