economics Archives - Sci Phi Journal

Fiction

Bentham In Heaven

by Alexander B. Joy

[An idyllic English village. Sunlight dapples cobblestone streets that wind unhurriedly past low stone buildings and green fields. By contrast, busy VILLAGERS bustle at diverse labors, industrious but clearly flagging. From the town hall stumbles the philosopher JEREMY BENTHAM, looking dazed and haggard.]

BENTHAM: Egad! I did indeed pray for a swift escape from my sufferings, but I could have done with some warning as to when they’d be answered! Being whisked such a great distance, and at such blinding speed, could be mistaken for yet another inventive torture. Ugh—

[He retches in a nearby hedge. Passers-by study him with concern.]

FIRST VILLAGER: This man needs help!

SECOND VILLAGER: Let’s give him an anti-emetic. Where’s the pharmacist?

[The onlookers produce a man in a white coat.]

PHARMACIST: Apologies. Nausea medication must all go to the sailors, for whom it will do the most good. This gentleman will be sick for only a short time, whereas nausea is the common lot of our seafarers.

THIRD VILLAGER: That settles it. Carry on, everybody!

[The crowd disperses to their various preoccupations. Bentham surfaces from the hedge.]

BENTHAM: Where am I? And why does everyone appear so tired? These surroundings rather resemble Derry Hill – the village near Bowood House, where I spent many a youthful day at my patron Lord Lansdowne’s invitation. But surely I’ve not been carried back into the past?

[A weary male voice of familiar timbre reaches Bentham from afar.]

FAMILIAR VOICE: No, dear friend. This is the present – and, if all proceeds as designed, your future.

BENTHAM: Hark! Could it be—?

[He finds JOHN STUART MILL, the utilitarian philosopher, straining to flatten lemons in a press. The juice flows into an odd contraption that dispenses glasses of iced lemonade, which villagers intermittently snatch.]

BENTHAM: Mill, my boy! After what I’ve been through, the pleasure I feel upon seeing you verges on indescribable.

[Mill pauses his work, wiping sweat from his brow. The two men embrace, though both are unsteady on their feet.]

MILL: I’m glad to hear it, Bentham. But pardon me if I say that I hope it’s the least happiness you experience here. With any luck, your stay will involve pleasures of an even higher order.

[He returns to his lemonade press.]

BENTHAM: A higher order? What do you mean by that, my boy?

MILL: Oh, I’d forgotten that you passed away long before I published Utilitarianism, and never had the opportunity to read it. Allow me to explain the term. You recall the Greatest Happiness Principle, of which you were among history’s foremost pioneers?

BENTHAM: Indeed I do. All the more so since it has caused me no end of mischief after death! It holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness – that is, pleasure and the absence of pain – and wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness, namely, pain and the privation of pleasure.

MILL: You took the words right out of my mouth – and, incidentally, my book. Yes, all action serves some end, and actions take their moral character from the ends they serve. We long ago concluded that pleasure and freedom from pain are alone desirable as ends. In addition, we reasoned that all desirable things (numerous though they are) are desirable either for their inherent pleasure, or as a means to promote pleasure and prevent pain.

BENTHAM: Yet, if I search for an intuitive meaning of “higher-order pleasure,” I must suppose that some of these pleasures may be assigned a place in a hierarchy, with some being preferable to or more important than others?

MILL: Correct. Our principles of utility allow that some pleasures are more desirable or valuable. For we do, after all, require means of determining which pleasure should take precedence when two or more come into conflict. Therefore we must judge them not only by their quantity, but by their quality. Lemonade?

[Bentham accepts the proffered glass, taking a meditative sip.]

BENTHAM: Have you a method for weighing the quality of pleasures?

MILL: There is a way to ascertain what makes one pleasure more valuable than another merely as a pleasure, irrespective of its being greater in amount. Of two pleasures, if there exists one that all (or almost all) who have experience of both prefer, then it is the more desirable pleasure. Furthermore, if one pleasure is, by those competently acquainted with both, placed so far above the other that they prefer it regardless of whether it’s attended with a greater amount of discontent, and would not surrender it for any quantity of the other pleasure, then we may ascribe to the preferred enjoyment a superiority in quality, so far outweighing quantity as to render it of small account in comparison.

BENTHAM: So, for instance, while all men take pleasure from a hearty meal, they may deem that comparatively fleeting joy less satisfying than, say, the lifelong companionship conferred by a good novel – even though reading taxes the faculties more than eating does. In which case, we’d dub the novel a higher-order pleasure than the meal.

