1

Nash Jenkins
Moral Philosophy and the Novel in Nineteenth Century England
Patrick Fessenbecker
2 December 2011

A Hard Time for Utilitarianism: Bentham, Mill, and the Dickensian Arena

Perhaps no philosophical school faces a more distinguished and more crucially

divergent faculty than that of utilitarianism, a creed explained by its eminent ideologue
John Stuart Mill as the doctrine [holding] that actions are right in proportion as they tend
to promote happiness.1 Mills gloss is not inaccurate, but fundamentally insufficient: the
philosophical dichotomy rendered by Mills deliberate divergence from the foundation of
utilitarian thought established by Jeremy Bentham yields not one definition of
utilitarianism, but a widely nuanced, ultimately irreducible system of philosophical
thought. The Millite school functions as a corrective corollary to the Benthamite doctrine,
seeking to refine Benthams crude quantification of pleasures into a taxonomy based on
qualitative values. Though the two persuasions follow one common thread that of the
principle of utility, the justification of an action based on its tendency to produce
happiness one cannot understate this crucial deviation when evaluating utilitarianism

1 John Stuart Mill. Utilitarianism. Utilitarianism and Other Essays. Edited by Alan Ryan.
London: Penguin Books, 1987. 278.

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on whole, a task that proves cumbersome by the inconsistencies between its foremost
architects.2
It is fitting, then, that the most holistic appraisal of the utilitarian persuasion
arrives in the form of literature, a medium with an inherent license for complexity via
characters, emotions, and plot. Charles Dickens Hard Times is an unfettered critique of
utilitarianism, firing arrows in prose at the harsh social mechanization consequent, in
Dickens opinion and observations, to utilitarianism in practice. Because the critical
appraisal within Hard Times adheres to the disdain of quantified fact-based rigidity, it
appears convenient to label the novel as simply a critique of Benthams mechanized
greatest happiness ideal and a literary companion to Mills philosophical renovation
thereof. Doing so, however, is unfairly reductionist, relying on the nave assumption that
common ground represents common interest, failing to weigh some subtly crucial
elements of Millite utilitarianism on the scale provided by Hard Times. American
philosopher Martha Nussbaum provides an implicit but resonant analysis of the
inadvertent triangular exchange between Dickens, Mill, and Bentham in The Literary
Imagination in Public Life, asserting that the foremost deficiency of general
utilitarianism, vis--vis Dickens, is its general negligence of the wonder and generosity
of imaginative thought and the societal merits thereof a depravity, it would appear, that
neither Bentham nor Mill account for.3 In varying shades, Dickens addresses the

2 Jeremy Bentham. An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation .

Utilitarianism and Other Essays. Edited by Alan Ryan. London: Penguin Books, 1987. 65.

3
shortcomings of both Benthamite and Millite thought, reconciling through analysis the
variances within the utilitarian philosophy.
Admittedly, Hard Times criticisms are more patently targeted towards the
Benthamite school understandably so, as Benthams writings provide the ideological
foundation of general utilitarian thought, the philosophical principle Dickens seeks to
address. Recognizing the foremost presentation of Bentham in the Hard Times is no
difficult feat: the Benthamite tradition finds its ground in quantifiable facts; the novel
levies the debate between fact and fancy, stressing, as Nussbaum endorses, the merits of
the latter in societal processes. Bentham, whose comprehension of human nature Mill
describes as bounded and wholly empirical, fails to make this concession.4 His
writing exemplifies the doctrine of act utilitarianism, which relies on a crude, rote
quantification of pleasure as a means of determining moral good.5 His greatest tool is his
felicific calculus, the systemic computation of pleasure based on seven
circumstances intensity, duration, certainty, remoteness, fecundity, purity, and extent

3 Martha Nussbaum. "The Literary Imagination in Public Life." New Literary History 22 No. 4
(Autumn 1991): 907

4 John Stuart Mill. Bentham. Utilitarianism and Other Essays. Edited by Alan Ryan.
London: Penguin Books, 1987. 148

5 B.C. Postow. "Generalized Act Utilitarianism." Analysis 37. 2 (January 1977) 49, Oxford
Journals, 29 Nov. 2011 <http://analysis.oxfordjournals.org/content/37/2/49.full.pdf.

