The Rationale of Reward Jeremy Bentham

Unexpected tho' this might be, it is in this text that one will find the notorious passage about push-pin and poetry that is (charitably) misquoted by John Stuart Mill in his essay on Bentham. Mill quotes Bentham to the effect that ``quantity of pleasure being equal, push-pin is as good as poetry''---what Bentham wrote is ``Prejudice apart, the game of push-pin is of equal value with the arts and sciences of music and poetry.'' Everyone can play the game, but only a few relish music and poetry, Bentham observes. Like Plato in the Republic, Bentham says here that poets are deceivers and falsifiers. The pleasures they provide may have negative consequences, but the pleasures of the game, thinks Bentham, are innocent.

Whatever might be the merits of Bentham's argument about poetry, here is one's chance to read what Bentham actually said (as opposed to what Mill said he said), along with his polemic against the arbiters of ``good taste'' as the heartless destroyers of innocent pleasures, and some sharp remarks about the superiority of the games of children over the ``games of princes''. That matter aside, there is, it should be said, a serious issue here: what's the use of good taste?

Some of the rest of the Rationale of Reward may leave one thinking that it was just as well this work has not appeared in print since the Bowring edition of Bentham in 1843. We have ceased torturing the young with Latin and Greek in the name of education, teaching hospitals have long been familiar, and so it is with other reforms Bentham advocated herein. Nonetheless there remain numerous points of interest---let me here offer a brief tour with pointers into the text.

Source of the Text

This text was digitized from Volume II of the 1843 Bowring edition of Bentham's works. As noted in the ``Advertisement'', the English version was based on Dumont's 1811 Théorie des Récompenses, as compared with the original Bentham manuscripts---upon which the Dumont work was based, the which manuscripts date from the mid 1770's.

Table of Contents

• Prefatory
  • Advertisement by the Editor
  • Remarks by Mr. Bentham
  • Preliminary Observations
• Book I---Of Rewards in General
  • Chapter I Definitions
  • Chapter II Matter of Reward---Sources
  • Chapter III Reward and Punishment combined
  • Chapter IV Union of Interest with Duty---Self-executing Laws
  • Chapter V Matter of Reward---Reasons for Husbanding
  • Chapter VI Remuneration ex-post-facto
  • Chapter VII Punition and Remuneration---their Relations
  • Chapter VIII Remuneration---where hurtful
  • Chapter IX Remuneration---where needless
  • Chapter X Proportion as to Rewards
  • Chapter XI Choice as to Rewards
  • Chapter XII Procedure as to Rewards
  • Chapter XIII Rewards to Informers
  • Chapter XIV Rewards to Accomplices
  • Chapter XV Competition as to Rewards
  • Chapter XVI Rewards for Virtue
  • Chapter XVII Accompaniments to Remuneration
• Book II---Reward Applied to Offices
  • Chapter I Salary---how a Reward
  • Chapter II Rules as to Emoluments
  • Chapter III Fees and Perquisites---none
  • Chapter IV Minimize Emolument
  • Chapter V No more Nominal than Real
  • Chapter VI Couple Burthen with Benefit
  • Chapter VII By emoluments exclude corruption
  • Chapter VIII Give Pensions of Retreat
  • Chapter IX Of the Sale of Offices
  • Chapter X Of Qualifications
  • Chapter XI Of Trust and Contract Management
  • Chapter XII Of Reforms
• Book III---Reward Applied to Art and Science
  • Chapter I Art and Science—Divisions
  • Chapter II Art and Science—Advancement
  • Chapter III Art and Science—Diffusion
• Appendix
  • (A) On Subscriptions to Matters of Opinion
  • (B) Mischievousness of Reward Latent---Exemplifications