• 1 I have discussed casuistry in more detail in Cello, Lorenzo 'The legitimacy of international interv (...)

1Focusing on two cases that saw him actively involved during the 1820s, Tripoli and Greece, this article reconstructs Bentham’s reasoning on intervention in the Ottoman Empire. The main argument developed here is that his mode of reasoning on the legitimacy of interventions represents a historical instantiation of a casuistic approach, a ‘moral casuistry’ grounded in the principle of ‘effective benevolence’. Indeed, as a characteristic contextual mode of reasoning in early modern Europe, casuistry was based on case-by-case deliberation through a process of mediation between contrasting ethical precepts (i.e. obligations) and patterns of duties.1 While traditionally this casuistic process of mediation was explicitly tied to theological doctrine or to an ethics of office that recognised the existence of different moral personae to which a constellation of duties were attached, in Bentham’s utilitarian moral casuistry it was tied to a secular ethics of office grounded in the single most important principle in moral judgment (i.e. utility) and its derivative ones, such as ‘effective benevolence’. Thus, the first section of the article introduces the reader to Bentham’s utilitarian ‘moral casuistry’ and to the principle of ‘effective benevolence’ that informed his reasoning on the legitimacy of interventions. This notion of ‘effective benevolence’ plays the role of an action-guiding principle in Bentham’s theory of ethics, underscoring Bentham’s belief in the possibility of striking a balance between particular and universal interests. What we should strive for, it prescribes, is an ethical ‘mode of conduct’ that combines ‘self-regarding prudence’ with ‘probity or benevolence’. This was for Bentham ‘the business of the Deontologist’, an ‘office’ whose duty was to draw attention to the potential alignment of ‘self-regarding’ and ‘other-regarding’ interests in any given circumstance.

• 2 Bentham, Jeremy, Deontology, Together with a Table of the Springs of Action, Article on Utilitarian (...)

3In order to fully appreciate Bentham’s reasoning on the legitimacy of intervention it is important to start from a question that relates to his understanding of human nature; namely, the extent to which he deemed the nature of human beings to be compatible with a conduct conducive to ‘the interest of mankind at large’.2 Indeed, we cannot overlook the fact that Bentham’s cosmopolitan stance had a solid foundation – whether strong or weak is not the immediate concern here – in his understanding of the workings of human psychology, which predicated that no action could, strictly speaking, be disinterested:

• 4 Bentham, J., Deontology, pp. 99-101.

4Bentham thought that the absence of interests of ‘the self-regarding class’ was commonly and wrongly equated to disinterested action; and the reason for this was the incapacity to discern the variety of interests that influenced human behaviour in different circumstances. On a closer look, interests other than those of the ‘self-regarding’ class exercise a significant influence on ‘human conduct’ and in determining what he called ‘modes of conduct’. Among the motives that spurred ‘extra-regarding’ interests he mentioned: sympathy for an individual or a class of individuals, fear of punishment or hope of reward from God, fear of ill-repute or hope of good repute.4 Importantly, Bentham disagreed with restricting the purview of ethics only to the inclusion of other-regarding or disinterested action. As the following rhetorical question suggests, he was prepared to defend wholeheartedly the moral value of self-regarding interests:

• 6 Bentham, J., Deontology, p. 106.
• 7 Bentham, J., Deontology, p. 108.

5Bentham insisted that self-regarding interests were a sort of biological and historical necessity. He also suggested that there was room for self-interest to be included under the heading of ‘good motive’ and, in doing so, he was issuing a caution regarding the goodness of those motives of ‘the social class’. This is not to deny that he recognised that motives of ‘the self-regarding, or of the dissocial class’ are comparatively more dangerous than those of ‘the remaining class, viz. the social class’ in that they are ‘more liable […] to operate in the breast of each particular individual to the prejudice of the general good – of the interest of mankind at large’.6 Indeed, ‘Fear of God, Sympathy, Love of reputation’ do operate as an efficient check to the excessive influence of self-regarding and dissocial motives. Ultimately, though, ‘the goodness or badness of the effect’ of those supposedly ‘good motives’ (i.e. Fear of God, Sympathy, Love of reputation) had to be evaluated on the basis of ‘the consequences – pleasurable or painful, of which they become efficient causes or preventives’.7 Thus, depending on circumstances, sympathy could produce effects ‘neither better nor worse than those of selfishness’:

• 10 Bentham, J., Deontology, p. 212.
• 11 Bentham, J., Deontology, p. 212
• 12 Bentham, J., Deontology, p. 352 (emphasis added).

7Bentham took this argument a step forward in his work on Deontology, which suggests to us quite clearly that his cosmopolitan stance could not possibly rely on appeals to sympathy or benevolence – nor to any other moral quality found to be in conflict with ‘the self-regarding class of virtues’. In fact, he further argued that an action or an endeavour could fail ‘in becoming productive of the intended good effect’. Thus, beneficial effects were on the whole more likely to be produced without a disposition to exercise acts of beneficence; that is, what he called ‘beneficence without benevolence’.10 Contrary to the commonplace that benevolence is always a virtue, Bentham concluded that only ‘in proportion as it is accompanied or followed by beneficence is benevolence of use’;11 in which case benevolence ‘is a virtue [and] we give it the name of “effective benevolence”’.12 Clearly, the measure of the beneficence (and thus the effectiveness of benevolence) could not be anything else but the principle of utility. Given the universal subjection of men and women to the ‘sovereign masters’ of pain and pleasure, benevolent conduct cannot but be directly correlated with the improvement of the individual’s position according to the ‘felicific calculus’.