4
to determine the utility of ones actions.67 The Benthamite method, according to British
philosopher B.C. Postow, is seriously handicapped and ultimately insufficient as a
gauge of rationality, as it fails to reconcile individual good with communal good a
defect of exposition, as he describes it.8 He addresses specifically the apparent
irreconcilability between self-interest and the interest of the community pursuant to act
utilitarianism, stating that
We have seen that this yields a plausible utilitarian answer to the question 'What
would it be right for me to do ?' but that it yields either no answer, or an
inappropriate answer, to the question 'What would it be right for us to do?'; for
what a group ought to do is not simply the sum of what the individuals in it ought
to do.9
The problem with the Benthamite theory, Postow thus implies, is that the party whose
interest is in question often defaults to the individual, failing to explicitly appeal to the
interest of broader groups.10
6 Wesley C. Mitchell. "Benthams Felicific Calculus." Political Science Quarterly 33, no. 2
(June 1918): 161-166.

7 Jeremy Bentham. An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation .

Utilitarianism and Other Essays. Edited by Alan Ryan. London: Penguin Books, 1987. 87.

8 B.C. Postow. "Generalized Act Utilitarianism." Analysis 37. 2 (January 1977) 51, Oxford
Journals, 29 Nov. 2011 <http://analysis.oxfordjournals.org/contnt/37/2/49.full.pdf.

9 Ibid., 52

10 Ibid., 51

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While Nussbaum and Postow do not critique utilitarianism on the same grounds
Nussbaum caters more directly to the necessity of the individual literary imagination in
broader decision-making, while Postow urges a reconciliation of the interests of the
individual and his community their theses amalgamate particularly well to correspond
with Dickens general dissection of utilitarianism in Hard Times. Dickens criticism is
twofold: he addresses both the warped communal perception of happiness that emerges
under the rote quantification of utility and the disastrous outcomes of the consequent
stifling of inherent human fancy. His analysis paralleling Nussbaums assessment of the
individual and Postows assessment of the community is a review of the human
condition under the inhuman machinery of utilitarianism.
The crispest examples of criticism appear in the most patently Dickensian literary
devices: caricature and personification. Dickens relies on an exaggeration of human
limitations such as and passions to depict the incongruence between a rote calculation
of utility and mortal, emotional reasoning. In Hard Times, Benthamite utilitarianism
reveals itself largely through personification. Dickens traffics in deliberate exaggeration:
schoolmaster Thomas Gradgrind, the storys foremost steward of Dickens perception of
act utilitarianism, is as much a gross embodiment of mechanized stringency as he is a
custodian of it. Peering over his class with the dark commodious cellarage of his eyes,
he accentuates with a square forefinger his equally geometric indoctrination of
nothing but Facts into the children of Coketown.11 The lack of distinction between his
11 Charles Dickens. Hard Times. (New York: Pierson Education Press, 2004), 3.

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physicality and philosophy confirms the lamentable essence of his education system:
conformism is its greatest craft. In Gradgrinds oppressive tutelage, our narrator tells us,
he seemed a galvanising apparatus charged with a grim mechanical substitute for the
tender young imaginations that were to be stormed away.12 His simplified, mathematical
perception of his classroom referring to Sissy Jupe as Girl number twenty, for
example derives from a systemic calculation of utility as a commodity.13 Through
Gradgrinds inability to recognize the innate humanness of the very humans on whom he
focuses, Dickens appears to assert the fundamental irony of Benthamite utilitarianism: a
recognition of the individual components of a system without regard for their natural
complexities renders an ultimately myopic perception of the greater system. Communal
utilitarianism, thus, proves irreconcilable with individual human spirit, a point
substantiated in Postows analysis of the Benthamite doctrine.
This impossibility of compromise manifests itself further in Dickens descriptions of the
soot-worn Coketown itself, based largely on cities such as Preston, Manchester and other
hotbeds of nineteenth-century English industrialization.14 A triumph of fact, Coketown
is little more than a municipal embodiment of Benthamite utilitarian schematics: it
12 Ibid., 6

13 Ibid.

14 H.I. Dutton and John Edward King. Ten per cent and no surrender: the Preston strike, 18531854. (Toronto: House of Canada Limited Press, 1981), 2.