MILL: Indeed, though we should perhaps discuss that comparison with other people, for we are apt to rate art and literature more highly than the average person.

BENTHAM: In any event, I’m curious to learn what could constitute a higher pleasure than reuniting with old friends among such agreeable surroundings.

MILL: About that…

ANOTHER FAMILIAR VOICE: Ah, a new arrival! First-timer, I presume?

[Enter RIMMON, whose guise now appears considerably more angelic than the genial demon’s we remember.]

BENTHAM: Oh, God! You again?

RIMMON: Why, if it isn’t Mr. Bentham! Fancy seeing you here.

BENTHAM: But I thought I’d escaped Hell at last…

[Rimmon raises a glass of lemonade.]

RIMMON: And so you have, sir! But I, too, am moving up in the world. Seems I’ve been awarded a promotion. Fulfilling my punitive role in the afterlife with such aplomb must have produced considerable utility. Perhaps I have you to thank for that? Ha ha!

BENTHAM: Torturing me was a good thing?!

RIMMON: Since you were the first to welcome our new guest, Mr. Mill, I trust you’ve apprised him of how things work in this place?

MILL: We hadn’t quite reached that part.

RIMMON: No matter! Why don’t you return to your higher-order pleasures? I’ll bring Mr. Bentham up to speed myself, and help him find a suitable occupation.

[Mill resumes operating the lemonade press with all his waning might.]

BENTHAM: I must admit, Mr. Rimmon, watching my friend Mill – and his neighbors – toil like this fills me with concern, if not dread. I imagined Heaven being more restful.

RIMMON: Fear not, Mr. Bentham! What you witness Mr. Mill and others practicing is a spiritual restfulness. A peace, and pleasure, of the greatest kind.

[Mill slumps to the ground, spent.]

BENTHAM: But Mill hardly looks rested. Why, he even seems to have fainted from his exertions! We must tend to him!

RIMMON: He’ll be fine. Not like he can die a second time, ha ha! At any rate, before we set you on the path of peace and pleasure, further explanations are evidently required to ease your mind. Let’s start with a question. Would you suppose that the pleasures of a fish are greater, or of a higher order, than a human being’s?

BENTHAM: I imagine not. Humans enjoy certain pleasures that, as far as I know, are inaccessible to fish. Both species may appreciate satiety, but we hear nothing of fish drama, or fish poetry, or fish politics. One presumes it’s because fish are lesser creatures, lacking whatever advanced faculties enable us to perceive and pursue such pleasures.

RIMMON: Reasonable enough. A follow-up question, sir: Would you presume a fish capable of greater suffering than a human being?

[The unconscious Mill moans. Bentham nurses his glass.]

BENTHAM: I think it unlikely. Fish may contend with predation – a situation mercifully foreign to human experience – but being eaten fundamentally amounts to pain of the body, with which all sentient beings are acquainted. I’d hazard that greater suffering follows from, say, losing a child, or… Witnessing the collapse or perversion of one’s life’s work. Concepts that are perhaps unknown and unknowable to the minds of fish.

RIMMON: So beings of higher faculties require more to make them truly happy? And are probably capable of more acute suffering – and certainly accessible to it at more points – than beings of inferior types?

BENTHAM: Our prior encounter must have proven to you the immensity of man’s capacity for suffering, Mr. Rimmon.

RIMMON: Ah, Mr. Bentham, you shall make me nostalgic! But permit me another question. Would you trade places with the fish, so that you might possess its diminished capacity for suffering?

BENTHAM: On no account! I’d lose far more than I’d gain by that transaction.

RIMMON: Aha! This is key. In spite of the liabilities, one never wishes to sink into a lower grade of existence. One wishes to ascend – to experience pleasures of the highest order that one is capable of attaining.

BENTHAM: Agreed.

RIMMON: Then you’re in luck, for it’s precisely those pleasures that Heaven aims to provide.

[Mill moans more plaintively.]

BENTHAM: Forgive my saying so, Mr. Rimmon, but I am uncertain that I witness pleasure of any order here, high or low. My eye perceives only struggle, overwork, and exhaustion.

RIMMON: Because you look at it the wrong way, Mr. Bentham! Be a good utilitarian and consider the actions you’re seeing not in themselves, but in terms of the ends they serve. Our friend Mr. Mill isn’t working himself into the ground for the hell of it. He does so for the heaven of it. His stint at the lemonade press provides relief and refreshment to the afterlife’s other denizens, who then turn their efforts to everyone else’s betterment according to their abilities – via baking bread, stitching books, crafting furniture, or what have you. In this way, all here contribute to the aggregate happiness.

