Utilitarianism (Jeremy Bentham)

Jeremy Bentham (1748) 1832) was an English jurist, philosopher, and legal and social
reformer. He was a political radical and a leading theorist in Anglo-American philosophy of
law. He is best known as an early advocate of utilitarianism and animal rights[1][2] who
influenced the development of liberalism.
Bentham was one of the most influential utilitarians, partially through his writings but
particularly through his students all around the world. These included his secretary and
collaborator on the utilitarian school of philosophy James Mill, James Mill's son John Stuart Mill,
and several political leaders (and Robert Owen, who later became a founder of socialism).
He argued in favour of individual and economic freedom, including:

Separation of church and state;

Freedom of expression;
Equal rights for women;
Animal rights;
Abolition of slavery;
Abolition of physical punishment (including that of children);
The right to divorce;
Free trade;
The defence of usury; and
The decriminalisation of homosexuality

He was in support of:

Inheritance tax;
Restrictions on monopoly power;
Pensions; and

Life
Bentham was born in Spitalfields, London, into a wealthy Tory family. He was a child prodigy
and was found as a toddler sitting at his father's desk reading a multi-volume history of
England. He began his study of Latin at the age of three.
He went to Westminster School, and in 1760 his father sent him to The Queen's College,
Oxford, where he took his Bachelor's degree in 1763 and his Master's degree in 1766. He
trained as a lawyer and (though he never practised) was called to the bar in 1769. He became
deeply frustrated with the complexity of the English legal code, which he termed the "Demon
of Chicane".
Among his many proposals for legal and social reform was a design for a prison building he
called the Panopticon. Although it was never built, the idea had an important influence upon
later generations of thinkers. Twentieth-century French philosopher Michel Foucault argued
that the Panopticon was paradigmatic of a whole raft of nineteenth-century 'disciplinary'
institutions.
Bentham was in correspondence with many influential people. Adam Smith, for example, had
opposed free interest rates before Bentham's arguments convinced him on the subject. As a
result of his correspondence with Mirabeau and other leaders of the French Revolution, he was
declared an honorary citizen of France, but Bentham was an outspoken critic of the
revolutionary discourse of natural rights, and of the violence which arose after the Jacobins
took power (1792).

In 1823, he co-founded the Westminster Review with John Stuart Mill as a journal for the
"Philosophical Radicals" - a group of younger disciples through whom Bentham exerted
considerable influence in British public life.
Bentham is frequently associated with the foundation of the University of London, specifically
University College London (UCL), though in fact he was 78 years old when UCL opened in
1826, and played no active part in its establishment. However, it is likely that without his
inspiration, UCL would not have been created when it was. Bentham strongly believed that
education should be more widely available, particularly to those who were not wealthy or who
did not belong to the established church, both of which were required of students by Oxford
and Cambridge. As UCL was the first English university to admit all, regardless of race, creed,
or political belief, it was largely consistent with Bentham's vision, and he oversaw the
appointment of one of his pupils, John Austin, as the first Professor of Jurisprudence in 1829.
As requested in his will, his body was preserved and stored in a wooden cabinet, termed his
"Auto-icon". Originally kept by his disciple Dr. Southwood Smith, it was acquired by University
College London in 1850. The Auto-Icon is kept on public display at the end of the South
Cloisters in the main building of the College. For the 100th and 150th anniversaries of the
college, the Auto-Icon was brought to the meeting of the College Council, where he was listed
as "present but not voting". Tradition holds that if the council's vote on any motion is tied, the
auto-icon always breaks the tie by voting in favor of the motion.
The Auto-Icon has always had a wax head, as Bentham's head was badly damaged in the
preservation process. The real head was displayed in the same case for many years, but
became the target of repeated student pranks including being stolen on more than one
occasion. It is now locked away securely.
There is a plaque on Queen Anne's Gate, Westminster commemorating the house where
Bentham lived, which at the time was called Queen's Square Place.
Works
Bentham has a complicated publishing history. Most of his writing was never published in his
own lifetime; much of that which was published (see this list of published works) was prepared
for publication by others.
Works published in Bentham's lifetime included:

