A cup of tea with Professor Philip Schofield

The Bentham Project oversees the publication of The Collected Works of renowned philosopher and reformer Jeremy Bentham. In this episode, Professor Judy Stephenson hears more about the project from Professor Philip Schofield, Professor of the History of Legal and Political Thought, Director of the Bentham Project and General Editor of the Collected Works of Jeremy Bentham. Prof Schofield discusses Bentham’s political views, as revealed in the over 100,000 manuscript pages Bentham bequeathed to UCL upon his death, and why AI offers no help to the project.

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Season 4: A Cup of Tea With… is your chance to share a tea break with inspiring academics from UCL (University College London). Join Professor Judy Stephenson, Professor of Economic History of the Built Environment, to learn how they got into their field and hear insights from their research. Plus, find out how they like their tea!

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Judy Stephenson: Hello. Welcome to A cup of Tea. I'm Professor Judy Stephenson, and I'm going to bring ten questions to our academics about research, about what drives them and about what the challenges ahead are. A cup of tea is a global commodity. It's also a British tradition. Let's get started.

Judy Stephenson: Welcome to A Cup of Tea. I'm Judy Stephenson, Professor of Economic History at UCL. Today I'm going to be having a cup of tea with Professor Phillip Schofield, Professor of History of Legal and Political Thought- Legal and Political Thought. Sorry, such a mouthful. I got tripped up there- We're interested in how academic research changes the world and, tea being a global commodity, but also a great British tradition. Our first question is, what are you having to drink?

Phillip Schofield: We're having some Yorkshire tea. It's- it's very difficult for me to have chosen Yorkshire tea.

Judy Stephenson: Difficult?

Phillip Schofield: Yeah, because I'm from Lancashire. I mean, nothing good comes out of Yorkshire. I suppose that the tea actually comes from Kenya.

Judy Stephenson: Probably.

Phillip Schofield: And lots of good things come out of Kenya, including tea. Yeah. Nothing good comes out of Yorkshire.

Judy Stephenson: Well, thank you because this is- it's rather a pleasure for me to have a decent cup of a decent cup of tea. So welcome. Our first question for you is if you had 1 million pounds today to spend on the research that you wanted to see, what would it be?

Phillip Schofield: Well, first of all, I would say I want 10 million. Because my main work is as general editor of the new edition of the collective works of Jerermy Bentham. And it is a constant struggle to find funds. So, yes, I'll be very pleased to take your million pounds, and we use it in order to progress with the edition. The problem with UK academia, from our point of view, is that there is no long term funding for research projects. So I spent a great deal of my time fund raising, so 1 million pounds would give me- Well, let's say twenty-one years of a researcher or, you know, three researchers for five as well, maybe three researchers for six years each.

Judy Stephenson: And those are postdocs, yeah?

Phillip Schofield: Yeah. And we could, you know, maybe bring out 5 or 6 volumes in that time. Probably more. So with that kind of money, I would probably make sure- we did Bentham- With that sort of money- Rationale of Judicial Evidence, which is a massive five volume text. And if there was a bit left over, maybe Constitutional Code, the rest of Constitutional Code- had been some major writings. I mean, I could go back and say, you know, the Bentham Project, which is doing this work, was established by College Council, University College, in 1959, with an estimate that there would be about 35 volumes in the edition. We are just about to publish volume 37. I think there will be at least 50 more.

Judy Stephenson: Oh, wow.

Phillip Schofield: So it's a massive enterprise. And that's why I think, you know, we have 10 million that might get us to the end of it. So a million would be a very, very nice start.

Judy Stephenson: So let's say we get a million and we got those three postdocs for six years. Yeah. What are they doing?

Phillip Schofield: I mean, there are two sources. One is the printed text, which Bentham himself published. And he probably published 50 pamphlets, works of various sorts. And that really ranges from short pamphlets of 12 to 16 pages right up to the Rationale of Judicial Evidence, which is 2500 pages long. So, if we're starting with manuscripts the first thing we have to do is get an accurate transcript of them. And there's a whole series of- of processes which we have to go through to take those manuscripts and turn them into a coherent text. Just reading Bentham's handwriting is difficult in itself, and with crossings out, interlineations, notes in the margin. And you don't start at page one and go to page 200, the known version of text, because the stuff's all mixed up. Bentham would write and rewrite, you know, so you have to understand what- how, you know, Bentham himself was constructing that text at each major stage in its development. But eventually we'll get a text.