• 13 Bentham, J., Deontology, 365.
• 14 Bentham, Jeremy, An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, eds. J. H. Burns and (...)

8Bentham thus argued that ‘in a proper system of morality, every proposition must be a source of happiness either to the man himself or to [some] other or others’.13 Accordingly, individual happiness depended ‘in the first place, upon such parts of his behavior as none but himself are interested in; in the next place, upon such parts of it as may affect the happiness of those about him’.14 That is to say that happiness depended in the first case upon ‘his duty to himself […] (if duty it is to be called)’, while in the second case upon ‘his duty to others; or, to use a phrase now somewhat antiquated, his duty to his neighbour’. In discharging these duties every human being manifested the same qualities: prudence in the former case, probity or beneficence in the latter. In Bentham’s words:

• 16 Bentham, J., Deontology, p. 284.

9Bentham goes on to distinguish between probity and beneficence, qualities that can contribute to ‘the good of others’ in two different ways. Whereas probity was the quality needed to discharge the negative part of ‘man’s duty to his neighbour’ – that is, ‘forebearing to diminish it [the happiness of one’s neighbor]’ – beneficence was the quality individuals manifested when discharging the positive branch of the same duty to others by looking to increase their happiness.16

• 17 Bentham, J., Deontology, p. 261.
• 18 Bentham, J., Deontology, p. 278.
• 19 Bentham, J., Deontology, pp. 212-213 n. 2.

10Thus, Bentham insists that for ‘effective benevolence’ to occur, the virtue of beneficence needs to overlap with that of self-regarding prudence. One of the circumstances that can facilitate this alignment is that the beneficiary is in a position to reciprocate or ‘in a situation to do you any particular service’.17 In the opposite case – when the beneficiary cannot reciprocate – the beneficial effects of the benevolent act on the benefactor might not be so certain, or indeed immediate. Most likely, the benefactor would still enjoy the benefits of his benevolent conduct, but these benefits – Bentham argued – would lie in the future since his action ‘will be producing a stock of sympathy and good reputation […] ready upon occasion to be brought into action for your advantage’.18 This last consideration also explains Bentham’s observation in a manuscript note where he admitted that the widespread and unqualified popular approval of benevolence – whether or not productive of beneficence – is ‘not altogether without reasonable cause’. Yet, he added, this cause is often misconceived ‘in the account of the sentimentalist’, who tends to assimilate benevolence to a long-term disposition of the agent, rooted in his or her good will and good nature. Bentham’s point, instead, was not only to argue that a single act with beneficial effects cannot reassure us about the benevolent disposition of an agent, neither now nor in the future. Only a pattern of benevolent actions might reassure us about the sincerity of the agent’s benevolence and his probity.19

• 20 Bentham, J., Deontology, p. 193, n. 5.
• 21 Bentham, J., Deontology, pp. 190-207, 193 (quote).

11In fact, Bentham’s system of morality did not discount the lumbering presence of selfishness. On the contrary, against ‘sentimentalism, which ascribes to the Utilitarians the opinion that selfishness is the cause of everything that is done’, self-regarding interests were not in Bentham’s eyes an obstacle but rather the most productive source of ‘universal good’.20 Yet the strength of his argument depended on his capacity to convince his audience that self-interested conduct was not antithetical to other-regarding conduct; and to do this – he thought – was the task of the ‘Deontologist’. Bentham defined ‘the business of the Deontologist’ as an ‘office’; an office whose duty was to help individuals to appreciate how and to what extent extra-regarding interests were connected with self-regarding interests in each circumstance.21 Indeed, Bentham acknowledged the existence of a ‘natural’ tension between the two classes of interests, but he went on to suggest that there was a lot of ‘useful work’ that could be done by deontologists:

• 23 Bentham, J., Deontology, p. 69.
• 24 Bentham, Jeremy, Benthamiana: Or Select Extracts from the Works of Jeremy Bentham. With an Outline (...)

12The convergence of interests was indeed what made the alignment of the dictates of self-regarding and other-regarding conduct possible. In other words, effective benevolent conduct was enabled by the fact that the ‘dictates of benevolence are generally those of prudence likewise’.23 As the American utilitarian John Burton put it in 1843: in international politics as in private ethics Bentham thought that ‘the dictates of effective benevolence will […] be found to coincide with those of self-regarding prudence’.24

• 25 Bentham, J., Deontology, p. 68.
• 26 Condren, Conal, Argument and Authority in Early Modern England: The Presupposition of Oaths and Off (...)
• 27 Condren, C. Argument and Authority in Early Modern England, p. 184.
• 28 Condren, C. Argument and Authority in Early Modern England, p. 184.

13Finally, ethical reasoning – and the determination of the ‘right’ or the ‘good’ – was for Bentham an activity that did not pertain to the Kantian realm of ‘pure reason’ with its a priori moral laws. Rather, it was a matter of local reasoning with reference to specific empirical circumstances and to the multiplicity of interests at stake. These circumstances had to be, of course, sifted through the principle of utility – the universal measure of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ – in order to provide ‘information for man’s guidance in the several occasions of life’.25 The nature of his utilitarian mode of reasoning and the situational kind of judgments that it entailed do not actually seem so far removed from the process of mediation between contrasting ethical precepts (i.e. obligations) and patterns of duties performed in a casuistic mode of reasoning. As a mode of reasoning that struggles to resolve moral problems by applying a logical framework, casuistry always displayed ‘a quasi-utilitarian ethos’, not in the Machiavellian sense, where ‘the end justifies the means’, but in the sense that ‘a questionable act in one capacity might become allowable if subordinated to the moral requirements of an office; the means must serve a moral scope’.26 Following the insights of Conal Condren, it becomes possible to see that what Bentham’s utilitarianism essentially entailed was ‘the isolation of a procedural principle in much casuistic reasoning’ (i.e. utility) and its elevation to being the only relevant principle in moral judgment.27 Ultimately, Bentham himself went on to suggest that casuistry was ‘generally unpopular’ because based on the wrong ‘standard of reference’: the ‘will of God as expressed in the texts of the history of Jesus’ rather than ‘utility’. When based on this latter standard, however, ‘moral casuistry’– as he called it – was nothing short of ‘Deontology proper’.28

