Dickens' Hard Times and the Critique of Utilitarianism

Introduction: Dickens and Utilitarian Social Critique

In his novel Hard Times, Charles Dickens is not shy in confronting what he sees as the paramount social evils of his day, particularly when those evils come in the form of ostensibly beneficent social movements. In particular, Dickens satirizes Jeremy Bentham's Utilitarianism through the characterization of Thomas Gradgrind and Josiah Bounderby as men of cold reason and hard facts, and uses the fates of the various characters to demonstrate the destructive potential of Utilitarian ethics when applied without a comprehensive, objective standard for determining good and bad.

By considering the characterization of Gradgrind, Bounderby, and others alongside the philosophy of Utilitarianism as expressed in Jeremy Bentham's The Principles of Morals and Legislation, it becomes clear that Dickens' target is not just Utilitarianism in general, but specifically the way Utilitarianism purports to represent a reasonable, objective moral metric when in reality it represents nothing more than majority rule and arbitrary standards for determining benefit and harm.

Bentham's Utilitarianism and Its Logical Flaws

Before considering Hard Times in greater detail, it is useful to examine the philosophy of Utilitarianism itself, in order to better understand how Dickens' depictions of Gradgrind and Bounderby represent a satirization of Utilitarianism's worst practical effects. In 1780, Jeremy Bentham produced what is arguably the first Utilitarian text with his book The Principles of Morals and Legislation, which purports nothing less than to take "for its subject matter the totality" of a science—in this case, the supposedly scientific and objective reasons underpinning both morals and legislation.^[1] Already one may observe that Bentham, and subsequently Utilitarianism, plays somewhat loose with the notion of science, because what Bentham describes does not proceed along the same lines of critical rigor commonly expected of scientific texts. As will be seen, legislation and social structuring based on Utilitarian assumptions labeled as science constitute one of Hard Times' central targets, because appealing to the supposed authority of science and reason is the primary means by which Gradgrind and Bounderby seek to shore up their power.

In The Principles of Morals and Legislation, Bentham describes the principle of utility as "the principle which approves or disapproves of every action whatsoever, according to the tendency which it appears to have to augment or diminish the happiness of the party whose interest is in question: or, what is the same thing in other words, to promote or to oppose that happiness."^[2] Bentham goes on to describe utility as "that property in any object, whereby it tends to produce benefit, advantage, pleasure, good, or happiness [...] or to prevent the happening of mischief, pain, evil, or unhappiness to the party whose interest is considered."^[3] An issue arises here due to the imprecision of Bentham's language: he does not sufficiently define what is meant by "mischief, pain, evil, or unhappiness," such that actions deemed "in the best interest" of the individuals they affect can in fact do more harm than good, even when those actions are seemingly justified by the principle of utility from the perspective of the actor.^[4]

This problem is compounded by Bentham's next major argument. When he asserts that "the interest of the community then is [...] the sum of the interests of the several members who compose it," he moves from a poorly constructed definition of benefit and harm to a notion of the social contract that appears content with the suffering of minorities.^[5] By definition, the interests of the minority regarding any given topic will not outweigh those of the majority, such that under the principle of utility it is perfectly reasonable to disregard minority interest and opinion, since it does not constitute "the interest of the community" so long as it stands in opposition to the majority's interests.^[6] In other words, within Utilitarianism there is no inherent check on majority rule—or tyranny—because there is no moral obligation to consider the interests of the individual when those interests conflict with what is deemed the interests of the community. Furthermore, this lends itself to abuse in practice, because those individuals determining actual social and legal policy are often the beneficiaries of an already unjust system and are therefore unlikely to judge impartially what actually constitutes the best interests of the majority.