Judy Stephenson: So, I'm a historian, and I work with archival sources a lot, and people say to me, oh, but AI does this for you now. So can machine learning or artificial intelligence help with the transcribing and the gathering before the analysis or what- what contribution can it make to this sort of work?

Phillip Schofield: Yeah. We, as the Bentham project, were very much involved in the transcribers project, which applied artificial intelligence to reading handwritten text. It works very well on straightforward text but the, the people we work with, the computer scientists, those other technicians to Bentham's manuscripts- were particularly interesting because they were challenging in various ways. So far, AI has been hopeless. Absolutely hopeless. Even if AI produces an initial transcript, you then have to check it.

Judy Stephenson: Yeah. This is our experience on things like the customs records, on- on other archival sources. And it makes un- inhuman assumptions about the relationships between different things on the page and stuff as well.

Phillip Schofield: I mean, I mean, the way we operate is we have Transcribe Bentham, which is a scholarly crowdsourcing initiative which has now been going for 15 years, probably one of the longest running digital humanities projects. And we get real people to take images and produce transcripts. And volunteers have produced over 40,000 pages of manuscripts. So we quite- or we now are quite often able to use those initial transcripts as our starting point for transcription, whereas people, you know, to watch have to do them in-house. And we, of course, acknowledge the volunteers in the prefaces to the volumes. So they've made a genuine contribution to the promotion of scholarship, which is fantastic.

Judy Stephenson: This is a huge research impact story again. But- but- so, it's obviously a really fascinating field, the history of laws, but also the Bentham project. Tell me a little bit about how you got into both.

Phillip Schofield: I work on Bentham, I suppose the- the quick answer is because UCL pays me too.

Judy Stephenson: Good reason.

Phillip Schofield: Yeah. I did my first degree at Manchester, and I still remember the conversation now. In those days, you got a scholarship from the Department for Education and Science to do a PhD. It was called a major state scholarship. And you sort of applied to do it at your own university. But then when you got the money, you could go anywhere, you know, you could take it anywhere. And so I had this vision of, you know, going to Oxford or Cambridge. And, you know, becoming a real intellectual. And so I went to see Frank O'Gorman and said, you know, I want to do something in 18th century politics. And I had a plan to work on a group of politicians called the Chathamites. I was always interested in ideas and- and the relationship between things like ideas and practicing in politics. And talking to Dr O'Gorman, he said 'oh, there's nobody Oxford to Cambridge. You can do this. You should go to University College London, to Ian Christie'. And he picked the phone up, talked to Professor Christie, arranged to go for an interview. I did not want to come to London. It seemed a horrible big place, for, you know, a little lad from the centre of Lancashire. But I can honestly say it's the best decision I ever made. One of my examiners was John Dinwiddy, who had just finished a five year stint as general editor of the Bentham Project. I said nothing about Bentham in my thesis. I started reading Bentham and thought 'this is awfully boring'. Come the next summer, having got my PhD, I was applying for teaching jobs and about to go for an interview and I got a letter from John Dinwiddy through the post saying oh, 'there's a one year post at the Bentham Project. Do you want it?' And so, I was offered a one year post. I think as a research assistant.

Judy Stephenson: What year was that?

Phillip Schofield: That was 1984, 1st of October, 1984.

Judy Stephenson: And so- so 30 years later, how many people are behind you, or coming into the project or chipping at your heels?

Phillip Schofield: The trouble of that is how many people have been through the project because of the funding situation. I mean, at the moment there are four of us. Two of us are funded full time by Laws. But my other two researchers are on, well, they call them permanent contacts, but they're temporary, and we've got a new grant application to the AHRC, which we should hear about very soon, which, if it's successful, will secure one post. I mean, the thing about the Bentham project is it's not only an initiative of individual scholars or a group of scholars, or a particular department, it was a central college initiative. Well, I mean, it goes back to the 1930s when a committee was first established to edit Bentham's papers. They had people on it like-

Judy Stephenson: Oh, okay. I need to look that stuff up.