Fragment on Government (1776). This was an unsparing criticism of some introductory

passages relating to political theory in William Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws
of England. The book, published anonymously, was well-received and credited to some
of the greatest minds of the time. Bentham disagreed with Blackstone's defence of
judge-made law, his defence of legal fictions, his theological formulation of the doctrine
of mixed government, his appeal to a social contract and his use of the vocabulary of
natural law. Bentham's "Fragment" was only a small part of a "Commentary on the
Commentaries", which remained unpublished until the twentieth century.
Introduction to Principles of Morals and Legislation (printed for publication 1780,
published 1789)
Defence of Usury (1787)
Panopticon (1787, 1791). The proposed Panopticon was a prison-house, the
architectural principles of which incorporated novel principles of prison discipline and
administration.
Emancipate your Colonies (1793)
Trait de Lgislation Civile et Penale (1802, edited by tienne Dumont. 3 vols)
Punishments and Rewards (1811)
A Table of the Springs of Action (1815)
Parliamentary Reform Catechism (1817)
Church-of-Englandism (printed 1817, published 1818)
Elements of the Art of Packing (1821)

The Influence of Natural Religion upon the Temporal Happiness of Mankind (1822,
written with George Grote and published under the pseudonym Philip Beauchamp)
Not Paul But Jesus (1823, published under the pseudonym Gamaliel Smith)
Book of Fallacies (1824)
A Treatise on Judicial Evidence (1825)

The essay Offences Against One's Self, argued for the liberalisation of laws prohibiting
homosexuality. The essay remained unpublished during his lifetime for fear of offending public
morality. It was finally published for the first time in 1931.
Several of Bentham's works appeared first in French translation, prepared for the press by
tienne Dumont. Some made their first appearance in English in the 1820s as a result of backtranslation from Dumont's 1802 collection (and redaction) of Bentham's writing on civil and
penal legislation.
John Bowring, a British politician who had been Bentham's trusted friend, was appointed his
literary executor and charged with the task of preparing a collected edition of his works. This
appeared in 11 volumes in 1838-1843: Bowring based his edition on previously published
editions (including those of Dumont) rather than Bentham's own manuscripts, and did not
reprint Bentham's works on religion at all.
In 1952-54 Wilhelm Stark published a three-volume set, "Jeremy Bentham's Economic
Writings," in which he attempted to bring together all of Bentham's writings on economic
matters, including both published and unpublished material. Not trusting Bowring's edition, he
painstakingly reviewed thousands of Bentham's original manuscripts and notes, a task made
monumentally more difficult due to the manner in which they had been left by Bentham and
organized by Bowring.
Bentham left manuscripts amounting to some 5,000,000 words. Since 1968, the Bentham
Project at University College London have been busy working on an edition of his collected
work. So far, 25 volumes have appeared; there may be as many still to come before the
project is completed.
Utilitarianism
Bentham's ambition in life was to create a "Pannomion", a complete Utilitarian code of law.
Bentham not only proposed many legal and social reforms, but also expounded an underlying
moral principle on which they should be based. This philosophy, utilitarianism, argued that the
right act or policy was that which would cause "the greatest happiness of the greatest
number" a phrase of which he is generally, though erroneously, regarded as the author
though he later dropped the second qualification and embraced what he called "the greatest
happiness principle," often referred to as the principle of utility.
Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and
pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as to determine
what we shall do. On the one hand the standard of right and wrong, on the other the
chain of causes and effects, are fastened to their throne. They govern us in all we do, in
all we say, in all we think...
He attributed his theory to Joseph Priestley: "Priestley was the first (unless it was Beccaria)
who taught my lips to pronounce this sacred truth:- That the greatest happiness of the
greatest number is the foundation of morals and legislation."
He also suggested a procedure for estimating the moral status of any action, which he called
the Hedonic or felicific calculus. Utilitarianism was revised and expanded by Bentham's
student, John Stuart Mill. In Mill's hands, "Benthamism" became a major element in the liberal
conception of state policy objectives.