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operates exclusively towards its functionality its utility and is inseparable from the
work by which it was sustained.15
A fascinating if inadvertent similitude exists between Dickens descriptions of
Coketown and the Panopticon, a prison devised by Bentham in the late eighteenth century
that served as the physical basis of his plans for British legislative reform. Constructed as
a circular building with cells along the perimeter facing inwards towards a central
guardhouse, the Panopticon brings with it two guarantees: constant, unfettered
surveillance by the prison staff in the guardhouse, and a general myopia of the prisoners
within the structure prohibits them from seeing their captors, a schematic Bentham
describes as a new mode of obtaining power of mind over mind, in a quantity hitherto
without example.16 The Panopticon, Canadian philosopher Douglas G. Long asserts,
exemplifies utilitarian reasoning: inspired by the overriding need to sacrifice liberty to
security, the prison implements the most inexorable and inescapable structure possible
to convey a sense of exploitation and, consequently, ensure reform.1718
15 Ibid., 24

16 Jeremy Bentham. Panopticon or the inspection house. (Social Science, 1781), ii.

17 D.G. Long. Bentham on Liberty: Jeremy Benthams Idea of Liberty in Relation to his
Utilitarianism (Toronto, 1977). 218

18 Janet Semple. Benthams Prison: A Study of the Panopticon Penitentiary. (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1993), 4

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The general theme of panopticism resonates heavily throughout the novels milieu.
Perhaps the strongest example thereof comes in the form of the Gradgrind schoolhouse, a
factory of factual indoctrination and a temple of oppressed fancy. The analogy between
Gradgrinds school and Benthams prison functions on two levels: aesthetic and
philosophical. The architecture of the classroom functions to serve its purpose of
inculcation. Its students are cloistered on the face of an inclined plane in two compact
bodies, vulnerable to the derisive inquisition of the instructors below.19 Appealing to the
aforementioned irony of the Benthamite school, the Gradgrind tutelage simultaneously
recognizes its students as individuals and reduces their individual mortal intricacies
intricacies, Michel Foucault says, function as mechanisms that can fertilize temptations
of insubordinate authority.20 For Foucault, the beauty of the Panopticon comes in the
authority inherent to surveillance.
Just as the prison physically exposes its prisoners and limits their perspective as a means
of control and reform, the Gradgrind classroom subjects its students to a manipulation not
physical, but intellectual. The Panopticon capitalizes on a mans innate need for physical
liberty; the classroom capitalizes on a childs innate sense of imaginative wonder and,
consequently, fear. Gradgrind intimidates Sissy Jupe, whose upbringing in a circus
embodies the appeal to fancy, by marking her fanciful perceptions and depravity of
19 Dickens, 7

20 Michel Foucault. Discipline and Punish. (Random House Digital, Inc., 1977). 333.

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factual knowledge as a crucial imperfection. In his intimidation, Gradgrind controls Jupe
by reducing her to a fact girl number twenty21 This repression, Dickens seems to
suggest, is an unfortunate stipulation of utilitarian deliberation: those in Coketown
perceive the whims of fancy as ultimately detrimental to stability, and thus quash it
without substantial consideration.
Thus, all of this Gradgrinds inculcation of Coketowns youth, the form-followingfunction grimness of Coketown itself would find forgiveness in Benthams exemplary
utilitarian society, Dickens suggests. It is convenient to the Benthamite agenda to assume
that Thomas Gradgrind is little more than an extension of Coketown, serving, as act
utilitarianism implies, in the greatest interest of the greatest good, gauged by a mechanic
calculus of pleasures. In Hard Times, however, this postulate encounters one fatal flaw:
Gradgrind is human, as are the pupils he instructs. Thus is the central affliction of act
utilitarianism as delineated by Dickens. Ultimately, Gradgrind proves to have a heart and
all its derivative emotional whims, and his main pupils his daughter Louisa and his son
Tom prove to be casualties of the inevitable clash between the depersonalization of
sheer utility and the emotional fancy inherent to human nature. Attempts to quantify
pleasure without regard to its form ultimately prove futile in ensuring happiness, as the
means, implemented without direct regard to individual interest or the subjective
characteristics of the pleasure itself, have the tragic propensity to pale or sully the ends.
This creed forms the analytical backbone of Dickens critique.
21 Dickens, 7