Phillip Schofield: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. And I mean, in fact, the war intervened before they got going, but when- when the committee was- was restablished- well, it was back in the 1950s when A. J. Ayer, the philosopher, was here. He said the college should sell these manuscripts- the Bentham manuscripts of which, you know, there are 18,000 pages in the college library or, sell them to a university that will edit them. So, they decided to set up the Bentham Committee.

Judy Stephenson: So UCL wants to document Bentham and wants to celebrate Bentham. Why? Why is it- why is it important to UCL particularly? I mean, the origin story plus.

Phillip Schofield: So the story you traditionally hear is that Bentham was the founder of UCL and that's why he left his body to college. Of course, neither of those things are true. There is some truth in the first one about him having influence on the founding of the college. I mean, you can argue, I think quite convincingly, that the people who were the real movers and shakers were very close to Bentham. And I'm thinking here of Henry Brougham and James Mill. And that his educational ideas had a very strong influence.

Judy Stephenson: So tell us about the values particularly. I mean, so there's misconceptions about Bentham. Dispel the most common ones and tell me what's particularly relevant to- to the UCL story and those either in those misconceptions or in the truth.

Phillip Schofield: I mean, the misconceptions about Bentham are many, both from serious scholars to, you know, sort of popular imagination. Right from the status of the auto icon, through to the panopticon prison scheme, through to such claims as you know, Bentham was responsible for Hitler, you know.

Judy Stephenson: How do they get the connection to Hitler?

Phillip Schofield: Oh, well, it's something about utilitarianism.

Judy Stephenson: So what's the most popular misconception about utilitarianism?

Phillip Schofield: That you- you often hear it said, you know, utilitarianism doesn't take seriously the distinction between persons. Another is that it leads to the tyranny of the majority. And the thing about utilitarianism and, you know, I'm thinking here of the Benthamite version of it, is that nothing is ruled out. So there are no absolute, let's say, commitments to some particular moral standard or some, you know, the reason that, you know, utilitarians are always open to discuss issues which other people say are taboo. And Bentham wrote one- one one of his most famous critiques was of what were then called natural rights. Today would perhaps be called human rights. You know Bentham, always questioned the dogmatism involved or the claims to infallibility involved in saying that, you know, 'we are laying down these rights and these have always existed and always will exist'. If you thought that was a, say, a claim to infallibility, you've always got to be aware that circumstances may change, and in changed circumstances, different courses of action may be appropriate.

Judy Stephenson: So, being an optimist, is that why UCL- the project is important to UCL, or is that just why it's important to scholarship, you constantly being-?

Phillip Schofield: I mean, Bentham is- is important to UCL in terms of it of its history and its ethos. But it's wider than that in that here you have a major philosopher whose writings are, if you like, buried in manuscripts, a few of which we don't have a proper appreciation because we don't have a proper edition. And Bentham's importance is way beyond UCL. It's to philosophy generally. And the more of the stuff we get out, the more people recognize what a great thinker Bentham actually was.

Judy Stephenson: So today, you know, we're in the middle of an era where, you know, governments are unpicking the basics of rights, democracy, all these sorts of things. What's the Bentham Project got to give us on- on that?

Phillip Schofield: I mean- I mean, on one level, I'd say we're not here to solve problems because we're here to provide the materials for others to solve problems. So, I mean, we have two roles. One is the purely scholarly role of getting the material to act in an authentic way. But having said that, as you- as I then become an interpreter of that material in terms of the issues you've mentioned, Bentham was- was one of the founders of liberalism. He- he regarded himself as a liberal. So there are arguments, there are resources in his writings, which, for supporters of the liberal political system can use. And also to remind themselves of what the important- of what the founders of liberalism saw as important. But that's sort of one aspect of Bentham's thought. But he also had as much to say in terms of the detail of how you might go about achieving these ends. And some of that is, you know, has been overtaken by events, by technology let's say, but the principles are remarkably similar.