BENTHAM: But they look so unhappy doing it…

RIMMON: Did you not concur with Mr. Mill that certain higher-order pleasures are worth the attendant sacrifice?

BENTHAM: Yes, but… What pleasure are these people sacrificing for?

RIMMON: Why, for the pleasure of a morally good existence.

BENTHAM: Oh dear. Oh dear. I think I begin to understand.

RIMMON: Ask yourself honestly, Mr. Bentham: Is there a pleasure of a higher order than doing good? Than knowing your deeds increase the sum of the world’s happiness? Than living with a clear conscience, confident of your virtue and the rightness of your actions? This is what Heaven offers, Mr. Bentham: Unending opportunity to enjoy the highest-order pleasure available to the highest mode of being.

BENTHAM: Now I see. If good is a product of action, it’s improper to conceptualize it as a state of being. Good is more like a transitive verb. One never is good; one can only do good.And if Heaven is the place of greatest good, that means it’s the place where the most good is done. Therefore Heaven is a space of perpetual doing, now and forever…

RIMMON: Quite so, sir. But don’t believe for a moment that anyone here is compelled into a life of virtue! Most of our residents want to be here. Lest we forget, everybody’s actions on earth continue to reverberate through time. Most people in Heaven are eager to bolster their overall utility, and hedge against unforeseen consequences in the mortal realm that may weigh against them in the ongoing ethical calculus.

BENTHAM: Does anyone do otherwise?

RIMMON: One can always opt not to participate in Heaven, either out of distaste for the state of affairs or confidence in their doings on earth. However… You know the alternative. It usually takes but a single trip to my former domain of employment for people to appreciate the order of things here, ha ha! Now, how skilled are you at installing roof shingles? Our latest crop of arrivals need housing, you see, so you can do a great deal of good in that department.

[Mill stirs, regaining consciousness.]

MILL: What’s the matter, Bentham? Don’t despair. Rejoice. We were right all along, and may now live in a perfect world organized according to our principles. More lemonade?

BENTHAM: Am I indeed in paradise, Mr. Rimmon? I confess, it does not appear so.

RIMMON: Word of honor, Mr. Bentham, this is not only Heaven, but also the only Heaven there is. Come now, cheer up. Take heart, sir, in our friend Mr. Mill’s wise words: “It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied.”I suppose that being a philosopher, however disconsolate it leaves you, nonetheless numbers among the highest of pleasures. And in that spirit, I venture to suggest that, however displeasing it may prove, the afterlife examined is the only one worth living.

Bio:

Alexander B. Joy is a writer from New Hampshire who holds a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He is the author of Legend of the River King (Boss Fight Books, 2026) and the editor of Flaxman Low: Occult Detective (MIT Press, 2026). Find him on Bluesky at @aeneas-nin.bsky.social, and see more of his work at alexanderbjoy.com.

Philosophy Note:

This story is a sequel to “Bentham in Hell,” which Sci Phi Journal published back in 2021. Continuing to explore the theme of what a utilitarian afterlife might entail, I decided to investigate Mill’s concept of higher-order pleasures. (He covers this in some depth in Utilitarianism, which is why several of his lines here are adapted from passages in that public domain work.) If Heaven is supposed to be a place where good people are rewarded for a life of virtue, the question for a utilitarian Heaven is what such a reward would look like from a utilitarian perspective. This story arose from taking one possible answer to its most extreme conclusion.

** 2026 Fundraiser: Sci Phi Journal is volunteer-run, ad-free, AI-free, and pays human authors of niche, handcrafted fiction. We rely on donations to keep philosophical sci-fi free to read in 2026 and beyond. If every reader were to donate just a single euro/dollar once a year, we could buy more stories and commission translations. It is your generous support that got us this far. Thank you ✿(◠‿◠) **

Fiction

An Inflationary Problem

by Geoffrey Hart

Grimhelm ran at the troll and at the last possible instant, zigged left, jumped atop a small rock, and redirected his momentum upwards behind the troll’s clumsily swinging club. This maneuver carried him just into reach of the troll’s exposed head. The Dwarf’s heavy axe buried itself to the eyes in the troll’s skull, dropping the beast like an iceberg calving from a glacier. Grimhelm leapt clear just in time, smiling cruelly at his foe’s corpse.

The smile faded, replaced by a frown and curses, when he found that even with Dwarfish strength, he had to struggle to retrieve his axe and when he did, the finely honed edge had crumpled until the weapon was more war-hammer than axe. Not that there was anything wrong with war hammers—Grimhelm was not the kind of Dwarf who was quick to judge—but he was a traditionalist, and only axes were truly Dwarfish weaponry in his opinion.

