“Secrecy or Silence with Her Finger on Her Mouth”: Jeremy Bentham’s Other Model of Visibility and Power

• Author: Kristen R. Collins
• Published date: 01 August 2022
• Date: 01 August 2022
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/00905917211046659

https://doi.org/10.1177/00905917211046659

Political Theory

2022, Vol. 50(4) 596 –620

© The Author(s) 2021

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DOI: 10.1177/00905917211046659

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Article

“Secrecy or Silence

with Her Finger on

Her Mouth”: Jeremy

Bentham’s Other Model

of Visibility and Power

Kristen R. Collins1

Abstract

To challenge the Foucauldian legacy of Jeremy Bentham’s panopticon prison,

scholars often highlight Bentham’s later writings on the democratic power

of public opinion. In doing so, they reaffirm Bentham’s reputation as a

unreserved proponent of transparency. To recover the limits of Bentham’s

embrace of publicity, I examine the model of visibility exemplified by his

designs for the Sotimion, a residence for unmarried, pregnant women. The

Sotimion draws our attention to Bentham’s appreciation for concealment as

a method of preventing individual and social harms caused by publicity and

his criticisms of ascetic sexual norms. By being able to see visitors without

being seen by them, the residents of the Sotimion would have avoided social

censure while continuing to meet with friends, family, and even lovers. The

Sotimion designs eschewed the panoptic principle, the use of asymmetric

surveillance to reform moral behavior, and offered what I call the “soteric

principle,” the use of asymmetric surveillance to protect the observer

from punishment. By comparing the Sotimion to the Magdalen Hospital for

Penitent Prostitutes and Bentham’s discussions of panoptic institutions for

women, I examine the Sotimion’s distinctiveness while acknowledging its

1Mercatus Center at George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA

Corresponding Author:

Kristen R. Collins, Mercatus Center at George Mason University, Buchanan Hall, 4400

University Drive, Fairfax, VA 22030-4444, USA.

Email: kcollins@mercatus.gmu.edu

1046659PTXXXX10.1177/00905917211046659Political TheoryCollins

research-article2021

Collins 597

1. Subsequent in-text references to the Bentham Papers are abbreviated using

“UC” followed by the box and folio numbers. The digitized collection is

accessible at the link included in the bibliography. While quotations refer to

the digitized manuscripts, I also checked transcriptions from the Transcribe

Bentham initiative, which are available at http://transcribe-bentham.ucl.ac.uk/td/

Transcribe_Bentham.

normalizing effects for residents from lower socioeconomic classes. Just

as the panopticon captured Bentham’s commitment to publicity, applying

the soteric model to Bentham’s theory of public opinion highlights his

commitment to secrecy for protecting critics of government abuses from

retribution.

Keywords

Jeremy Bentham, panopticon, Sotimion, surveillance, public opinion, publicity

“Circulate proposals as soon as Panopt. Estate is secured,” opened Jeremy

Bentham’s July 1794 notes on an institution called the “Sotimion” (Bentham

Papers, Box cvii, Folio 100).1 Bentham envisioned a sign over the entrance to

the panopticon grounds that would have read, “The Sotimion or Establishment

for the preservation of Female delicacy and reputation.” Symbolic paintings

would have adorned the entrance: “Charity with her children, Reputation with

eyes uplifted to heaven, and Secrecy or Silence with her finger on her mouth”

(UC cvii 103). While the sign evoked moralistic rhetoric common to eigh-

teenth-century charitable projects, such as the 1758 Magdalen Hospital for

Penitent Prostitutes, the residence would have served a group that had been

considered too dangerous to benefit from charity: unmarried, pregnant women.

Although Bentham’s Sotimion manuscripts comprise a sliver of his pan-

opticon papers, they present a unique challenge to dominant readings of

Bentham’s thought. Sheldon Wolin’s and Michel Foucault’s influential cri-

tiques have long established the panopticon prison as emblematic of

Bentham’s and liberalism’s embrace of social conformity as a mode of gov-

ernance (Wolin 1960, 348; Foucault 1977, 217). Jeremy Waldron followed

Wolin and Foucault in conceding that Bentham’s philosophy proves a com-

mitment to transparency over privacy fits within the liberal tradition (1987,

147). But the Sotimion designs and the legislative theory in which they are

embedded offer a model of visibility and power that aims to challenge, rather

than replicate, certain moralizing gazes.

Bentham scholars have often problematized the Foucauldian image of

Bentham by emphasizing his commitment to the democratic empowerment