Judy Stephenson: So, in terms of- you told us a bit about your current work, in terms of the volumes, and the project. If there's one thing that you could have like two weeks off to do, you know, to finish, what would that be and what are the particular barriers or challenges to doing it at the moment?

Phillip Schofield: So there's nothing that'll take two weeks and then, okay, I need two years. I reckon to produce a Bentham volume, it's about five person years' work.

Judy Stephenson: That's not bad, five personal years.

Phillip Schofield: Yeah, but that's probably what it takes. I mean, a couple of weeks, I could do an article. We've just had a conference in Hamburg for the German Society for Utilitarian Studies on what's called Bentham's political constitutionalism. So on Bentham's democratic theory. So I wrote a piece on that on the chief executive functionaries, as Bentham called it. In other words, the head of state, the monarchy, the monarchy or president in the republic.

Judy Stephenson: What did he make of our little monarchical, you know, fudge that is the parliamentarian sovereignty?

Phillip Schofield: Yeah, I mean, Bentham would have abolished the monarchy and the House of Lords. He had a very different conception of the way in which we could structure our democratic regime. So he rejects the idea of the balance of powers or the separation of powers. He thought in rather in terms of what chains of what he calls subordination superordination to have the people as sovereign, and they would elect a single chamber legislature who would then elect to prime minister and a justice minister. And so the executive and the judiciary would be placed beneath the legislature, and they would be placed beneath the people.

Judy Stephenson: So what is the scariest thing you've ever had to do as a researcher?

Phillip Schofield: I think it's also one of the most interesting things. I went to Colombia in 2002 to Bogota. There's a private university there called Rosario University. And they elected a new rector who was a radical. He was a heart surgeon. Professor Ramirez. And Bentham's books had been banned at Rosario University in, I think, way back in the 1820s. And so as, a gesture, the new rector decided he would have a ceremony to unban Bentham's books. So I was invited over as the Bentham expert to give a talk on Bentham at an extraordinary ceremony. But what I remember was- And I visited another university, and I had to fly to another place in Colombia from Bogota. And I was sitting in my hotel room, the night before, watching the BBC World News and on it came a report saying, 'today in the country, in the world's most dangerous country, Colombia, an airplane has been hijacked'. So that didn't fill me with a great deal of confidence. I mean, it was only when I got to the airport the next morning and saw the plane was packed that I thought, well, everyone else is going, so I should be alright. But that was- that was quite scary at the time. I mean the- Bogota, there were parts of it that were absolutely fantastic. And then the other parts- They wouldn't let me go by myself, I had to be escorted because they say you can go round the corner and you can be in trouble. And the British Council who organised this had a driver and- Going through the streets at night, he wouldn't stop at red lights, it was just too dangerous to stop there. But the people there were amazing. And, you know, apart from feeling scared all the time, it wasn't that. It was a fantastic experience.

Judy Stephenson: Now, normally I have to ask people, what's your favorite author or researcher? Obviously Bentham!

Phillip Schofield: Yeah, no, it's a bit obvious, isn't it?

Judy Stephenson: Yeah, it is a bit obvious, but if there is somebody who you find, either inspirational or challenging or interesting or different in relation to how they address the business of research, who would you say?

Phillip Schofield: Probably one of the, one of the greatest influences on me was, somebody I never met, was Lewis Namier. The British historian who was actually the mentor of my- of Ian Christie, my PhD supervisor.

Judy Stephenson: Okay, so tell us a bit more about Namier.

