The tendency to see English utilitarianism as a fundamentally different enterprise from that of the so-called Scottish Enlightenment is mistaken. One must read Hume backwards, which, despite Hume’s own advice, is rarely done by Hume scholars. In doing so, one more fully appreciates the importance of utility to Hume, and Bentham’s subsequent employment of Hume’s ideas.

This article uses the framework of “traditions of thought” and “dilemmas” to problematize and revise the English School’s Expansion Narrative of international relations history in the crucial ninet...