Is big brother watching you? George Orwell satirizes the consequences of totalitarianism and surveillance in his well-known book Nineteen Eighty-Four. Further, Michel Foucault argued more deeply about the power of surveillance in philosophy and created the theory of panopticism that was inspired by the concept of the panopticon. It was developed by Jeremy Bentham, the founder of Utilitarianism, and was proposed by his brother Sir Samuel Bentham, a naval architect and diplomat (Crimmins). Bentham created the integrated, sophisticated concept of the panopticon which “is a disciplinary concept brought to life in the form of a central observation tower placed within a circle of prison cells.” ( The Ethical Center). Additionally, Bentham also believed the concept of the panopticon can be universalized in nearly all industries included but not restricted to prison, hospitals and schools. I deeply agree with Bentham’s idea about the panopticon in prison. I also believe it must be restricted to prisons and should not be universalized in other industries because indiscriminate modern surveillance violates human dignity. 

 

Before further argument about the use of the panopticon, it is necessary to know precisely the structure of a panopticon. Originally, Bentahm evaluated Sir Samuel Bentham’s design, which is called as the “inspection house or the Elaboratory architecture,” in combination with the scheme of “precautionary contrivance which is aiming to support the concepts of safe custody, confinement, solitude, forced labour and instruction” (Bentham, The Panopticon Writing 31). Eventually, Bentham proposed the concept of the panopticon to the public in his book The Panopticon Writing which clarified that a panopticon is a multi-storey circular building. The cells of prisoners occupy the circumference with a window on the outside of each apartment and a whole fence wall on the inside of it. To establish surveillance, a watchtower is positioned in the middle of the building. Bentham created an example of two-story panopticon which he wrote about “taking the diameter 100 feet, this admit of 48 cells, 6 feet wide each at the outside, walls included; with a passage through the building, of 8 or 9 feet” (Bentham, The Panopticon Writing 39). The key for a panopticon is “the usage of backlit effect through the windows”, suggested by Michel Foucault, which “provides people an angle to observe surrounding cells from the opposite side of the light source from the watchtower” (Foucault, The Birth of the Prison 224).

 

The panopticon for prison is acceptable because the criminal has violated the law; thus for the punishment, depriving the right of freedom is a suitable and experienced way to provide retribution through isolation. Michel Foucault, who opposed the panopticon, pointed out in his famous book Discipline and Punishment “The panopticon only preserves the isolation function, but overturns the deprivation of light and cover functions” (Foucault 225). But the most important function for a prison is to restrict a criminal’s right of freedom. The panopticon is equivalent to other prisons because the prison is inborn with the isolation function.

 

Restricting a criminal’s right of freedom is the most reasonable punishment. Some libertarians may argue human dignity is a inborn right and a part of human nature; by using the concept of the panopticon, criminals will be developing a fear of surveillance which violates criminals’ right of privacy and harms their psychological health. But should the criminal have full rights to their body? Suggested by Jacques Thiroux, who wrote the most widely used ethics textbook in the United States, there are five principles for life, “1. life 2. goodness or rightness, 3. justice or fairness, 4. truth telling or honesty, 5. individual freedom” (Thiroux 144). Furthermore, does the panopticon really harm criminals’ psychological health? If they behave well, why do they fear surveillance in prison? A criminal undoubtedly has violated life or the goodness or rightness principle otherwise there is no reason to judge them. There is no difference between putting a criminal in prison or a panopticon in ethical terms because only the fifth individual freedom will be taken, and the criminal will still have their rights in the other four fundamental principles.