• 29 Yusef Karamanli was Pasha of Tripoli between 1795 and 1832. Bentham’s writings on Tripoli are colle (...)
• 30 Folayan, Kola, 'Tripoli During the Reign of Yusuf Pasha Qaramanli' (London University, PhD Thesis,1 (...)
• 31 Folayan, K., 'Tripoli During the Reign of Yusuf Pasha Qaramanli', p. 215.
• 32 D’Ghies, Hassuna, A Letter, Addressed to James Scarlett Esq. M.P., and Member of the African Instit (...)
• 33 Coller, Ian, 'African Liberalism in the Age of Emipre? Hassuna d’Ghies and Liberal Constitutionalis (...)

15Together with Tunis and Algiers, Tripoli was at that time still a de jure possession of the Ottoman empire, but de facto independent. Key to Bentham’s sudden interest in Tripoli was Hassuna D’Ghies, an educated young man carrying diplomatic credentials from the Pasha of Tripoli, Yusef Karamanli.29 Mohammed D’Ghies, Hassuna’s father, was a merchant who had held high offices in the Regency at various stages since 1800, among which that of the Pasha’s Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.30 In the meantime, his son Hassuna was sent to Europe with the primary goal of maintaining favourable commercial ties with European countries and taking care of family business.31 Hassuna spent eight years in Europe, mostly in France, until in 1821 he moved to England. Acquainted with the values and culture of early nineteenth-century European societies, in 1822 he published an English translation of his pamphlet on how to end the slave trade that had become such a predominant source of subsistence for North African regimes.32 Despite the modest interest that the pamphlet inspired, D’Ghies’ mention of Bentham therein earned him the privilege of a meeting with the venerable seventy-four year old man.33

• 34 Schofield, Philip, 'Editorial Introduction', in Bentham, Securities against Misrule, pp. xviii-xx.
• 35 D’Ghies, Hassuna 'Hassuna to Jeremy Bentham', UC xxiv, 28-30. Quoted in Hume, L. J., 'Preparations (...)
• 36 Bentham, J., 'Account of Tripoli', in Securities against Misrule, pp. 1-22. See also Hume, L. J., ' (...)
• 37 Bentham, J., Securities against Misrule, pp. 23-111.

16The first meeting was a success and others soon followed in which Bentham interrogated his guest on the geographical, historical, social and political circumstances of his home land, with the intention of drawing up plans both for a scientific expedition and for political reform.34 In those years Tripoli was indeed becoming an increasingly important hub and a crossroads for British expeditions towards African sites of historical, commercial and political interest such as ‘Timbuctoo, the sources of the Niger, and the great inland Lake or Lakes’.35 Partly based on his conversations with Hassuna D’Ghies and partly on his own readings on Tripoli, by the end of 1822 Bentham had written a thirty-four sheet ‘Account of Tripoli’.36 At the same time, Bentham was working on another manuscript for Tripoli, ‘Securities against Misrule’.37

• 38 Bentham, Jeremy, 'Securities against Misrule, adapted to a Mahommedan state, and prepared with part (...)

17A first incomplete version of this work was published by Bowring in volume eight of his Works of Jeremy Bentham.38 The short editorial note to this version – written by John Hill Burton – explained that the editor had opted for excluding from publication Bentham’s papers that ‘possess[ed] only a local interest, which the lapse of time has materially diminished’. As Burton went on to explain, he was referring here to those papers ‘ranging from August 1822 to February 1823’ that formed the bulk of Bentham’s ‘Account of Tripoli’:

• 40 Bentham, Jeremy, 'Facienda by Government,' UC xxiv, 40. Quoted in Hume, L. J., 'Preparations for Ci (...)

18Burton’s note thus confirms that Hassuna D’Ghies played a central role in inspiring Bentham’s interest in Tripoli. Most certainly Bentham’s personal interest reflected the curiosity for European expeditions to the African continent; yet, this would be only a partial explanation. To a greater extent his ambition was political: a comprehensive and codified body of law (i.e. ‘un corps de loix’40), this was Bentham’s aspiration for Tripoli.

• 41 ElGaddari, Sara, 'His Majesty's Agents: The British Consul at Tripoli, 1795–1832', The Journal of I (...)
• 42 Hume, L. J., 'Preparations for Civil War in Tripoli', pp. 311-312.
• 43 Schofield, P., 'Editorial Introduction', in Bentham, Securities against Misrule, pp. xxi.
• 44 Bentham, J., Securities against Misrule, pp. 23-26.