Phillip Schofield: Namier wrote some very influential books on 19th century British politics and, and in fact, Namier was very dismissive of ideas. So it's just sort of a strange thing to say. But what I admired was the detail and the accuracy of Namier's work. I mean, his famous book was England in the Age of the American Revolution, and he sort of underlies the workings of parliament and tried to show it was all to do with connections. People doing favours for other people. And I was just fascinated by the detail, the research. And so I think, applying that method book to ideas, was very- would categorise what I've tried to do. And we need that in the Bentham edition when we're writing our annotation, because what we try to do is, you know, make the text readable for the modern reader. We don't try and interpret it. We leave that to the secondary literature. But we, you know, we're doing a service, we hope. But you know, where there's an event, a person, explaining it for the sake of the contemporary-

Judy Stephenson: And in a meticulous way. But it adds to impact. I mean, then you see that everything is the old corruption and the connections and the nepotism- persists, you know, 70 years later. For that exact reason, because it is so empiric, I guess. Okay. That's a good one. Okay. So if there were three significant problems in the world, if you think of big problems in the world today, that Bentham and the Bentham project could help, what are they?

Phillip Schofield: I don't think they could help with anything.

Judy Stephenson: They have a lot of useful knowledge! It is useful, you've just justified why it is useful.

Phillip Schofield: But I don't see- that sort of answering problems. It's- I've often thought that if academia's an ivory tower, which it isn't anymore, if it ever was, then we're in the attic. So I think we're, in terms of doing the edition, what we're trying to do bring out the authentic Bentham. And then what impact can that have? I mean, I think one is, is in the area of political thought, and his justification for liberal democracy, which is on the threat. And if you look at the utilitarian tradition, let's say, of Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill together, they have fantastic results. Yeah. So another area might be in relation to prisons. I mean, the panopticon, which has been so criticised, and by all sorts of people from following Foucault, is actually a very humane, and, again, liberal approach to the problem of what you do with people who have committed crimes. You know, the prisoners are not treated like dirt- so, you know, Bentham wants to give these people a chance. It's so different from the vision that Foucault puts forward. Yeah. So, we're working on Bentham's panopticon writings at the moment, so I'm hoping that will have an important aspect there. And the other area is just reform of the law. In his ideal system, he would have abolished the jury. But that was in the context of a codified system of law. Where under the common law he saw it, as the radicals did, as at least potentially offering some resistance to government. For instance, in a trial for sedition, occasionally the jury would let the person off, even though they were guilty of what- being charged? So what Bentham wanted was the inquisitorial system. He said, you know, the point of a trial is to get to the truth as opposed to the adversarial system where it's like you get two sides fighting each other and saying, who's standing at the end?

Judy Stephenson: Do you think that that's still useful today? The inquisitorial system?

Phillip Schofield: Yeah.. I mean, it seems to me to make perfect sense. Don't we want to know what the truth is?

Judy Stephenson: Right. Second last question then. AI. How are you using it? Is it going to- just in terms of your job as a researcher. Is it going to transform your job, or is it going to take your job?

Phillip Schofield: I think it's irrelevant to our job. I call it artificial idiocy. It should be banned from education. This is a Benthamite point. He say- you know, he's talking about learning and he says getting your lesson is an animating experience. So thinking through a problem and coming up with your own solution to it is a pleasure. It gives you pleasure and you lose that by being told what to say by some machine.

Judy Stephenson: Okay. So, understanding Bentham, What are your hopes and fears for academic research and particularly academic research in political economy, laws, our understanding of how society works, going forward.

Phillip Schofield: I mean, I think what I've- what worries me is the way in which quality time is being eroded for many academics. You know, in order to do good research, you need to have space, and increasingly it's been taken away. I mean, what just one example of that in this faculty, the students get one crack at the exam. Now, because of directions from the big bosses, we have to have two exams in summer recently, and that has increased the workload massively.

Judy Stephenson: Yeah. That's taken away a month or so. You have a rising demand. Yeah.

Phillip Schofield: Yeah. So that's just- just one example of the issue. We need quality time to do good research. And people are still trying to do it, under achieving it. But the cost is stress.

Judy Stephenson: Fair enough. Well, this has been a very unstressful but very challenging and interesting cup of tea.

Phillip Schofield: It's a pleasure.

Judy Stephenson: Thank you very much for that. Sharing with us your knowledge on Bentham and everything else. And here's to the rest of the project. And 10 million pounds at least.

Phillip Schofield: Thank you very much.

Judy Stephenson: Thank you. Really enjoyed it.