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Subject Area: Political Theory
Subject Area: Law

Moral Sanction. - Jeremy Bentham, The Works of Jeremy Bentham, vol. 10 (Memoirs Part I and Correspondence) [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. 10.

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

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Moral Sanction.

“The greater the communication among men, the greater the efficacy of the moral sanction. [The greater the number is of those persons on whom a man’s happiness may depend, the more is he concerned to aim at general esteem.]

“A Turk shuts himself up in the harem: let him be well spoken of, or ill spoken of, his women will not be less beautiful, nor his slaves less obedient to his will. Without relish for the pleasures of society, he is insensible to that check which consists in the apprehension of being deprived of them. He has but one person to address himself to, for all he wants, or against all he can apprehend: it is his Pasha.

“Montesquieu spoke thus far true, when he said that the support of society in despotic governments was fear, though, in as far as it was said, it was not worth the saying.

“Fear is the support of despotic governments. Fear of what may happen to one, from a certain man.

“Fear is the support of society in republican governments: but it is fear of what may happen to one from any man.

“If it be true, according to the homely proverb, ‘that the eye of the master makes the ox fat,’ it is no less so that the eye of the public makes the statesman virtuous. The multitude of the audience multiplies for disintegrity the chances of detection.”