19His interest came at a time when British consuls stationed in Tripoli had gained a growing influence over the domestic affairs of the ‘Barbary state’.41 The semi-autonomy that the Tripolitan Regency had obtained from the Ottoman empire resulted in the European powers’ direct intervention in the internal affairs of Tripoli and its dynastic feuds, which were a constant source of political tension and instability during the reign of Pasha Yusef Karamanli.42 Supported by the young D’Ghies and encouraged by the influential position held by his father in Tripoli, Bentham nurtured with some confidence the prospect of gradual political and legal reform in Tripoli with the collaboration of the Pasha. Thus, he overcame his initial scepticism and went on to complete his plan for the introduction of constitutional government in Tripoli, which formed the bulk of his ‘Securities against Misrule’.43 After having previously dedicated time and effort in gathering information about the history, customs and institutions of that region, Bentham focused on what he saw as the remedies to the authoritarian government of the Pasha: a constitutional charter that would constrain the arbitrary power of the despotic ruler; a representative government that would ensure political stability and avoid wars of succession; and the ‘publicity’ of government rule that would mitigate misrule through the scrutiny of a ‘public opinion’.44 Thus, the adoption of a Constitutional Charter had to be coupled with a series of institutions – a representative assembly, a judiciary, a public opinion tribunal – and a number of legal securities.

• 45 Bentham, J., Securities against Misrule, pp. 27-73. In these pages we find one of Bentham’s most ex (...)

20The ‘unofficial Judicatory’ of ‘public opinion tribunal’, in particular, was supposed to work as a ‘check against misrule’ by turning those who exercised sovereign power into responsible officials.45 Once again, we can see that publicity played a crucial role in Bentham’s constitutional theory as an instrument for transparency and accountability that threatened the use of the popular sanction and resistance against acts of oppression. As he put it with reference to Tripoli:

• 48 Bentham, J., Securities against Misrule, pp. 79-102.
• 49 Bentham, J., Securities against Misrule, pp. 85.

22In the section entitled ‘Constitutional Securities of the Tripolitan Nation: or Securities Given by the Sovereign, to the People of Tripoli and Fezzan, Against Abuse of Power, Now and for Ever’, Bentham went into some detail in his description of the forms of oppression characteristic of that despotic regime and the appropriate ‘securities in favour of individuals’ as well as those ‘securities in favour of the Nation considered in its aggregate’. The latter comprised freedom to practice, speak and write on religious and other issues; the right to legal actions with ‘proof of the delinquency’; and the ‘liberty to keep arms of all sorts […] for their own defence’.48 For each of these securities Bentham also went on to point out also what he called ‘counter-securities’; that is, a series of specifications of the cases and circumstances under which these liberties could be exercised. The former ‘securities in favour of individuals’ referred instead to security against political oppression, imprisonment or exile, illegal execution, torture, exploitation. For this set of securities, though, Bentham did not specify any ‘counter-securities’, but just a generic clause suggesting that ‘If, for giving execution and effect to the law, it becomes necessary […] to make infringement on the security of body or goods, no such infringement shall be made beyond what such necessity requires’.49

• 50 Schofield, 'Editorial Introduction', in Bentham, Securities against Misrule, p.xxvi.
• 51 For Bentham’s plans on how to obtain ‘the requisite Concessions’ form the Pasha see Bentham, J., Se (...)
• 52 Bentham, 'Tripoli-Enterprize', UC xxiv, pp. 54-59. See Hume, L. J., 'Preparations for Civil War in (...)

23Besides being a useful watered-down representation of Bentham’s mature constitutional theory, ‘Securities against Misrule’ is a work of considerable interest for the purposes of understanding his reasoning on intervention, since it discloses the details of the substantial political, legal and judicial reforms that Bentham saw worthy of being pursued in Tripoli. Bentham’s preference was to respect the authority of the Pasha. Should the situation require it, however, he was ready to see him go via a military coup. Bentham had indeed always been aware that the adoption of his legal provisions – which he thought would have amounted to increased security and wealth for the people of Tripoli – required that a practical plan be implemented.50 Actually, the possibility of an armed insurrection against the Pasha in order to establish a new constitutional representative democracy was never a remote option for Bentham. Neither was the idea of orchestrating external military support to such a revolt off the table. D’Ghies and Bentham had shared each other’s plans for the enactment of such a course of action, necessary – they agreed – in the eventuality of an uncooperative Pasha. Yet, they had their divergences and with time Bentham grew increasingly sceptical about the likelihood of successful popular resistance or of any cooperation coming from an ‘enlightened’ Pasha.51. In a paper entitled ‘Tripoli-Enterprise’, Bentham criticised D’Ghies’ proposal for a military expedition, which he thought demanded a more realistic and detailed account of the means and objectives of such an endeavour.52

• 53 St. John, Ronald Bruce, Libya: From Colony to Revolution (Oxford, Oneworld, 2012), pp. 100-105.
• 54 Bentham, J., 'Jeremy Bentham to John Quincy Adams for Tripoli', in Securities against Misrule, pp.  (...)
• 55 Bentham, J., 'Hassuna D’Ghies, Ambassador from the Sovereign of Tripoli, at the Court of London, to (...)

24Thus, faced with growing internal opposition, the Karamanli dynasty that rose to power in 1711 through a coup against the centralised rule of the Ottomans was now, ironically enough, the unknowing victim of a plot aimed at its overthrow.53 That Bentham was willing to orchestrate a military plan and pursue that path in a resolute manner is probably best demonstrated by his decision to look across the Atlantic for support. In January 1823 Bentham wrote a letter to the then US Secretary of State (1817-1824) – and later President (1825-1829) – John Quincy Adams, asking him to militarily back the plan that Bentham himself had drafted for overturning the sovereign of Tripoli.54 This was a letter that he forged by signing it in the name of Hassuna D’Ghies and which was meant as an introductory letter for a longer document that Bentham had drafted.55 Although these documents were probably never sent – and the plan never saw application – I will take the time to consider them because they are of great importance for the purposes of interpreting Bentham’s reasoning on intervention.