It is often said that Bentham's theory, unlike Mill's, faces the problem of lacking a principle of
fairness embodied in a conception of justice. In "Bentham and the Common Law Tradition",
Gerald J. Postema states, "No moral concept suffers more at Bentham's hand than the concept
of justice. There is no sustained, mature analysis of the notion ..." (ibid, p. 148). Thus, some
critics object, it would be moral, for example, to torture one person if this would produce an
amount of happiness in other people outweighing the unhappiness of the tortured individual cf. "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas". However, as P. J. Kelly argued in his book,
Utilitarianism and Distributive Justice: Jeremy Bentham and the Civil Law, Bentham had a
theory of justice that prevented such consequences. According to Kelly, for Bentham the law
"provides the basic framework of social interaction by delimiting spheres of personal
inviolability within which individuals can form and pursue their own conceptions of wellbeing." (ibid, p. 81). They provide security, a precondition for the formation of expectations.
As the hedonic calculus shows "expectation utilities" to be much higher than natural ones, it
follows that Bentham does not favour the sacrifice of a few to the benefit of the many.
Economics
His opinions about monetary economics were totally different from those of Ricardo; however,
they had some similarities to those of Thornton. He focused on monetary expansion as a
means of helping to create full employment. He was also aware of the relevance of forced
saving, propensity to consume, the saving-investment relationship and other matters that
form the content of modern income and employment analysis. His monetary view was close to
the fundamental concepts employed in his model of utilitarian decision making. Bentham
stated that pleasures and pains can be ranked according to their value or dimension such as
intensity, duration, certainty of a pleasure or a pain. He was concerned with maxima and
minima of pleasures and pains, and they set a precedent for the future employment of the
maximization principle in the economics of the consumer, the firm and the search for an
optimum in welfare economics (Spiegel, p. 341-343).
Animal rights
Bentham is widely recognised as one of the earliest proponents of animal rights. He argued
that animal pain is very similar to human pain, and that "[t]he day may come when the rest of
the animal creation may acquire those rights which never could have been witholden from
them but by the hand of tyranny." Bentham argued that the ability to suffer, not the ability to
reason, must be the benchmark of how we treat other beings. If the ability to reason were the
criterion, many human beings, including babies and disabled people, would also have to be
treated as though they were things. He wrote:
It may one day come to be recognised that the number of the legs, the villosity of the
skin, or the termination of the os sacrum are reasons equally insufficient for
abandoning a sensitive being to the same fate.
What else is it that should trace the insuperable line? Is it the faculty of reason or
perhaps the faculty of discourse? But a full-grown horse or dog is beyond comparison a
more rational, as well as more conversable animal, than an infant of a day or a week or
even a month old. But suppose they were otherwise, what would it avail? The question
is not, Can they reason?, nor Can they talk? but, Can they suffer? Why should the law
refuse its protection to any sensitive being? The time will come when humanity will
extend its mantle over everything which breathes
Bentham and collectivism
Bentham's ideas were severely criticised by, among others, free market economist Murray
Rothbard in his essay, Jeremy Bentham: The Utilitarian as Big Brother published in his work,
Classical Economics. The Canadian author Brebner wrote in 1948 that "British laissez faire was
a political and economic myth...Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill, who have been
commonly represented as typical, almost fundamental, formulators of laissez faire, were in
fact the opposite, that is, the formulator of state intervention for collectivist ends and his

