he Philosophic Radicals were a reform movement led by Jeremy Bentham and James Mill. Its members, among them J.S. Mill, John Arthur Roebuck, Albany Fonblanque, and George Grote would make important contributions to English philosophy, politics, and scholarship. Although rooted in Utilitarian thought, not all members of the Philosophic Radicals subscribed to Bentham’s philosophy but rather “were drawn to the group by ties of friendship and social habit” (Thomas 3). They did share, however, certain political views. Specifically, the Philosophic Radicals wanted to build a society based on rationalistic principles. This meant doing away with traditional prerogatives (especially those of the nobility) and taking into account the changed balance of power brought about the Industrial Revolution. However, Bentham’s prominence among the group induced contemporaries to refer to the Philosophic Radicals as “Benthamites” – a derogatory term meant to suggest spiritual dependency and unreserved approval on part of the other members of this group. According to William Thomas’s The Philosophic Radicals: Nine Studies in Theory and Practice, 1817-1841, that “the young utilitarians around John Mill did utter their opinions with a dogmatism which aroused a good deal of hostility” (Thomas 1f) did little to weaken that belief.
John Stuart Mill thought that one way to silence critics and gain popular support were a name that captured what their group actually had in mind, and how they intended to accomplish their political goals. He came up with the term ‘Philosophic Radicals’ to emphasize that they had gained their political convictions by a particular kind of reasoning. In an article from 1837, Mill explained that Philosophic Radicals engage in politics with the mindset of philosophers: “[W]hen they are discussing means, [they] begin by considering the end, and when they desire to produce effects, think of causes” (quoted Thomas 2). One might expect that such aim and definition would meet with the approval of a society whose commitment to feasibility and utility were satirized in works like Dicken’s Hard Times (1854). Yet exactly the opposite occurred. Mill’s programmatic definition prompted public ridicule, and most importantly failed to provide a unifying cause to those radicals already in Parliament. Disillusioned, the Philosophic Radicals soon receded to private life and ceased to be a political force by the 1840s.
There are both external and internal reasons for the failure of the Philosophic Radicals. To begin with, they (as well as the liberal cause as such) suffered a serious blow in the wake of the Reform Act (1832). Cautious as it was, the resulting new electorate was comparatively timid, and the propertied classes eventually managed to regain their constituencies. The more liberal minded, on the other hand, could not agree on precise amendments to the Reform Act. Both Whigs and Radicals hence lost political support to the Chartists. Furthermore, their middle-class outlook and affluent background made the Philosophic Radicals inattentive to the real living conditions of the poor. Besides, their economic convictions made them inattentive to the economic hardships brought about the industrialism and thus added to their alienation from the general populace. Finally, there was their overly optimistic view of politics as an exact science driven by rational debate and the careful presentation of one’s case, which was completely at odds with the way political changes actually come about, and how little people are willing to abandon long-cherished beliefs and traditions.
Related Material
- Introduction
- Philosophical foundations of Unitarianism – John Locke, Moral Sense, and David Hartley
- Unitarianism’s social vision
- “Loose the female mind” – Unitarianism and feminism
- The Unitarian Radicals
- The Monthly Repository
- Unitarianism and Utilitarianism
Bibliography
Thomas, William. The Philosophic Radicals: Nine Studies in Theory and Practice, 1817-1841. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979.
Last modified 24 September 2020