Liberty as a Caricature: Bentham's Antidote to Republicanism 1

Bentham's role in this discussion was that of a political moderate, poised between Whiggism and Toryism, much like that of one of his primary sources of inspiration, David Hume.5 Later on in his career, Bentham changed his views and became a radical and a democrat,6 but in the period discussed in this article, the 1770s and 1780s, he was critical of the protodemocratic discourse generated by supporters of the American Revolution on both sides of the Atlantic. The article interprets Bentham as a subversive critic of the republican tradition, who adopts its characteristic concern with the security of rights under the rule of law, while simultaneously developing strategies for challenging the republican account of the free state as internally and externally selfgoverning.