 

Human dignity is an important factor to judge whether or not the means are reasonable; in a panopticon, a prisoner's human dignity has not been violated, thus I consider the panopticon a reasonable punishment for crime. To be specific, what is human dignity? Suggested by Dieter Grimm, Judge of German Federal Constitutional Court, “[In Human dignity there] are some inherent qualities in a person that the person cannot forfeit even by doing the worst deed possible” (Grimm, in Sandel, BBC Radio 1:45). There indeed are some arguments about whether a criminal's dignity should or must be treated equally with non-criminals. For example, the Von Metzler case, “On Sept. 27, Mr. Gafgen kidnapped Jakob von Metzler, 11-year-old boy. Then four days later, Mr. Gafgen was arrested and be tortured by police because the boy might [still] be alive if Mr. Gafgen provides the information of the boy.” (Bernstein). Unfortunately, in this case, the boy had already been killed but an important question arose; can the end justify the means? In a radio interview Peter Singer, Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University, provided an argument from the Utilitarian side which he argued “what about the respect for the dignity of the child and if I know that I can save the child and I do not then I am responsible for that child's death” (Sandel, BBC Radio). Dr. Singer provides a strong and firm argument, yet Immanuel Kant stated in his theory of morality ‘The Categorical Imperative’ that “It is immoral to use another person merely as a means to an end and that people must, under all circumstances, be treated as ends in themselves” (Paton). Kant’s theory has been widely considered in law enforcement and the practice of justice. It is necessary to keep human dignity for criminals because if we use the end to justify a means then there will be a great abuse of power in practice and harm innocents, which is the reason why the current law pursues ‘Procedural justice”, “idea of fairness in the process”, not the “substantive justice”, “the liberal and purposive interruption of laws, in order to do justice” (USDOJ, Olaposi). In the panopticon, by using non-continuous monitoring to create a permanent sense of surveillance, it is not violating criminals’ dignity because, whether mental or physical, surveillance is the aim of a prison. Further, there is no reason to consider that surveillance is torture, otherwise the whole prison system is unjust. The reason why a prison provides justice is because it balances the need of substantive justice and procedural justice; it fills a need for any victim to get revenge which is developed from retribution theory. Prisons are also a place to educate criminals. The panopticon is a modified prison which respects a criminal’s dignity the same as a normal prison; if putting a criminal in a prison is not injustice, then putting a criminal in the panopticon should also not be considered as unjust.

 

Punishment is a necessary way to pursue justice; the panopticon is a tool or consequence for the punishment. Thioux mentioned two reasons for punishing crime which he wrote “Punishment is required in order to reestablish the balance of morality” and “the benefits that a society brings to its members carry with them the burden of self-restraint, and anyone who alleviates himself of this burden acquires an unfair advantage” (Thioux 118). Punishment is the way which continuously generates this burden to create a peaceful society. “Because of this burden of self-restraint the freedom from bodily harm or injury and non- invasion of privacy can be established” (Thioux 118). Punishment also corrects the unfair advantages of someone who fails to use self-restraint. The panopticon provides the necessary function to punish. If a man failed to restrain himself, putting him into a panopticon balanced the morality and also provided a necessary deterrent which can generate burden and by depriving the privacy to restore the justice. The panopticon is a rational method to execute the aim of punishment by creating such the burden of acting well and restoration of justice.

 

Following the economic efficiency is making the panopticon better than a normal prison. Utilitarianism is always blamed for ignoring the minority’s rights. Yet in this case, as I argued, the panopticon can be considered a rational institution and reasonable punishment for criminals; their dignity has not been violated. Bentham used the utilitarian principle “maximizing utilities bringing the greatest goods for the greatest people” in the panopticon (Bentham, The Principles of Morals and Legislation 10). The practice of this concept in the panopticon matches modern economic efficiency which means “allocating goods in a way that maximizes the economic well-being of everyone in society.” (Mankiw 149) explained by Greg Mankiw, 21st Chair of the United States White House Council of Economic Advisors. The Panopticon provides more flexible administration and management requiring less funding which produces considerable saved money for other governmental usage including (but not restricted to) education, public welfare, and medical service. The panopticon is a more economic and innovative prison which is matching the economic needs but with the respect for human dignity.