Bentham goes on to describe "a partizan of the principle of utility," and this description serves as an ideal introduction to the primary characteristics of both Gradgrind and Bounderby, for each could be considered a version of this partizan. Bentham states:

"A man may be said to be a partizan of the principle of utility, when the approbation or disapprobation he annexes to any action, or to any measure, is determined by and proportioned to the tendency which he conceives it to have to augment or to diminish the happiness of the community: or in other words, to its conformity or unconformity to the laws or dictates of utility."^[7]

The Subjectivity Embedded in Utilitarian Science

It is worth noting that for Bentham, a person might be considered a partizan of the principle of utility not based on whether his or her actions actually produce benefit or harm according to any objective standard, but rather based merely on this individual's perception of the effect—that is, it depends only on "the tendency which he conceives" any action "to have to augment or diminish the happiness of the community," and not on whether the action actually has this tendency.^[8] By failing to provide an objective measure by which actions might be judged beneficial or harmful, Bentham ensures that Utilitarianism will always be susceptible to the dictates of personal, selfish interest, because there is no metric for judging the moral or ethical worth of one's actions except one's own opinion regarding what is best for society.

Bentham does attempt to justify his theory by alluding to a kind of scientific schema, but even a brief examination reveals that it is entirely unscientific. Furthermore, it offers justification for the behavior of Gradgrind and Bounderby, whose cruel or manipulative actions are rationalized in their own minds either by cherry-picking certain facts to make those actions appear reasonable, or because they are so ignorant of what actually benefits human beings—psychologically and materially—that their "reasoned" estimations of the best course of action are in reality nothing of the sort. Bentham attempts to give his philosophy the imprimatur of science by constructing an elaborate schema for defining the various kinds of pain and pleasure, but in doing so he demonstrates how fully Utilitarianism depends upon subjective estimations of objective realities.

Bentham proposes that one can analyze any act according to seven criteria in order to determine its utility, but these criteria do not depend upon any objectively determinable standard, leaving the estimation of what actions have utility up to individuals with no metric for assessing the logical soundness of their own analysis.^[9] Bentham's lack of a truly scientific, self-correcting method of determining correct information permeates Utilitarianism in general, and can ultimately be seen as the foundation of Dickens' critique and satirization of it. Although Dickens focuses on what he views as a dichotomy between "Fact and Fancy," what constitutes "fact" in this context are the poorly researched and poorly reasoned assumptions of privileged men.

Gradgrind: The Fetishism of Facts

Having introduced Utilitarianism as expressed in Bentham's The Principles of Morals and Legislation, we may now investigate Hard Times to determine how and why Dickens satirizes it. One must begin with the character of Thomas Gradgrind, if only because the novel itself does, opening with Gradgrind shouting:

"Now, what I want is, Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them. This is the principle on which I bring up my own children, and this is the principle on which I bring up these children. Stick to Facts, sir!"^[10]

Here Gradgrind echoes the pseudo-scientific air of Bentham's Utilitarianism, and he exposes the ludicrous nature of his own position when he claims that "you can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts," since he offers no evidence to support this assertion and thus fails to demonstrate the devotion to logic and reason he imagines himself to possess.^[11] More ironically still, this assertion is simply wrong—something the reader likely presumes from the outset but which the novel demonstrates over the course of its narrative. Thus, at the very moment Gradgrind is lauding the importance of Facts, he is definitively stating something that is not a fact.

Gradgrind's voice is described as "inflexible, dry, and dictatorial," and this description, together with his appearance, reflects the rigid, authoritarian nature of his philosophy—a philosophy that claims to embody reason but is in reality nothing more than tyrannical dictates about reality grounded in subjective experience.^[12] Even his name contributes to this characterization: one can interpret it literally to mean that he grinds on the minds and spirits of his students. Gradgrind is presented as a laughable if domineering figure who chastises Sissy because she is "unable to define a horse."^[13] By using this as an example of the kind of "fact" Gradgrind cherishes, the novel immediately establishes him as a distinctly unreasonable man made all the more unreasonable by his eternal insistence that this is not the case. Gradgrind is not interested in facts as means for understanding and discussing reality; he appears to appreciate them in and of themselves, independent of any context.