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To understand the analytical framework of Dickens analysis in its entirety,
though, one must comprehend the varying nuances of utilitarian thought, particularly in
the discrepancy between the Benthamite and Millite schools. On an essentially superficial
level, we cannot deny that Dickens dissection of utilitarianism in Hard Times mirrors
John Stuart Mills retort to the Benthamite philosophy. The primary distinction between
Benthamite utilitarianism and Millite utilitarianism is simple: Bentham reduces the notion
of pleasure to a commodity quantified by simplistic circumstances; Mill,
acknowledging the deficiencies therein, attempts to establish a clearer taxonomy of types
of pleasures on which one must establish rational decisions.22 Bentham, Mill writes, was
at once devoid of human sympathy and to that of others, perceiving his own mind as
representative of universal human nature and consequently failing to accommodate for
the intrinsic variances within the behaviors of individual humans.23
In his delineation of utilitarianism, Mill is determined to consider individualism and the
inherent rational limitations of human nature. He is patently an act utilitarian: unlike
Bentham, who assesses specific actions with regard to their goodness, Mill adheres to
broader rules of conduct when pursuing pleasure. For Mill, the consummate pleasures are
those that expand the individual human capacity for consciousness, but he maintains that

22 Alan Ryan. Introduction: Benthams Utilitarianism. Utilitarianism and Other Essays.

Edited by Alan Ryan. London: Penguin Books, 1987. 25.

23 John Stuart Mill. Bentham. Utilitarianism and Other Essays. Edited by Alan Ryan.
London: Penguin Books, 1987. 148.

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one attains equal happiness from simply being aware of those pleasures as he does
actually engaging in them. It is better to be a human being unsatisfied than a pig
satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied, he famously writes,
implying that less palpable pleasures are not necessarily less valid that, say, those that fall
within the narrow confines of the Benthamite calculus.24 Mill best delivers his critique of
Benthams crudely myopic perspective of utility in his essay on Bentham himself:
We have arrived, then, at a sort of estimate of what a philosophy like Benthams
can do. It can teach the means of organizing and regulating the merely business
part of the social arrangements. Whatever can be understood or whatever done
without reference to moral influences, his philosophy is equal to; where those
influences require to be taken into account, it is at fault
We think utility, or happiness, much too complex and indefinite an end to be
sought except through the medium of various secondary ends, conceding which
there may be, and often is, agreement among persons who differ in their ultimate
standard.25
Consequently, Mill seeks to seeks to broaden the perspective framework of utilitarianism
by measuring pleasures on their appeal to individual interest, abandoning a rote
systematic approach to gauging happiness. A clear rule-utilitarian, he champions an
adherence to a set of broader moral guidelines over specific and thus universally limited
distinguishing characteristics of goodness.26 There is no one universal human nature, he
24 John Stuart Mill. Bentham. Utilitarianism and Other Essays. Edited by Alan Ryan.
London: Penguin Books, 1987. 281.

25 Ibid. 172

26 Richard T. Garner and Bernard Rosen. Moral Philosophy: A Systemic Introduction to

Normative Ethics and Meta-ethics. New York: Macmillan, 1967. 70.

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argues, and thus there is no overwhelming need to justify a pleasure to a greater schema
than ones own self. He emphasizes this in his seminal Utilitarianism, where he writes:
Questions of ultimate ends are not amenable to direct proof. Whatever can be
proved to be good, must be so by being shown to be a means to something
admitted to be good without proof The art of music is good, for the reason,
among others, that it produces pleasure; but what proof is it possible to give that
pleasure is good? If then, it is asserted that there is a comprehensive formula [to
measure goodness] the formula may be accepted or rejected, but is not a subject
of what is commonly understood as proof considerations may be presented
capable of determining the intellect either to give or withhold its assent to the
doctrine; and this is equivalent to proof.27

In short, Mill advocates individual pleasure over a greater quantity of happiness,

dismissing the need for factual certainty to substantiate the merits thereof. On many
levels, this is the gist of Hard Times analysis of utilitarianism. Dickens dissection of
education and the ultimate failure of Gradgrinds mindless fact-based schooling in
Hard Times carries a classically Millite sentiment. In his autobiography, Mill laments the
general impracticality of factualness in the schoolroom. The habit of analysis, he
writes, has a tendency to wear away the feelings: as indeed it has when no other mental
habit is cultivated, and the analyzing spirit remains without its natural complements and
correctives.28 This tendency exemplifies itself in the various tragedies of three of

27 John Stuart Mill. Utilitarianism. Utilitarianism and Other Essays. Edited by Alan Ryan.
London: Penguin Books, 1987. 276.