• 56 Bentham, J., 'D’Ghies to Quincy Adams', in Securities against Misrule, p. 173.
• 57 Bentham, J., 'D’Ghies to Quincy Adams', in Securities against Misrule, p. 174.
• 58 Bentham, J. 'Inter-National Principles and Measures [Rudiments sheet]', UC xxv, p. 134.

25In outlining this plan, Bentham wrote that it entailed ‘the necessity of secrecy’ in order for it to be effective, confirming not only his conditional advocacy of the principle of publicity but, more generally, the pragmatic and ductile nature of his utilitarian mode of reasoning.56 The cry for secrecy in the Tripoli operations meant, in fact, that Bentham was asking the President to circumvent the constitutionally-sanctioned authorisation from the US legislative for the deployment of military forces abroad, using instead an ‘ostensible reason capable of covering the true one’.57 As a general rule of ‘foreign Politics’, Bentham had previously strongly discouraged Great Britain from acting as a guarantor of foreign constitutions, since this would have had the effect of heightening ‘the danger of war resulting from the odium of so tyrannical a measure’.58 Arguably, in this case Bentham saw the same kind of danger (for the US), but envisaged a different solution. The beneficial prospects of a different political regime in Tripoli provided the justification – in Bentham’s mind – for the sort of deceptive behaviour he was (not so subtly) requesting from the US President in the case of Tripoli.

• 59 Bentham, J., 'D’Ghies to Quincy Adams', in Securities against Misrule, pp. 174-176.
• 60 St. John, R. B., Libya: From Colony to Revolution, pp. 103-107; Folayan, Kola, 'The 'Tripolitan War (...)
• 61 Folayan, K. 'The "Tripolitan War"', pp. 622-623. For a recent reconsideration see Colás, Alejandro, (...)

26There is no doubt that in Bentham’s view the stakes, should there be regime change in Tripoli, were high; and this is reflected in the way he developed his argument for US intervention by enumerating a series of supposedly favourable outcomes. One of the scenarios that he put forth in his letter to Adams was the inviting prospect of ‘Security against North African Piracy’, a solution to the problem of the ‘Barbary corsairs’ in the Mediterranean, a major cause of disruption to US commercial routes.59 In fact, up until 1776 the British government had been ensuring that its American colonies enjoyed immunity in the Mediterranean. Yet, once the rulers of Algiers, Morocco, Tunis and Tripoli (which was considered a particularly friendly nest for corsairs) stopped receiving their monies from the British government, the US had to deal with the issue autonomously and opted for increasing their naval presence in the Mediterranean. This eventually led to a series of conflicts between 1801 and 1815, the so-called ‘Barbary Wars’.60 Thus, Bentham’s idea of a long-term solution to enhance US security against North African piracy was without doubt an appealing one for the American government. Even more so in light of the commonplace and longstanding Western conviction that international agreements meant very little to Barbary states and their ‘habit’ of plundering commercial vessels in the Mediterranean was just that, a habit with no just cause whatsoever.61

• 63 On the influence of his mature constitutional theory on his vision of international order of libera (...)

28The interesting thing about Bentham’s overall argumentative strategy was that he operated a reconsideration of what constituted national interests and common interests that allowed him to bring self-regarding interests and extra-regarding interests closer to each other, to the point that the expansion of constitutionalism, representative government and commercial relations could be seen as being in the interest of humanity as well as in the national interest.63 This alignment of universalistic and particularistic interests coincided no less than with the dictates of ‘effective benevolence’. Crucially, Bentham’s moral casuistry allowed him to construe the establishment of a constitutional regime in Tripoli as being advantageous not only to the people of Tripoli (in augmenting their securities against misrule) and the people of the US (in increasing the security of maritime commerce and, hence, of property) but, by extension, to humanity as a whole.

• 64 Bentham, J., Securities against Misrule, p. 111.

29The universal benefit that Bentham saw in a change of government in Tripoli was characterised both by economic and political advantages. On the one hand, he thought that the effective establishment of his constitutional provisions in Tripoli ‘would constitute as it were a pump for capital: a pump by the force of which capital would be drawn into Tripoli from all countries in which it overflows’.64 Things standing the way they did, however, this was not a possibility. As he explained:

• 66 Bentham, 'Jeremy Bentham to John Quincy Adams for Tripoli', in Securities against Misrule, pp. 145- (...)

30On the other hand, Bentham saw great value in the establishment of a constitutional regime in Tripoli from a geopolitical vantage point. A regime change would have not only benefited the Libyan and the American populations; not only would it have increased the flow of capital in the Mediterranean country, but it also had the potential to trigger a domino effect in the despotic governments of Tunis, Algiers and Morocco.66 Referring to this possible democratic spill-over, Bentham argued:

• 68 The word ‘democratisation’ was not part of Bentham’s vocabulary.
• 69 Bentham, Jeremy, 'Jeremy Bentham to Mohammed Ali', in The Correspondence of Jeremy Bentham: July 18 (...)

33From his enthusiastic 1822 correspondence with Hassuna D’Ghies to his request for military intervention on the part of the US, Bentham strived to overcome the resistances and the political obstacles to the democratisation of Libya.68 Yet, Tripoli was not the only Ottoman territory that captured Bentham’s attention. At various stages throughout the 1820s he attempted to loosen resistances to democratisation by directly engaging with the political protagonists of the Ottoman imperial system of rule. His 1828 letter to the Pasha of Egypt Mohammed Ali is just further proof of Bentham’s attempt to deflate ‘Mohamedan despotism’ through the promotion of constitutionalism in the Mediterranean and beyond. Therein, he invited Ali to free himself from Ottoman rule so that he could earn his place ‘as soon among the Sovereigns of Europe’.69 However, the extent to which Bentham was committed to the democratisation of the Middle East is probably best exemplified by his involvement in the early stages of the Greek War of Independence against Ottoman rule (1821-1832).