devout apostle." The liberal economist and philosopher Friedrich Hayek claimed that
Bentham's utilitarianism was superficially individualist but led to collectivism:
Bentham and his Utilitarians did much to destroy the beliefs which England had in part
preserved from the Middle Ages, by their scornful treatment of most of what until then had
been the most admired features of the British constitution. And they introduced into Britain
what had so far been entirely absentthe desire to remake the whole of the law and
institutions on rational principles.
Additional Reading:
Jeremy Bentham was an English philosopher and political radical. Although he never practiced
law, he spent most of his life critiquing the existing law and strongly advocating legal reform.
Bentham is primarily known today for his moral philosophy, especially his principle of
utilitarianism which evaluates actions based upon their consequences, in particular the overall
happiness created for everyone affected by the action. He maintained that putting this
principle into consistent practice would provide justification for social, political, and legal
institutions. Although Bentham's influence was minor during his life, his impact was greater in
later years as his ideas were carried on by followers such as John Stuart Mill, John Austin, and
other consequentialists.
1. Life
A leading theorist in Anglo-American philosophy of law and one of the founders of
utilitarianism, Jeremy Bentham was born in Houndsditch, London on February 15, 1748. He
was the son and grandson of attorneys, and his early family life was colored by a mix of pious
superstition (on his mother's side) and Enlightenment rationalism (from his father). Bentham
lived during a time of major social, political and economic change. The Industrial Revolution
(with the massive economic and social shifts that it brought in its wake) the rise of the middle
class, and revolutions in France and America all were reflected in Bentham's reflections on
existing institutions. In 1760, Bentham entered Queen's College, Oxford and, upon graduation
in 1764, studied law at Lincoln's Inn. Though qualified to practice law, he never did so.
Instead, he devoted most of his life to writing on matters of legal reform--though, curiously, he
made little effort to publish much of what he wrote.
Bentham spent his time in intense study, often writing some eight to twelve hours a day.
While most of his best known work deals with theoretical questions in law, Bentham was an
active polemicist and was engaged for some time in developing projects that proposed
various practical ideas for the reform of social institutions. Although his work came to have an
important influence on political philosophy, Bentham did not write any single text giving the
essential principles of his views on this topic. His most important theoretical work is the
Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789), in which much of his moral
theory--which he said reflected "the greatest happiness principle"--is described and
developed.
In 1781, Bentham became associated with the Earl of Shelburne and, through him, came into
contact with a number of the leading Whig politicians and lawyers. Although his work was
admired by some at the time, Bentham's ideas were still largely unappreciated. In 1785, he
briefly joined his brother Samuel in Russia, where he pursued his writing with even more than
his usual intensity, and he devised a plan for the now infamous "Panopticon"--a model prison
where all prisoners would be observable by (unseen) guards at all times--a project which he
had hoped would interest the Czarina Catherine the Great. After his return to England in 1788,
and for some 20 years thereafter, Bentham pursued--fruitlessly and at great expense--the
idea of the panopticon. Fortunately, an inheritance received in 1796 provided him with
financial stability. By the late 1790s, Bentham's theoretical work came to have a more
significant place in political reform. Still, his influence was, arguably, still greater on the
continent. (Bentham was made an honorary citizen of the fledgling French Republic in 1792,
and his The Theory of Legislation was published first, in French, by his Swiss disciple, Etienne
Dumont, in 1802.)

The precise extent of Bentham's influence in British politics has been a matter of some
debate. While he attacked both Tory and Whig policies, both the Reform Bill of 1832
(promoted by Bentham's disciple, Lord Henry Brougham) and later reforms in the century
(such as the secret ballot, advocated by Bentham's friend, George Grote, who was elected to
parliament in 1832) reflected Benthamite concerns. The impact of Bentham's ideas goes
further still. Contemporary philosophical and economic vocabulary (e.g., "international,"
"maximize," "minimize," and "codification") is indebted to Bentham's proclivity for inventing
terms, and among his other disciples were James Mill and his son, John (who was responsible
for an early edition of some of Bentham's manuscripts), as well as the legal theorist, John
Austin.
At his death in London, on June 6, 1832, Bentham left literally tens of thousands of manuscript
pages--some of which was work only sketched out, but all of which he hoped would be
prepared for publication. He also left a large estate, which was used to finance the newlyestablished University College, London (for those individuals excluded from university
education--i.e., non-conformists, Catholics and Jews), and his cadaver, per his instructions,
was dissected, embalmed, dressed, and placed in a chair, and to this day resides in a cabinet
in a corridor of the main building of University College. The Bentham Project, set up in the
early 1960s at University College, has as its aim the publishing of a definitive, scholarly
edition of Bentham's works and correspondence.
2. Method
Influenced by the philosophes of the Enlightenment (such as Beccaria, Helvtius, Diderot,
D'Alembert, and Voltaire) and also by Locke and Hume, Bentham's work combined an
empiricist approach with a rationalism that emphasized conceptual clarity and deductive
argument. Locke's influence was primarily as the author of the Enquiry Concerning Human
Understanding, and Bentham saw in him a model of one who emphasized the importance of
reason over custom and tradition and who insisted on precision in the use of terms. Hume's
influence was not so much on Bentham's method as on his account of the underlying
principles of psychological associationism and on his articulation of the principle of utility,
which was then still often annexed to theological views.
Bentham's analytical and empirical method is especially obvious when one looks at some of
his main criticisms of the law and of moral and political discourse in general. His principal
target was the presence of "fictions"--in particular, legal fictions. On his view, to consider any
part or aspect of a thing in abstraction from that thing is to run the risk of confusion or to
cause positive deceit. While, in some cases, such "fictional" terms as "relation," "right,"
"power," and "possession" were of some use, in many cases their original warrant had been
forgotten, so that they survived as the product of either prejudice or inattention. In those
cases where the terms could be "cashed out" in terms of the properties of real things, they
could continue to be used, but otherwise they were to be abandoned. Still, Bentham hoped to
eliminate legal fictions as far as possible from the law, including the legal fiction that there
was some original contract that explained why there was any law at all. He thought that, at
the very least, clarifications and justifications could be given that avoided the use of such
terms.
3. Human Nature
For Bentham, morals and legislation can be described scientifically, but such a description
requires an account of human nature. Just as nature is explained through reference to the
laws of physics, so human behavior can be explained by reference to the two primary motives
of pleasure and pain; this is the theory of psychological hedonism.
There is, Bentham admits, no direct proof of such an analysis of human motivation--though he
holds that it is clear that, in acting, all people implicitly refer to it. At the beginning of the
Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, Bentham writes that "[n]ature has
placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure. It is for
them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as to determine what we shall do. On the

