Econlib

The Library

Other Sites

Front Page arrow Titles (by Subject) arrow CHAPTER I.: CHARACTERS COMMON TO ALL THESE FALLACIES. - The Works of Jeremy Bentham, vol. 2

Return to Title Page for The Works of Jeremy Bentham, vol. 2

Search this Title:

Also in the Library:

Subject Area: Economics
Subject Area: Political Theory
Subject Area: Law
Topic: Property

CHAPTER I.: CHARACTERS COMMON TO ALL THESE FALLACIES. - Jeremy Bentham, The Works of Jeremy Bentham, vol. 2 [1843]

Edition used:

The Works of Jeremy Bentham, published under the Superintendence of his Executor, John Bowring (Edinburgh: William Tait, 1838-1843). 11 vols. Vol. 2.

Part of: The Works of Jeremy Bentham, 11 vols.

About Liberty Fund:

Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.


CHAPTER I.

CHARACTERS COMMON TO ALL THESE FALLACIES.

Upon the whole, the following are the characters which appertain in common to all the several arguments here distinguished by the name of fallacies:—

1. Whatsoever be the measure in hand, they are, with relation to it, irrelevant.

2. They are all of them such, that the application of these irrelevant arguments affords a presumption either of the weakness or total absence of relevant arguments on the side on which they are employed.

3. To any good purpose they are all of them unnecessary.

4. They are all of them not only capable of being applied, but actually in the habit of being applied, and with advantage, to bad purposes; viz. to the obstruction and defeat of all such measures as have for their object and their tendency, the removal of the abuses or other imperfections still discernible in the frame and practice of the government.

5. By means of their irrelevancy, they all of them consume and misapply time, thereby obstructing the course, and retarding the progress of all necessary and useful business.

6. By that irritative quality which, in virtue of their irrelevancy, with the improbity or weakness of which it is indicative, they possess, all of them, in a degree more or less considerable, but, in a more particular degree such of them as consist in personalities, they are productive of ill-humour, which in some instances has been productive of bloodshed, and is continually productive, as above, of waste of time and hindrance of business.

7. On the part of those who, whether in spoken or written discourses, give utterance to them, they are indicative either of improbity or intellectual weakness, or of a contempt for the understandings of those on whose minds they are destined to operate.

8. On the part of those on whom they operate, they are indicative of intellectual weakness: and on the part of those in and by whom they are pretended to operate, they are indicative of improbity; viz. in the shape of insincerity.

The practical conclusion is, that in proportion as the acceptance, and thence the utterance of them, can be prevented, the understanding of the public will be strengthened, the morals of the public will be purified, and the practice of government improved.