• 70 Rosen, Fred, Bentham, Byron, and Greece: Constitutionalism, Nationalism, and Early Liberal Politica (...)

34Bentham’s interest in the Greek cause was initially triggered by a series of encounters with Greek activists and intellectuals who in the early 1820s reached London in search of external support. The situation in Greece had been chaotic and events had unfolded quickly since Bentham’s first contact with Nicolaos Piccolos in August 1821. The war with the Turks officially started on March 25^th 1821, but it was far from over when in January 1822 a new Greek Constitution was proclaimed in the city of Epidaurus. By that time the Greek struggle for independence had taken on the appearance of what, today, we would call an international crisis. The Scio massacre of thousands of Greek civilians by the Ottoman forces seriously aggravated the situation in the summer of 1822, faltering Greek morale and shocking public opinion around Europe. Following several months of extended hostilities in Greece, in March 1823 the London Greek Committee was launched by an invitation letter written by John Bowring. Bentham was indeed a signatory of the founding document of this organisation.70 Like many of his contemporaries among politicians and intellectuals, he saw in the Greek struggle for independence a cause worth supporting.

• 71 Bentham’s writings on Greece (‘Greece: Principles of Legislation as to Constitutional Law’; ‘Jeremy (...)
• 72 For an overview of Bentham’s writings on Greece and the circumstances in which they were produced s (...)
• 73 Rosen, F. Bentham, Byron, and Greece, pp. 78-79. Edward Blaquiere was an English naval officer duri (...)

35His support came primarily in the form of commentaries on the new Greek Constitution and constitutional proposals of his own.71 Working under severe time pressure in the attempt to have a practical impact, in less than a month Bentham had penned all of his writings on Greece, with the sole exclusion of a draft Constitutional Code of which only a small portion has survived to this day (‘Ch. VIII. Of the Prime Minister, § 5. Term of Service’).72 The bulk of his writings left London heading for Greece at the beginning of March 1823 with Edward Blaquiere, an agent of the London Greek Committee. Blaquiere reported soon after his docking on Hellenic shores that the warm reception accorded to Bentham’s text by the Greek legislators did not unfortunately produce any substantial impact.73

• 74 Schofield, P., 'Editorial Introduction', in Securities against Misrule, pp. xlii-xliii. On Stanhope (...)
• 75 Rosen, F., Bentham, Byron, and Greece, p. 79, n.9.

36At any rate, Bentham persisted and at end of September of the same year he seized another opportunity. This is when he hastily prepared an incomplete draft of a Constitutional Code for Greece and handed it to Leicester Stanhope, a lieutenant-colonel in the British Army and soon-to-depart envoy of the London Greek Committee.74 Bentham’s proposals were presented by Stanhope to the Provisional Government of Greece in April 1824,75 and it is worth quoting at length the appreciative words directed to Bentham on August 24^th 1824 by the Greek Secretary-General:

• 77 Stanhope, Leicester, Greece in 1823 and 1824: Being a Series of Letters and Other Documents on the (...)
• 78 See Stanhope’s correspondence with Bowring (Letter VIII and IX) in Stanhope, L., Greece in 1823 and (...)
• 79 Dakin, Douglas, The Greek Struggle for Independence, 1821-1833 (London: Batsford, 1973), pp. 142-15 (...)
• 80 St. Clair, W., That Greece Might Still Be Free, pp. 155-163; Rosen, F., Bentham, Byron, and Greece, (...)

37These words bear testament to the high regard in which Bentham was held in Greece and elsewhere among intellectuals and politicians struggling for national independence. Even so, the impressions that Stanhope was reporting back to Bowring and the Committee were not encouraging. On his arrival in Cefalonia at the end of November 1824 he saw that ‘the [Greek] government remained in a state of anarchy’.77 Earlier in the same month he was reporting from the Italian city of Ancona about the ongoing hostilities between the Greek factions and the Ottomans in Greece.78 Assisted by their Egyptian and Tunisian vassals, the Ottomans were conducting indiscriminate killing of the Greek population to repress all attempts to revolt. Only very slowly did they succeed in restoring their rule, at the cost of generating increasing anxieties and tensions among the leaders of European countries. The strategy of non-interference that characterised the British-Austrian diplomacy of Lord Castlereagh and Prince von Metternich was put under growing pressure by the relentless hostilities in Greece.79 Not least, the moderate Tory politician George Canning, appointed as British Foreign Secretary in August 1822, gave a decisive impetus to a direct British involvement in favour of the Greeks. Indeed, Canning was much more sympathetic than his predecessor to the Greek cause, and his appointment to Foreign Secretary facilitated the inception of the London Greek Committee and other such organisations in Britain dedicated to raise funds and arms for the Greek cause.80

• 81 Rosen, F., Bentham, Byron, and Greece, p. 109.
• 82 Rosen, F., Bentham, Byron, and Greece, pp. 103-122
• 83 Rosen, F., Bentham, Byron, and Greece, pp. 265-276.
• 84 Bentham, Jeremy, 'To the Greek Legislature', in The Correspondence, vol. XII, pp. 48-51.

