Shaphan

Dworkin, Kant and Humbug

[Previous entries: Dworkin's nonsense on stilts;  Letter to the Guardian;  Dworkin nonsense;  Not Dworkin to me]  [His name is a boon for headline writers]

Two months ago, I started trying to wring a correction out of the Guardian, after one of their occasional columnists, Ronald Dworkin, claimed that Jeremy Bentham had viewed the 'whole idea of human rights' as "nonsense upon stilts".  (Dworkin is the Bentham professor of jurisprudence at UCL.)  For weeks, the Corrections office blanked me.  Last week I tried again, this time threatening Ian Mayes that, if I still got no reply, I'd write to the editor, the external ombudsman, the Scott trustees and UCL. 

Two days later, Mayes' assistant wrote back to me with Dworkin's reply.  Dworkin wrote thus:

I said that Bentham condemned human rights as nonsense on stilts because I was criticizing Simon Jenkins in the Sunday Times who said, "Bentham was correct. There are no fundamental human rights. The concept, said the great utilitarian, is 'nonsense on stilts'." Your reader objects, to me and therefore to Jenkins, that Bentham spoke of natural rights not human rights. But your reader is making the mistake of conflating words and ideas. Both phrases refer to the same idea. He is guilty of another confusion in saying that human rights did not exist when Bentham wrote. He must mean that the term "human rights" was not in general use then, which is a different matter. If human rights exist now, they have existed for as long as there have been human beings, or at least human beings in political society. He makes a different claim about utilitarianism. Whether human rights exist or not is a matter of the ontology of value not value-free ontology. If Bentham's utilitarianism is correct then there cannot be rights and, as he said, particularly not natural or human rights. If Bentham's utilitarianism is wrong, his "nonsense" claim must be wrong, for reasons Kant pointed out.

Under the fold, I've included the full text of my reply to Dworkin.  It was a poor reply, which missed the mark.  I tried to answer each of the points he raised, but It was the wrong strategy, and the Guardian found in his favour.  But this was my response to his last sentence, in which he had cited Kant.

If Bentham's utilitarianism is wrong, his "nonsense" claim must be wrong, for reasons Kant pointed out.

Would Professor Dworkin please provide a citation for this?  When I first read this sentence, it seemed decisively impressive. But then I remembered that Bentham's Anarchical Fallacies, wherein he wrote of inalienable rights as 'nonsense upon stilts', was not, to my limited knowledge, published until around the year of his death, 1832. And Immanuel Kant died in 1804.  So, how could Kant have pointed out the falsity of Bentham's 'nonsense' claim?  This would therefore appear to be another of RD's anachronistic attributions, but I'd appreciate a citation if one exists. (And if RD is in touch with a medium who's in contact with dead philosophers who will share their thoughts on things post their mortem, could you ask him to ask the medium to ask Thomas Hobbes what he thinks of the United States, especially from its civil war to the present day - thanks.)

I doubt I'll hear back from Dworkin, so if anyone reading this knows their Kant or Bentham, could you please tell me where Kant addressed Bentham's utilitarianism and natural rights?  Is Dworkin right, or is he making it up as he goes along, trying to sound impressive but, like the rest of us, full of **it?

Mayes' assistant wrote back the next day.

Your questions and comments deal with matters of opinion and interpretation which are outside the remit of the Readers' editor. We have passed Professor Dworkin's reply to you, and although we cannot speak for him, he is unlikely to want to continue the debate. May I suggest you send a short, and as succinct as possible (300 words), letter for publication for consideration by the Letters editor ([email protected]). Otherwise, there is nothing to stop you writing to Professor Dworkin at University College London. I'm sorry we cannot help further

best wishes Helen

That reply left me livid, partly because it signalled my failure.  I've lost much confidence in the Guardian reader's editor as a neutral arbiter.   I might try emailing Dworkin to see if I can get the Kant citation off him.  Whatever, this episode has left me unsatisfied.

Not Dworkin to me

I'm disappointed to report that I've heard nothing back from Ian Mayes, the readers' editor of the Guardian.  I have to assume that Professor Ronald Dworkin is unhappy about my complaint.  Fair enough, though I'm not impressed by his lack of willingness to either correct me or correct himself; that doesn't seem scholarly to me.  But I also suspect there's resistance within the Guardian itself to having the eminent professor eat his words.  I wouldn't be surprised if there weren't a couple of his ex-Oxford students among the paper's senior staff - perhaps they interpret my complaint as an attack on Dworkin's philosophy and reputation and, by extension, on their own beliefs about the world, so that it becomes an attack on them as well.  On that, they may have me bang to rights.  Here again are the offending sentences:

Simon Jenkins, in the Sunday Times, recently declared his enthusiasm for the 18th-century philosopher Jeremy Bentham who said that all that matters is the greatest happiness of the greatest number, and that the whole idea of human rights is therefore "nonsense upon stilts".  But Europe, led by Britain, rejected Bentham's utilitarianism after the second world war when it established the European human rights convention.