Sighing, he bent to loot the troll. To his surprise and delight, he found its pouch crammed full of gold coins. Usually you found a double handful of copper, or maybe a few silver if you were lucky. If he couldn’t get his axe replaced under warranty, at least he could buy a new one.

Later, he arrived at the forge and slapped his flattened axe down on the counter.

“You didn’t tell me you were planning to ruin my beautiful axe waling on trolls”, Strongforge grumbled. “I explicitly told you: no waling on trolls. I mean, who fights with trolls these days? Where did you even find one?”

Grimhelm growled at the smith, who held up a pacifying hand.

“All that’s to say that I can’t simply give you a new axe. But I can offer you a very good price on this one.” From beneath the counter, he pulled an even more beautiful axe and handed it to his customer. Grimhelm swung it in a circle, enjoying its weight and balance. Sensing victory, Strongforge named a price. Only years of rigorous practice prevented Grimhelm’s grip from slackening, as this would have released the axe to embed itself in a wall of the forge—or in the smith.

“Surely you jest.”

The smith shook his head. “Wish I were jesting, but you can’t imagine my costs. Iron’s gone through the roof, and don’t even start with me about mithril and adamantium. It’s all I can do to keep the forge lit. Anyway, that’s my price. Take it, or stick with your new”—he frowned and pushed the ruined axe across the counter—“war-hammer”.

Well, at least he’d been wealthy for a few moments, he thought to himself. Grumbling, Grimhelm tipped out the troll’s pouch, counted out the requisite number of coins, and pushed them towards the smith, who handed over the new axe.

It was a truly lovely axe, but as he passed it around the table to be admired, careful not to knock any of the ale mugs to the tavern’s floor, he bemoaned the price.

“You’ve been away adventuring,” smirked Rockhewer, making room for a tray of full mugs and letting the waiter remove the empties. “Wait until you see the price for the ale!”

The waiter turned his back on the Dwarfish frowns and sped off to serve another table.

“He’s right,” Grimhelm observed. “Everything’s more expensive. I’ve no idea how anyone copes. What’s going on? Is it another plot by the Dark Lord? I thought we’d beaten some sense into him the last time?”

Sharpaxe, who was fondling Grimhelm’s new axe in an acquisitive sort of way, looked off into space. “Maybe,” he mused. “It’s something subtle and it has His stench. But honestly? I’ve no idea what’s up.”

The waiter had returned. “Blame the humans,” he observed. He rolled his eyes at the Dwarfs’ incomprehension. “Oh, it’s a Dwarfish problem too. After all, it’s mostly our fault for mining so efficiently.”

Grimhelm frowned. “Come again?”

“We flood the markets with fresh-minted coins, not to mention older ones hoarded by vermin like trolls. Merchants, not being fools, raise their prices to absorb some of that newfound wealth. Everyone else raises their prices so they can afford to pay the higher merchant fees. This cuts into merchant profits, so they raise their fees again. Then kings and other defilers of currency melt down the gold and mix it with lesser metals, forcing merchants to raise their prices to ensure they receive the same amount of buying power as before. And so it goes, prices steadily spiraling upwards—sometimes by great leaps and bounds when you fellows strike a particularly rich vein of gold or some king needs to finance a war.”

Dwarfish heads nodded. “That makes sense,” Grimhelm agreed. “But what can we do about it? If we mine faster, we exacerbate the problem, but if we mine slower, prices still increase because now the merchants want more of the smaller supply of coins. Either way, we’re buggered.”

“Not necessarily,” the waiter replied, eyes glowing with secret knowledge.

“You have a solution?”

The waiter held out an empty palm and grumbling, Grimhelm deposited a gold coin. After biting it to ensure it was real gold, the waiter pocketed it and began speaking.

Grimhelm tipped back his heavy iron helm to reveal sky-blue eyes set deep in a craggy face. Steam rose from where the dragon’s fiery breath had baked off a thick layer of sweat, leaving salty rime behind.

“I said, Dragon, that we need to talk.” He raised his shiny new battleaxe. “Unless you’d prefer that I lop your head off at your shoulders and make it into a table ornament?”

The dragon was frankly bemused. None had ever survived a direct hit from his flame, but then again, he’d never faced one of the Dwarf elders, equipped with enchanted mithril armor. “All right, Dwarf. You have five minutes.” Looking at the axe, the Dragon resolved he’d be long gone by four minutes if the Dwarf hadn’t persuaded him to stay by three. One didn’t live for centuries taking chances with fireproof, dangerous-looking Dwarfs.