38The provision of public-private international loans directed from London to newly independent (and not yet independent) states had become an increasingly commonplace practice. Between 1822 and 1825 many states – Denmark, Portugal, Russia, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico – had received a combined total of £ 17,550,000 from London.81 Not without hopes of making a considerable personal profit, Bowring took on most of the responsibility for arranging a first loan for the newly established Greek government in 1824. After this first loan, in which the Greek London Committee played a central role, a second Greek loan was arranged between some Greek Deputies and the bankers J. & S. Ricardo at the beginning of 1825.82 These attempts were, however, not very successful. By the end of 1826 a Greek loan scandal turned into a fully-fledged financial crisis and Bowring was indeed caught in the storm.83 In the meantime Bentham was engaged from a backstage position in the attempt to persuade the Provisional Government of Greece of the goodness of his proposals. Whilst he continued his correspondence with the Greek provisional executive until August 1825, starting from September 1824 his hopes of seeing his Constitutional Code adopted by the Mediterranean country started to gradually fade away.84

• 85 Dakin, D., The Greek Struggle for Independence, pp. 178-182.
• 86 Bass, Gary Jonathan, Freedom's Battle: The Origins of Humanitarian Intervention (New York, Vintage (...)
• 87 Howarth, David, The Greek Adventure: Lord Byron and Other Eccentrics in the War of Independence, (N (...)

39What instead intensified were the diplomatic efforts to find an agreement on the Greek crisis. The death of Tsar Alexander in December 1825 and the succession of his younger brother Nicholas I altered the diplomatic dynamics and with it the geopolitical scene. The new Tzar of Russia was definitely more inclined than his brother Alexander towards the idea of a fully-fledged military intervention, an option that Canning himself was working towards in the face of strong resistance from his own Cabinet.85 For many the decision to intervene militarily was in fact contrary to the traditional geopolitical British interest of ensuring a strong Ottoman empire that could contain Russia’s expansion and keep trading routes with India safe.86 Nevertheless, Canning went on in his diplomatic efforts to seal an agreement for a multilateral military intervention. Despite his attempts to create the conditions for larger participation in an international military expedition, a long phase of unsuccessful negotiations led three European Great Powers – England, France and Russia – to intervene without the support of the other members of the Concert of Europe – Austria and Prussia. Once he became British Prime Minister in April 1827, Canning was free to give his Secretary of State Lord Dudley the go-ahead to negotiate and sign the Treaty of London alongside his Russian and French counterparts. The pact was made official on July 6^th 1827, just months before Canning died in office earning the sad record of the shortest tenure of any British Prime Minister up to this day. The treaty essentially sanctioned an ultimatum to the Ottoman Sultan, which eventually led to the deployment of the Allied fleets in the Mediterranean and the subsequent destruction of the Turko-Egyptian fleet in the Battle of Navarino on October 20^th 1827.87

• 88 Bass, G. J., Freedom's Battle, pp. 362-369. For a more balanced judgment on this see Rodogno, David (...)
• 89 Bass, G. J., Freedom's Battle, pp. 76-80, p. 348.
• 90 Andreas Louriottis, 'From Andreas Louriottis', in The Correspondence, vol. XI, pp. 204-205. My tran (...)

40The mission of the Navarino squadron is often considered to be the first important case of humanitarian intervention in modern Europe;88 while Bentham’s support of it is often taken for granted despite the fact that no records exist of Bentham commenting on the military intervention against the Turko-Egyptian fleet in Navarino.89 Considering Bentham’s close involvement in the early stages of the Greek struggle, his silence on the 1827 military intervention is in itself telling of his cold stance on the option of an international intervention. Indeed, the records tell us that in February 1823 Bentham did not satisfy a request coming from an envoy of the Greek National Assembly, Andreas Louriottis, asking him to put pressure on the US President James Monroe in order to put into effect the latter’s rhetorical support of Greece, ‘a Nation that needs their [i.e. the US] protection to secure her rights’.90

• 91 On the double diplomacy carried out by the US with the Greeks and the Turks in defence of their maj (...)

41In fact, the prospect of Greek independence did not set Bentham on the same path as that of Tripoli; that is, the situation did not warrant his lobbying for the support of US military intervention. Arguably, the Greek case was much more complex than the Libyan one. The Greeks worked hard in order to make their struggle heard and supported, contributing to turn their civil war into an international crisis around which many geopolitical interests gravitated.91 In these circumstances, an external intervention was likely to produce a much less predictable outcome. The Tripolitan case was instead a rather different affair, one where the people of Tripoli were unaware targets (or, from Bentham’s point of view, beneficiaries) of a secret plan to modify their political system and, eventually, overthrow the Pasha. In short, Greece presented a tougher challenge for Bentham’s ‘moral casuistry’ than Tripoli did. The difficulties in detecting a convincing alignment of self-regarding and other-regarding interests and, thus, in interpreting the dictates of ‘effective benevolence’ in the Greek context, did arguably foster in Bentham a more prudential approach to military intervention, compared both to the predominant interventionist sentiment among the British public opinion and the position that he himself held on Tripoli during those same years.

• 92 St. Clair, W., That Greece Might Still Be Free, pp. 51-65, pp. 160-163.
• 93 Bass, G. J., Freedom's Battle, p. 48.
• 94 Bass, G. J., Freedom's Battle, pp. 76-87, pp. 368-369. See also St. Clair, W., That Greece Might St (...)
• 95 Rosen, F., Bentham, Byron, and Greece, pp. 219-234. For a comparison of Italian and English Philhel (...)
• 96 Bentham’s humanitarianism is a theme that runs through all of Gary Bass’ book. See, for instance, B (...)

