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CHAPTER V.: THIRD CAUSE—AUTHORITY-BEGOTTEN PREJUDICE. - 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.

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CHAPTER V.

THIRD CAUSE—AUTHORITY-BEGOTTEN PREJUDICE.

Prejudice is the name given to an opinion of any sort, on any subject, when considered as having been embraced without sufficient examination: it is a judgment, which being pronounced before evidence, is therefore pronounced without evidence.

Now, at the hazard of being deceived, and by deception led into a line of conduct prejudicial either to himself or to some one to whom it would rather be his wish to do service, what is it that could lead a man to embrace an opinion without sufficient examination?

One cause is, the uneasiness attendant on the labour of examination: he takes the opinion up as true, to save the labour that might be necessary to enable him to discern the falsity of it.

Of the propensity to take not only facts but opinions upon trust, the universality is matter of universal observation. Pernicious as it is in some of its applications, it has its root in necessity, in the weakness of the human mind. In the instance of each individual, the quantity of opinion which it is possible for him to give acceptance or rejection to, on the ground of examination performed by himself, bears but a small proportion to that in which such judgment as he passes upon it cannot have any firmer or other ground than that which is composed of the like judgment pronounced by some other individual or aggregate of individuals: the cases in which it is possible for his opinion to be home-made, bear but a small proportion to the cases in which, if any opinion at all be entertained by him, that opinion must necessarily have been imported.

But in the case of the public man, this necessity forms no justification either for the utterance or for the acceptance of such arguments of base alloy, as those which are represented under the name of fallacies.

These fallacies are not less the offspring of sinister interest, because the force of authority is more or less concerned. Where authority has a share in the production of them, there are two distinguishable ways in which sinister interest may also have its share.

A fallacy which, in the mouth of A, had its root immediately in interest—in self-conscious sinister interest—receiving utterance from his pen or his lips, obtains, upon the credit of his authority, credence among acceptors in any multitude. Having thus rooted itself in the minds of men, it becomes constitutive of a mass of authority, under favour of which, such fallacies as appear conducive to the planting or rooting in the minds of men in general, the erroneous notion in question, obtain, at the hands of other men, utterance and acceptance.

2. Having received the prejudice at the hands of authority—viz. of the opinion of those whose adherence to it was produced immediately or mediately by the operation of sinister interest,—sinister interest operating on the mind of the utterer or acceptor of the fallacy in question, prompts him to bestow on it, in the character of a rational argument, a degree of attention exceeding that which could otherwise have been bestowed on it; he fixes, accordingly, his attention on all considerations, the tendency of which is to procure for it utterance or acceptance, and keeps at a distance all considerations by which the contrary tendency is threatened.