28 John Stuart Mill. Autobiography. Utilitarianism and Other Essays. Edited by Alan Ryan.
London: Penguin Books, 1987. 329.

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Gradgrinds students: the aforementioned two his children, Tom and Louisa and
Bitzer, his prize pupil. Gradgrind himself, we come to see, has no true comprehension of
what he once perceived as good, ultimately sacrificing his adherence to factual
calculations in favor of the emotional whims he once strived to repress.
Can we, then, reconcile Mills reconstruction of utility and Dickens broadsweeping disdain of the very concept? The fundamental common ground between the two
is the disdain of tethering ones actions to rote processes, as the Benthamite school
decrees one should do. It is crucial, however, to remember that Dickens was no
philosophical scholar, a student of neither Bentham nor Mill. Consequently, we cannot
simply label the philosophical message of Hard Times as entirely sympathetic with Mill
simply due to the parallels between Mills critique of Bentham and Dickens sweeping,
generalized assessment of utilitarianism on whole. In his generalities, Dickens
inadvertently addresses some key limitations of Mills approach to utilitarian thought.
The crux of his critique bemoans Coketowns adherence to definitive rationality, a
markedly utilitarian process present, in spite of apparent differences, in both the
Benthamite and Millite schools. Bentham values definitive determinant traits of
goodness, while Mill values broader, but equally definitive rules of behavior; both,
Dickens portrays, have fatal limitations.
While he acknowledges the definite parallel between Mill and Dickens, American
academic Richard J. Arneson points to several glaring examples of problematic Millite

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utilitarianism in the text.29 Arneson focuses on Stephen Blackpool, the factory hand
whose mortal fortification ultimately yields tragic consequences. The devoutly religious
Blackpool, he says, possesses a quality of virtuousness that sticks by hallowed moral
rules come what may, taking the strict moral prohibitions as bedrock foundation for his
personal conduct.30 He clings steadfastly to an arsenal of grand moral regulations, as
rule-utilitarianism decrees, and, like Mill, rejects a mindless calculation of the greatest
good. Noting the various tragedies that Blackpool faces over the course of the novel
his alienation by his fellow hands, his rejection at the hands of the factory owners, his
untimely death consequent to his principle of selflessness one must consider Dickens
implications of the supposed merits of the Millite approach to utilitarianism. Arneson
does so thoroughly, encapsulating Dickens message as such:
It is consistent to hold both these claims: (1) it is wrong to do whatever act has the
highest expected utility, without regard to whether the act is in conformity with
moral rules or not, and (2) it is sometimes right to violate moral rules, even
perhaps the most severe moral prohibitions, on occasions when the compensating
benefits of such violation are very great.31
Blackpool, Arneson implies, is a victim of Millite limitations. Though he successfully
eschews any sort of rote calculus in moral decision-making, recognizing the merits of his
29 Richard J. Arneson "Benthamite Utilitarianism and Hard Times." Philosophy and Literature
2, no. 1 (Spring 1978): 67.