It was the first sentence I complained about (see previous posts).  But the second one wasn't much better.  For instance, did Britain reject utilitarianisn after WW2?  No, I'd say, on the contrary;  the NHS and welfare state owe some of their DNA to Bentham.  And consider David Cameron's recent speech on increasing society's happiness-quotient by replacing GDP with GWB (general well-being).  Or Polly Toynbee's article today on the LSE academic Richard Layard, whom she calls "a great man and a serious economic thinker", about the politics of happiness.  (It's amazing that Bentham isn't mentioned once in it, nor in Cameron's happiness-speech.)  Back to Dworkin's second sentence.  He's implying that, as Britain rejected utilitarianism long ago, Bentham's critique of rights isn't worth considering.  He's saying, in effect, move along, folks, nothing to see here.

Some years ago I bought a secondhand copy of Dworkin's Taking Rights Seriously.  (I'm not a student of legal philosophy but it had good reviews on the back and I have a critical interest in Americanist ideology.)  It seemed to me that, in order to take rights seriously, one must first examine their foundations, to find out how sound they are.  To do that, one has to take seriously critiques of inalienable rights, including Bentham's.  And, to me, Dworkin failed to do that.  So I didn't take his book seriously.

And I've since discovered that other, better qualified than I, people have noticed that Dworkin does not fairly present the views of his philosphical opponents.  For example, Brian Leiter, of the Leiter Reports group blog, has written critically of Dworkin for some years [here].  He writes of "the exasperation so many of us feel at [Dworkin's] inability to engage honestly with his opponents."

What Professor Dworkin didn't understand when he agreed to write for the Guardian was that the paper's editorial policy demanded a higher standard of accuracy than he was used to in the academic world.

Dworkin nonsense

I'm not sure why but I'm still trying to get the Guardian to publish a correction about Jeremy Bentham.  (For previous entries, see here and here.)  Soon after sending the last email, I got a reply from Ian Mayes to say he'd been away, didn't know why it hadn't been dealt with, and he'd chase it up.  I wrote back:

On reflection, while I still stand by the second point, conventional wisdom has it that everything Bentham thought, wrote and said was predicated on the 'greatest happiness principle' (even when the evidence, such as the 'nonsense on stilts' essay, suggests otherwise).  So Dworkin will reject that criticism, and I am willing to let it go.  The first point, however, is more clear-cut, and I'd be surprised if he disputed it.  If he does, please allow me a reponse. Then, I'd leave it up to you, or to whomever, to adjudicate.

That was ten days ago.  Since then, nothing.  So this morning I gave it another go.

I'm still waiting for Ronald Dworkin's misstatement about Jeremy Bentham to be corrected.  Why the delay?

Bentham did not say that the whole idea of 'human rights' was nonsense upon stilts.  'Natural rights' and 'human rights' are related but the terms refer to different ideas.  The latter is normally understood to mean the regime of rights codified in the Universal Declaration of HR and its successors, including the European Convention.  Throughout his column, Dworkin was using 'human rights' in this modern sense. As Bentham died in 1832, it's not right to say he had a view on 'human rights'.

I'd appreciate a reply before too long.

The plaintive 'before too long' indicates that I'm losing the will to live over this.

Letter to the Guardian II

In lieu of having anything interesting to say, here's the latest installment of my attempt to get a correction (of Dworkin on Bentham on rights) printed in the Guardian.  I got no reply to my original email, so re-sent it today with the following message:

Dear Readers' Editor

I sent the email below eight days ago, and am re-sending it, in case it was not seen, as I've heard nothing back nor seen any correction published.  I still think the two issues I raised are valid.  Assuming that my email was read:  had the writer been one of your journalists, I'm thinking that a correction/clarification might have appeared by now.  Which is to say, not having heard from you, I suspect that the writer being the Bentham professor at UCL might have complicated the matter.  If so, that would be understandable, but surely it would make the need for a correction, of some sort, even greater (as readers might reasonably expect an accurate representation of Bentham's thought from someone writing in the Guardian as the Bentham professor of law)?