42The strong British public drive for intervention was certainly based on a genuine sense of common humanity and sympathy for the Greek people. Philhellenism thrived amid public opinions in European Countries;92 and the London Greek Committee – which has been recently called 'the distant but unmistakable ancestor of Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch’93 – played a central role in promoting financial and military assistance to Greece.94 However, we should not overlook the fact that the London Greek Committee was not an ideologically uniform creature. The support for the Hellenic cause reflected different political sensibilities and rationalities.95 Ultimately, Bentham’s militancy in the Committee and his engagement with the Greek cause were not grounded in the predominant romantic Philhellenism symbolised by Lord Byron nor, as we can imagine, in the alleged natural rights of the Greeks.96 Conflating Bentham’s Philhellenism with a supposed humanitarianism ante-litteram would entail, at the very least, ignoring his persistent critique of natural jurisprudence. More importantly, it risks distorting his thought and our understanding of his moral reasoning.

• 97 Rosen, F., Bentham, Byron, and Greece, pp. 88-89.
• 98 Bentham, J., 'Greece-Constitution, observations', UC xxi, p. 192. Quoted in Rosen, F., Bentham, Byr (...)
• 99 Bentham, 'Greece-Principles of legislation as to constitutional law', UC xxi, 264. Quoted in Rosen, (...)
• 100 Bentham, J., 'Observations by an Englishman', in Securities against Misrule, p. 254.

44As we have seen with reference to Tripoli, Bentham was eager to see ‘Mohamedan despotism’ overthrown by the successful establishment of democratic constitutions and good government. For this purpose, he thought, it was of paramount importance to bring the Muslim population of Greece on the side of the newly established democratic regime. The willingness and the capacity to integrate them into citizenship and civic responsibility – to make them ‘good Citizens’ – would have been determining factors for the successful establishment of a new democratic regime in Greece and in Ottoman territories more broadly.97 In his 1823 ‘Observations’ on the new Greek Constitution – and more explicitly in the manuscript version that was not sent to Greece98 – Bentham criticised the exclusion of Muslim and Jewish populations from suffrage and elective office, arguing that it produced negative effects on both the oppressed and the oppressors. Yet, he also admitted that since the Greeks were fighting to secure their own state from the Turks, the happiness of the excluded was a ‘secondary object’ to the security ‘of the political community in question’.99 A benevolent conduct of the Greeks towards the Turks was thus forbidden by the dictates of self-regarding prudence, which suggested to the former the paramount interest of securing themselves against the possibility of hostility on the part of the Turks. Bentham tried to reconcile this tension by explicitly appealing to his notion of ‘effective benevolence’, which dictated instead that the Greeks should treat the Muslims ‘with as much kindness as the indispensable regard for your own [i.e. Greek] safety will permit’.100

• 101 Bentham, J., 'Observations by an Englishman', in Securities against Misrule, p. 255.
• 102 Bentham, J., 'Greece: Principles of Legislation as to Constitutional Law', in Securities against Mi (...)
• 103 Bentham, J., 'Constitutional Code: Greece', in Securities against Misrule, p. 263.
• 104 Bentham, J., 'Bentham to Blaquiere', in The Correspondence, vol. XI, pp. 215-216.

45The restriction on ‘Mahometan and Jewish Natives’ to access military training and possess certain kinds of weapons – the most destructive ones – was one of the conditions that the Greeks had to respect in order to keep their benevolent conduct towards other minorities effective. Indeed, they could not discount a dictate ‘suggested by the indispensable care of self-defence’.101 Here again, this time with reference to a concrete example, we find Bentham defending the moral quality of self-interest. As he clarified, it was ‘by its excess therefore and not by its existence that by this self-preference harm is done’.102 It was only in consideration of ‘self-preservation – an altogether unopposable law’ that the liberty of the ‘Mahometans’ had to be constrained. Yet this ‘exclusion’ was based on them being ‘natural and, for a time, unhappily irreconcilable enemies’. Indeed, Bentham went on to insist that the exclusion had to be temporary: ‘No sooner has the danger ceased than self-regarding prudence joins with effective benevolence in dictating the removal of the antisocial bar’.103 Thus, Bentham saw the concession of political and civil rights to Muslims in Greece as compatible and conducive to the long-term security of the Greeks, but there was more to it. In a 1823 letter to Blaquiere, Bentham further argued that granting political rights and participation to Muslims in Greece would make them ‘willing instruments for the liberation of the subjects of the Barbary Powers from the existing Despotisms; people are everywhere prepared for it’. As we read on, we get a clearer grasp of the bottom line of his argument, which he expresses in these terms: ‘Natural and supposed irreconcilable enemies would thus be converted into grateful and steady allies’.104

• 105 For a similar reading see Burns, James Henderson, 'Happiness and Utility: Jeremy Bentham's Equation (...)

46The argument about treating the Muslim minority with ‘effective benevolence’ was thus the result of his modified geopolitical reasoning. Bentham was arguing for the strategic importance of respecting a religious minority in view of the possible democratisation of other despotic countries in the Middle East. As in the case of Tripoli, his utilitarian mode of reasoning conveyed the prospect of a domino effect that could stimulate the democratisation of the area, the flows of capital and, ultimately, the expansion of the international system. Unlike Tripoli, in this case he did not see military intervention as a viable option and one conducive to these goals. To adequately discern the tangle of interests at stake was a very hard task, which made locating their overlap an even more difficult one. Ultimately, in both cases (Tripoli and Greece) Bentham’s reasoning was underpinned by the conviction that representative democracies based on constitutional government were the most conducive to the greatest happiness of the greatest number. He believed that a state governed by a democratic constitution and according to the principle of utility would necessarily be contributing not only to the wellbeing of the national community but also to that of the broader international community.105 It is only within the bounds of such a logic that we can talk of a cosmopolitan Bentham. His principled moral casuistry on the legitimacy of intervention that I have examined in this article is indeed an instantiation of his commitment to a cosmopolitanism, not driven by benevolence as such, but by ‘effective benevolence’.