one hand the standard of right and wrong, on the other the chain of causes and effects, are
fastened to their throne. They govern us in all we do, in all we say, in all we think: every effort
we can make to throw off our subjection, will serve but to demonstrate and confirm it." From
this we see that, for Bentham, pleasure and pain serve not only as explanations for action, but
they also define one's good. It is, in short, on the basis of pleasures and pains, which can exist
only in individuals, that Bentham thought one could construct a calculus of value.
Related to this fundamental hedonism is a view of the individual as exhibiting a natural,
rational self-interest--a psychological egoism. In his "Remarks on Bentham's Philosophy"
(1833), Mill cites Bentham's The Book of Fallacies (London: Hunt, 1824, pp. 392-3) that "[i]n
every human breast...self-regarding interest is predominant over social interest; each person's
own individual interest over the interests of all other persons taken together." Fundamental to
the nature and activity of individuals, then, is their own well-being, and reason--as a natural
capability of the person--is considered to be subservient to this end.
Bentham believed that the nature of the human person can be adequately described without
mention of social relationships. To begin with, the idea of "relation" is but a "fictitious entity,"
though necessary for "convenience of discourse." And, more specifically, he remarks that "the
community is a fictitious body," and it is but "the sum of the interests of the several members
who compose it." Thus, the extension of the term "individual" is, in the main, no greater and
no less than the biological entity. Bentham's view, then, is that the individual--the basic unit of
the social sphere--is an "atom" and there is no "self" or "individual" greater than the human
individual. A person's relations with others--even if important--are not essential and describe
nothing that is, strictly speaking, necessary to its being what it is.
Finally, the picture of the human person presented by Bentham is based on a psychological
associationism indebted to David Hartley and David Hume; Bentham's analysis of "habit"
(which is essential to his understanding of society and especially political society) particularly
reflects associationist presuppositions. On this view, pleasure and pain are objective states
and can be measured in terms of their intensity, duration, certainty, proximity, fecundity and
purity. This allows then both for an objective determination of an activity or state and for a
comparison with others.
Bentham's understanding of human nature reveals, in short, a psychological, ontological, and
also moral individualism where, to extend the critique of utilitarianism made by Graeme
Duncan and John Gray ("The Left Against Mill," in New Essays on John Stuart Mill and
Utilitarianism, Eds. Wesley E. Cooper, Kai Nielsen and Steven C. Patten, 1979), "the individual
human being is conceived as the source of values and as himself the supreme value."
4. Moral Philosophy
As Elie Halvy notes, there are three principal characteristics of which constitute the basis of
Bentham's moral and political philosophy: the greatest happiness principle, universal egoism
and the artificial identification of one's interests with those of others. Though these
characteristics are present throughout his work, they are particularly evident in the
Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, where Bentham is concerned with
articulating rational principles that would provide a basis and guide for legal, social and moral
reform.
To begin with, Bentham's moral philosophy reflects what he calls at different times "the
greatest happiness principle" or "the principle of utility"--a term which he borrows from Hume.
In adverting to this principle, however, he was not referring to just the usefulness of things or
actions, but to the extent to which these things or actions promote the general happiness.
Specifically, then, what is morally obligatory is that which produces the greatest amount of
happiness for the greatest number of people, happiness being determined by reference to the
presence of pleasure and the absence of pain. Thus, Bentham writes, "By the principle of
utility is meant that principle which approves or disapproves of every action whatsoever,
according to the tendency which it appears to have to augment or diminish the happiness of
the party whose interest is in question: or, what is the same thing in other words, to promote