 

Human dignity is inviolationable; universalizing the panopticon is making a catastrophic precedent to violate a rational human being’s dignity. The result of universalized the panopticism of which Foucault wrote in his book discipline and punishment “We are neither in the amphitheatre, nor on the stage, but in the panoptic machine, invested by its effects of power, which we bring to ourselves since we are part of its mechanism” (Foucault, the birth of the prison 304). Similarly suggested by Felluga, Professor of Purdue University, “This form of organization encourages a separation from real people since it turns individuals into statistics and paperwork.” (Felluga). These effects on society can not be denied even by a Utilitarian like Bentham. The core concept for the consequentialist “depends only on consequences” . Yet the vice which is generated by universalizing the panopticon scheme to other areas like school or hospital dominate the consequences and overtake the benefits in economy and management. It undoubtedly violates a rational being’s rights of privacy which is an abuse of punishment. Francis H Bradley Order of Merit, British philosophy, stated his point of view in punishment “Punishment is punishment, only when it is deserved” (26). It is not ethical to universalize the panopticon to other areas as it is immoral to punish a person who is abiding by the law.

 

The typical example of panopticism is the surveillance system, yet only fully surveillance systems as Orwell illustrated in Nineteen Eighty-Four can be considered as panopticism; surveillance for public safety is acceptable and reasonable for administrational needs. Foucault wrote in his discipline and punishment “The panoptic schema, without disappearing as such or losing any of its properties, was destined to spread throughout the social body”; Foucault further explains; "its vocation was to become a generalized function” ( Foucault, the birth of the prison 207). A question Dr Jake Goldenfein, Senior lecturer of the University of Melbourne, posited to The Guardian “Does the fact that we don’t know we’re being watched mean we are being normalised in the way the panopticon was intended to correct behaviour” (Mcmullan) . The modern surveillance system indeed created a schema which is similar but not the same with panopticism. The panopticon schema is aiming to modify and monitor a person’s behavior which is completely opposite for the surveillance system. A surveillance system is a preventative measure for crime and the resort of criminal investigation. Any illegal surveillance in the United States will be sentenced a Class D Non-Violent Felony. Moreover, governmental surveillance is under the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution which means “it protects individuals from unreasonable searches and seizures, and this can protect individuals against surveillance” stated by the Cornell legal information institute. Those regulations made modern surveillance under control and supervised by the public; it made the public more safe not because it monitors every individual, but because it is watching someone who may commit a crime. The panopticon does not have a regulation for the man watching on the tower, but modern surveillance systems have a near complete law that not only protects individuals' rights but also restricts government power in surveillance. In the modern surveillance system, It is important to understand “the balance of power between individuals, or between individuals and groups such as employers or the state,” wrote by Kevin Macnish, University of Leeds, “is therefore an important consideration in assessing what it is that is wrong or dangerous about many forms of surveillance.” Thus, with these legal regulations, it is hard to consider the modern surveillance system as an application of panopticism, and those surveillance indeed increased the safety and decreased the cost of criminal investigations.

 

The panopticon prison is an excellent economic and philosophical design; by contrast, Panopticism will only lead to a totalitarian regime without respect for each human being. Even though, said by Smith Steven from Yale University, “There are no final authorities in that respect in philosophy”. Indeed, political philosophy is not like mathematics which has an exact answer. With postmodern philosophy and raising awareness of human rights and dignity, the panopticon and Panopticism is still a debatable question. I do agree with Jeremy Bentham’s idea of Utilitarianism, yet human dignity and the consequence mentioned by Michel Foucault is non negligible. Macroscopically, around the debates around the panopticon are more likely to be a conflict between utility which is represented by Utilitarianism, Consequentialism versus human dignity which is represented by Kantism, Liberalism represented by John Locke. A skeptic may say “if Aristotle and Locke and Kant and Mill have not solved these questions after all of these years, who are we to think we can solve them?”, but seeking the right answer, suggested by Micheal Sandel, Professor of Government Theory, Harvard University, “is to awaken the restlessness of reason and to see where it might lead”(Sandel, Justice).

 

Big brother cannot be the truth, similar to panopticism. The panopticon is excellent in its efficiency and economic saving; yet it should and must stop at prison construction because it is still preserving the respect of human dignity. Every step the panopticon goes further is a violation of human dignity.

 

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