Grimhelm smiled coldly. “Wise choice, oh mighty Wyrm. Here’s the problem we face: We Dwarfs delve in the world’s deep places and return, bearing gold and platinum—” he patted his armor “—and even mithril sometimes. Then, there are the gemstones.” Deep in his eyes, a ruby spark kindled. “I don’t think I have to tell you how exciting that is.”

The Dragon nodded. “When I must perforce leave my cavern, I dream until my return of the hoard I left behind. Were it not for those dreams, you’d never have taken me by surprise.”

“Be that as it may,” Grimhelm continued. “We face a problem: we’re victims of our own success.”

The Dragon’s brows furrowed. “How can it be possible to have too much gold?”

One side of the Dwarf’s mouth twitched upwards. “Attend, and I shall enlighten you. May I sit? It’s been a long walk to reach you.”

“And you with such short legs.” The dragon held up a paw to indicate it was joking, then nodded its head towards a flat-topped rock.

“My thanks.” The Dwarf sat with a clinking of armor. “The problem lies in a balance between supply—the gems and precious metals we extract—and demand—the merchants who sell the things we need. When it’s perceived that we have too much gold, the merchants raise their prices to lighten our burden. To maintain a satisfactory supply of gold with which to warm our halls, we must therefore mine more gold, which leads the merchants to raise their prices further. And so it goes, in a never-ending vicious cycle. The humans have a word for it.” The Dwarf spat copiously on the ground. “They call it inflation.”

“I can see that would be tiresome,” the dragon replied, keeping a careful eye on his mental timer. “But what has it to do with me?”

Grimhelm paused a moment to draw a mithril flask from his belt pouch. He took a long sip, hesitated a moment, then offered it to the dragon. When the dragon raised a single skeptical eyebrow, he shrugged sheepishly and put away the flask. “What it has to do with you is this: if you were to withdraw large amounts of the gold from circulation, the quantity would then decrease and each coin would become proportionally more valuable, which means we’d need less of it for our purchases.”

“Which reverses the cycle and restores balance to the Dwarfish—and Human and Elven and Hobbit—economy?”

“Until the Humans decide to defile the coins again,” the Dwarf replied. “Which they do with dismaying frequency. But a little persuasion and zealous monitoring should solve that problem. All we need is somewhere safe to store the gold.” He gestured at the mounds of gold only partially concealed by the Dragon’s bulk. Noticing the acquisitive look that had entered the Dragon’s eyes, he hastily continued. “And by safe, I mean temporarily. That is, no Dwarf should casually undertake to liberate the coinage to support some foolish purchase or other.”

“Enlightenment dawns,” the dragon exclaimed, a cupiditous expression spreading across his face and kindling a fire in his eyes. “And where could be safer than a dragon’s lair?”

“Precisely. There’s one catch: no one must ever hear of this arrangement. If the word gets out, others would sabotage our idea by taking advantage of their knowledge to wager on the currency’s value.”

The dragon mused a moment. “Keeping silent will be no problem; it’s not like I get a lot of traffic here, and most… visitors… aren’t here to gossip.” The dragon licked its lips with a thin, forked black tongue. “And what would my share of the proceeds be?”

Grimhelm grinned, face relaxing. “Ah, that would involve some negotiation.”

“Let us first begin by redefining temporarily as semi-permanently.”

The Dwarf snorted. “I see this may take some time.”

“Fortunately,” the dragon replied, “we are both long-lived beings who have ample time to reach a mutually satisfactory conclusion.”

Bio:

Geoff Hart works as a scientific editor, specializing in helping scientists who have English as their second language publish their research. He’s the author of the popular books Effective Onscreen Editing and Write Faster With Your Word Processor. He also writes fiction in his spare time, and has sold 78 stories thus far. Visit him online at www.geoff-hart.com.

Philosophy Note:

Money-supply inflation is Milton Friedman’s idea; there are other possible causes, and in real-world economics, nothing’s ever as simple as this tale. This story arose from a discussion with Darrell Schweitzer of a blog article by historian Bret Devereaux on the economics of fantasy coinage. Darrell noted: “I have yet to see a fantasy world deal with the concept of hyper-inflation. Inflation can also happen when too much currency floods the market… If all that gold hoarded by Smaug ever got into circulation, Middle Earth would have to switch to the turnip standard. It may be that the fantasy dragon sitting atop the hoard of gold is a device for controlling inflation, a sort of Ft. Knox, whose function is NOT to let that gold get out…”

economics

You might be interested in

You might be interested in