or to oppose that happiness." And Bentham emphasizes that this applies to "every action
whatsoever." That which does not maximize the greatest happiness (such as an act of pure
ascetic sacrifice) is, therefore, morally wrong. (Unlike some of the previous attempts at
articulating a universal hedonism, Bentham's approach is thoroughly naturalistic.)
Bentham's moral philosophy, then, clearly reflects his psychological view that the primary
motivators in human beings are pleasure and pain. Bentham admits that his version of the
principle of utility is something that does not admit of direct proof, but he notes that this is
not a problem as some explanatory principles do not admit of any such proof and all
explanation must start somewhere. But this, by itself, does not explain why another's
happiness--or the general happiness--should count. And, in fact, he provides a number of
suggestions that could serve as answers to the question of why we should be concerned with
the happiness of others.
First, Bentham says, the principle of utility is something to which individuals, in acting, refer
either explicitly or implicitly, and this is something that can be ascertained and confirmed by
simple observation. Indeed, Bentham held that all existing systems of morality can be
"reduced to the principles of sympathy and antipathy," which is precisely that which defines
utility. A second argument found in Bentham is that, if pleasure is the good, then it is good
irrespective of whose pleasure it is. Thus, a moral injunction to pursue or maximize pleasure
has force independently of the specific interests of the person acting. Bentham also suggests
that individuals would reasonably seek the general happiness simply because the interests of
others are inextricably bound up with their own, though he recognized that this is something
that is easy for individuals to ignore. Nevertheless, Bentham envisages a solution to this as
well. Specifically, he proposes that making this identification of interests obvious and, when
necessary, bringing diverse interests together would be the responsibility of the legislator.
Finally, Bentham held that there are advantages to a moral philosophy based on a principle of
utility. To begin with, the principle of utility is clear (compared to other moral principles),
allows for objective and disinterested public discussion, and enables decisions to be made
where there seem to be conflicts of (prima facie) legitimate interests. Moreover, in calculating
the pleasures and pains involved in carrying out a course of action (the "hedonic calculus"),
there is a fundamental commitment to human equality. The principle of utility presupposes
that "one man is worth just the same as another man" and so there is a guarantee that in
calculating the greatest happiness "each person is to count for one and no one for more than
one."
For Bentham, then, there was no inconsistency between the greatest happiness principle and
his psychological hedonism and egoism. Thus, moral philosophy or ethics can be simply
described as "the art of directing men's action to the production of the greatest possible
quantity of happiness, on the part of those whose interest is in view."
5. Political Philosophy
Bentham was regarded as the central figure of a group of intellectuals called, by Elie Halvy,
"the philosophic radicals"; both J. S. Mill and Herbert Spencer can be counted among the
"spiritual descendants" of this group. While it would be too strong to claim that the ideas of
the philosophic radicals reflected a common political theory, it is nevertheless correct to say
that they agreed that many of the social problems of late eighteenth and early nineteenth
century England were due to an antiquated legal system and to the control of the economy by
a hereditary landed gentry opposed to modern capitalist institutions. As discussed in the
preceding section, for Bentham, the principles that govern morals also govern politics and
law, and political reform requires a clear understanding of human nature. While he develops a
number of principles already present in Anglo-Saxon political philosophy, he breaks with that
tradition in significant ways.
In his earliest work, A Fragment on Government (1776) (an excerpt from a longer work
published only in 1928 as Comment on Blackstone's Commentaries), Bentham attacked the
legal theory of Sir William Blackstone. Bentham's target was, primarily, Blackstone's defense