30 Ibid., 68-69

31 Ibid., 71

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individual qualms, his unfettered allegiance to moral canons proves insufficient and
ultimately fatal, as he fails to evaluate the practicality of his perception of goodness
when making ethical decisions.
Thus, a debate of practicality or, in the case of most of the novels characters, a
lack thereof is the core thread of Dickens evaluation of utilitarianism. Blackpools
adherence to general virtues in pursuit of goodness is as personally undermining as
Gradgrinds rigid calculus of goodness itself, as both fail to account for societal and
personal nuances that leave no guarantees of outcome. This perception evokes the
conjunct theses of Nussbaum and Postow: in determining good, one must both practice
pragmatism and account for inherent human emotional tendencies within a broader
societal structure.
This returns us to this novels central question: how can we perceive the human
condition within the scope of utilitarianism, be it according to Bentham or Mill?
No one provides a clearer response than does Nussbaum. Human fancy or the literary
imagination, specifically is, for Nussbaum, a ubiquitous and inexorable characteristic.
No one, she argues, can deny this, including Gradgrind, who devotes himself to
extinguishing the trait. She writes:
Mr. Gradgrind knows that storybooks are not simply decorative, not simply
amusing-though this already would be enough to cause him to doubt their utility.
Literature, he sees, is subversive. It is the enemy of political economy, as Mr.
Gradgrind knows that science. It expresses, in its structures and its ways of
speaking, a sense of life that is incompatible with the vision of the world
embodied in the texts of political economy; and engagement with it forms the
imagination and the desires in a manner that subverts that science's norm of
rationality.32
32 Martha Nussbaum. "The Literary Imagination in Public Life." New Literary History 22 No.
4 (Autumn 1991): 878

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The texts of political economy, in essence, represent the systemic tabulation of pleasure
embedded in utilitarian thought. Nussbaums description of Gradgrind above addresses
the fundamental flaws of this myopia: the incredibly narrow definition of good and,
consequently, the minimal allowance of what utility can enable it. To fortify her disdain
thereof, she invokes Sissy Jupe, Gradgrinds greatest foil. Jupe, the most childlike of any
children Dickens presents in the text, inadvertently embraces the most rudimentary
human characteristics that the rest of Coketown deliberately quashes. She traffics in
fancy, a refreshing and ultimately much happier juxtaposition to the tragic cases of,
say, the Gradgrind children, whose indoctrinated nearsightedness of the world yields
devastating consequences that, in glaring irony, demand a consideration of the emotional
urgings they were once subjected to neglect.
Here, Nussbaums response to Bentham is obvious. She dispels the panopticism
of Coketown, the Gradgrind schoolhouse, and the Gradgrind home by vivifying its
incongruity with inherent human fancy, citing this conflict as the root of the novels
tragedies. In his mindless, self-interest-driven surrender of Tom Gradgrind to the
authorities, Bitzer the all-too-perfect pupil exposes that he is as much a victim of
the myopia as, say, Tom Gradgrind himself, whose attempts to indulge his most human
tendencies fail due to his engrained incomprehension of them.33
Beyond Bentham, though, Nussbaum also sheds light on the novels more subtle critique
of Millite practices. She endorses Arnesons evaluation, as her advocacy of fancy

33 Ibid. 887

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commands an endorsement of its impact on human behavior and judgment beyond the
narrow framework of general moral rules. In addition, her assessment of aesthetic values
is markedly divergent from Mills. For Mill, aesthetic and factual values are necessarily
distinct; Nussbaum argues differently, stressing the merits of aesthetic elements
storybooks, for example as vessels of objective truths. Relying on Jupe as a paradigm
of human goodness, we recognize the importance of fanciful situations notably, her
upbringing in a circus in her upbringing, as she possesses a level of wisdom and
sagacity that is blatantly foreign to the novels other children. This ultimately nullifies the
both the Benthamite calculus and the Millite taxonomy of pleasure. Happiness and
goodness, Nussbaum cites Dickens to be claiming, are as complex and variable as the
human beings who indulge them.
Her incorporation of a verse of Walt Whitmans Song of Myself as a preamble
to her paper encapsulates the spirit of her analysis. The poem embodies the flagrant
incongruity between innate human complexities and the rote processes of utilitarianism.
Do I contradict myself? Whitmans speaker representative, indeed, of the general
spirit of mankind later asks the reader. Very well then, I contradict myself. I am large, I
contain multitudes. In Hard Times, Dickens paints a vivid portrait of mans selfcontradictions, his largeness, his multitudes albeit in tragic shades, marred by a system
of ideological repression that emerged as a necessary derivative of a system seeking to
tabulate a commodity as complex as man himself. In spite of his scholastic limitations
and resulting sweeping generalizations, Dickens offers perhaps the most compelling
image of the deterrents of utilitarianism, regardless of the scholar behind the theory. It
reduces human nuances to a state of negligibility and fails to account for the intrinsic

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beauty of individual human interests and desires. Within this system, he stresses,
happiness cannot thrive: attempting to compartmentalize pleasure leaves its very
definition arbitrary.