I'm looking forward to a reply, to which I claim an inalienable right.  (In it, please don't tell me I was the only one to raise this issue.  Please tell me I was just one of many readers who contacted you.)

Yours,

I'm sort of enjoying this, except for the lack of a response. If I still get no reply, then it's on to the ombudsman!  And I'm tempted to contact the Dean of Laws at UCL - because, by awarding Ronald Dworkin the Bentham professorship, its most prestigious Chair, UCL has betrayed its own "spiritual father".

Letter to the Guardian

As anticipated yesterday, I emailed the Guardian today about Dworkin on Bentham on rights.

Dear Guardian

Ronald Dworkin's most recent column, on Wednesday, May 24, contained two errors that have not yet been corrected, but which should not be left to stand.  He wrote:

[T]he 18th-century philosopher Jeremy Bentham [..] said that all that matters is the greatest happiness of the greatest number, and that the whole idea of human rights is therefore "nonsense upon stilts".

The final phrase contains both problems.  First, Bentham's critique was of late-18th-century natural rights, not mid-20th-century human rights as set out in the UDHR in the 1940s.  Although the two are conceptually and historically linked, they are nevertheless distinct.  So Bentham did not criticise human rights as 'nonsense on stilts', as they did not yet exist.

Second, Dworkin's use of the word 'therefore' is wrong.  Bentham's Critique of the Doctrine of Inalienable, Natural Rights is not dependent upon his 'greatest happiness' principle.  It's not a utilitarian argument against natural rights (whatever that might be); it's simply a rather entertaining and insightful philosophical rant against the ideology of natural rights. It stands (or falls) alone from utilitarianism.

I am aware of the irony, if that's the word, of Dworkin being Bentham professor of jurisprudence, UCL.  I am looking forward to seeing his errors being corrected in next week's Guardian.

Yours sincerely,

We'll see...

Dworkin's nonsense on stilts

Renowned legal theorist Ronald Dworkin (© Dan Brown) writes an occasional column for the Guardian.  His renown in my household (ie with me and the cat) comes from his irrational hostility to Jeremy Bentham's body of work.  That this man is now the Bentham professor of jurisprudence at University College, London, is an affront to British intellectual history.  Bentham would be a-spinning in his grave, were it not that his corpse was preserved, and is mounted, in a glass case in the self-same college, UCL, where Dworkin now professes to teach.

The issue here is Bentham's critique of natural rights as 'nonsense on stilts'.  Bentham was spot on, of course, but such an insight can be existentially threatening to American minds, such as Dworkin's, whose republic was founded on the belief that human beings possess innate rights;  it's a central tenet of the Americanist civil religion.

We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their Creator, with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.

Self-evidently, Jefferson was delusional - all humans are created unequally and they possess no rights other than those their society gives them.  But Americans are indoctrinated from birth to believe otherwise, and Americanist missionaries, such as Dworkin, are determined that the rest of us believe as they do.

Dworkin's most recent missive was, predictably, a defence of the UK's human rights legislation.  He ended with a dig at Simon Jenkins, who'd written a piece on human rights that had started promisingly but had ended in a confused heap.  Dworkin wrote:

Simon Jenkins, in the Sunday Times, recently declared his enthusiasm for the 18th-century philosopher Jeremy Bentham who said that all that matters is the greatest happiness of the greatest number, and that the whole idea of human rights is therefore "nonsense upon stilts".  But Europe, led by Britain, rejected Bentham's utilitarianism after the second world war when it established the European human rights convention.

This is dishonest, deceptive nonsense, especially the word 'therefore'.  Jenkins was not, as Dworkin implies, extolling the 'greatest happiness' principle.  Further, the 18th-century concept of natural rights, and the mid-20th-century notion of human rights, are different, so Bentham had no opinion on 'human rights', as they had not yet been formulated.  (The two are linked, historically and conceptually, but they are distinct.)  Also, Bentham's Critique of the Doctrine of Inalienable, Natural Rights is not dependent at all on his 'greatest happiness principle' - that Bentham was wrong about utilitarianism is irrelevant to the validity or otherwise of his polemic against the ideology of inalienable rights.  A Bentham professor of jurisprudence who misrepresents Bentham for political purposes - what was UCL thinking?

It's been three days since the Guardian published Dworkin's column, and each day I've read the Corrections and Clarifications column waiting for the correction to appear.  If it doesn't appear tomorrow, I'll email them.   But whom are they more likely to believe on Bentham, me or the eponymous professor?