of tradition in law. Bentham advocated the rational revision of the legal system, a
restructuring of the process of determining responsibility and of punishment, and a more
extensive freedom of contract. This, he believed, would favor not only the development of the
community, but the personal development of the individual.
Bentham's attack on Blackstone targeted more than the latter's use of tradition however.
Against Blackstone and a number of earlier thinkers (including Locke), Bentham repudiated
many of the concepts underlying their political philosophies, such as natural right, state of
nature, and "social contract." Bentham then attempted to outline positive alternatives to the
preceding "traditionalisms." Not only did he work to reform and restructure existing
institutions, but he promoted broader suffrage and self (i.e., representative) government.
Law, Liberty and Government: The notion of liberty present in Bentham's account is what is
now generally referred to as "negative" liberty--freedom from external restraint or compulsion.
Bentham says that "[l]iberty is the absence of restraint" and so, to the extent that one is not
hindered by others, one has liberty and is "free." Bentham denies that liberty is "natural" (in
the sense of existing "prior to" social life and thereby imposing limits on the state) or that
there is an a priori sphere of liberty in which the individual is sovereign. In fact, Bentham
holds that people have always lived in society, and so there can be no state of nature (though
he does distinguish between political society and "natural society") and no "social contract" (a
notion which he held was not only unhistorical but pernicious). Nevertheless, he does note
that there is an important distinction between one's public and private life that has morally
significant consequences, and he holds that liberty is a good--that, even though it is not
something that is a fundamental value, it reflects the greatest happiness principle.
Correlative with this account of liberty, Bentham (as Hobbes before him) viewed law as
"negative." Given that pleasure and pain are fundamental to--indeed, provide--the standard of
value for Bentham, liberty, because "pleasant," was a good and its restriction, because
"painful," was an evil. Law, which is by its very nature a restriction of liberty and painful to
those whose freedom is restricted, is a prima facie evil. It is only so far as control by the state
is limited that the individual is free. Law is, Bentham recognized, necessary to social order
and good laws are clearly essential to good government. Indeed, perhaps more than Locke,
Bentham saw the positive role to be played by law and government, particularly in achieving
community well-being. To the extent that law advances and protects one's economic and
personal goods and that what government exists is self-government, law reflects the interests
of the individual.
Unlike many earlier thinkers, Bentham held that law is not rooted in a "natural law" but is
simply a command expressing the will of the sovereign. (This account of law, later developed
by Austin, is characteristic of legal positivism.) Thus, a law that commands morally
questionable or morally evil actions, or that is not based on consent, is still "law."
Rights: Bentham's views on rights are, perhaps, best known through the attacks on the
concept of "natural rights" that appear throughout his work. These criticisms are especially
developed in his Anarchical Fallacies (a polemical attack on the declarations of rights issued in
France during the French Revolution), written between 1791 and 1795 but not published until
1816, in French. Bentham's criticisms here are rooted in his understanding of the nature of
law. Rights are created by the law, and law is simply a command of the sovereign. The
existence of law and rights, therefore, requires government. Rights are also usually (though
not necessarily) correlative with duties determined by the law and, as in Hobbes, are either
those which the law explicitly gives us or those within a legal system where the law is silent.
The view that there could be rights not based on sovereign command and which pre-exist the
establishment of government is rejected.
According to Bentham then, the term "natural right" is a "perversion of language." It is
"ambiguous," "sentimental" and "figurative" and it has anarchical consequences. At best, such
a "right" may tell us what we ought to do; it cannot serve as a legal restriction on what we can
or cannot do. The term "natural right" is ambiguous, Bentham says, because it suggests that
there are general rights--that is, rights over no specific object--so that one would have a claim

on whatever one chooses. The effect of exercising such a universal, natural "right" would be
to extinguish the right altogether, since "what is every man's right is no man's right." No legal
system could function with such a broad conception of rights. Thus, there cannot be any
general rights in the sense suggested by the French declarations.
Moreover, the notion of natural rights is figurative. Properly speaking, there are no rights
anterior to government. The assumption of the existence of such rights, Bentham says, seems
to be derived from the theory of the social contract. Here, individuals form a society and
choose a government through the alienation of certain of their rights. But such a doctrine is
not only unhistorical, according to Bentham, it does not even serve as a useful fiction to
explain the origin of political authority. Governments arise by habit or by force, and for
contracts (and specifically, some original contract) to bind, there must already be a
government in place to enforce them .
Finally, the idea of a natural right is "anarchical." Such a right, Bentham claims, entails a
freedom from all restraint and, in particular, from all legal restraint. Since a natural right
would be anterior to law, it could not be limited by law, and (since human beings are
motivated by self interest) if everyone had such freedom, the result would be pure anarchy. To
have a right in any meaningful sense entails that others cannot legitimately interfere with
one's rights, and this implies that rights must be capable of enforcement. Such restriction, as
noted earlier, is the province of the law.
Bentham concludes, therefore, that the term "[n]atural rights is simple nonsense: natural and
imprescriptible rights, rhetorical nonsense,--nonsense upon stilts." Rights--what Bentham calls
"real" rights--are fundamentally legal rights. All rights must be legal and specific (that is,
having both a specific object and subject). They ought to be made because of their
conduciveness to "the general mass of felicity," and correlatively, when their abolition would
be to the advantage of society, rights ought to be abolished. So far as rights exist in law, they
are protected; outside of law, they are at best "reasons for wishing there were such things as
rights." While Bentham's essays against natural rights are largely polemical, many of his
objections continue to be influential in contemporary political philosophy.
Nevertheless, Bentham did not dismiss talk of rights altogether. There are some services that
are essential to the happiness of human beings and that cannot be left to others to fulfill as
they see fit, and so these individuals must be compelled, on pain of punishment, to fulfill
them. They must, in other words, respect the rights of others. Thus, although Bentham was
generally suspicious of the concept of right, he does allow that the term is useful, and in such
work as A General View of a Complete Code of Laws, he enumerates a large number of rights.
While the meaning he assigns to these rights is largely stipulative rather than descriptive,
they clearly reflect principles defended throughout his work.
There has been some debate over the extent to which the rights that Bentham defends are
based on or reducible to duties or obligations, whether he can consistently maintain that such
duties or obligations are based on the principle of utility, and whether the existence of what
Bentham calls "permissive rights"--rights one has where the law is silent--is consistent with his
general utilitarian view.
An Introduction to the Principles
of Morals and Legislation
Preface
The following sheets were, as the note on the opposite page expresses, printed so long ago as
the year 1780. The design, in pursuance of which they were written, was not so extensive as
that announced by the present title. They had at that time no other destination than that of
serving as an introduction to a plan of a penal code in terminus, designed to follow them, in
the same volume.

The body of the work had received its completion according to the then present extent of the
author's views, when, in the investigation of some flaws he had discovered, he found himself
unexpectedly entangled in an unsuspected corner of the metaphysical maze. A suspension, at
first not apprehended to be more than a temporary one, necessarily ensued: suspension
brought on coolness, and coolness, aided by other concurrent causes, ripened into disgust.
Imperfections pervading the whole mass had already been pointed out by the sincerity of
severe and discerning friends; and conscience had certified the justness of their censure. The
inordinate length of some of the chapters, the apparent inutility of others, and the dry and
metaphysical turn of the whole, suggested an apprehension, that, if published in its present
form, the work would contend under great disadvantages for any chance, it might on other
accounts possess, of being read, and consequently of being of use.
But, though in this manner the idea of completing the present work slid insensibly aside, that
was not by any means the case with the considerations which had led him to engage in it.
Every opening, which promised to afford the lights he stood in need of, was still pursued: as
occasion arose the several departments connected with that in which he had at first engaged,
were successively explored; insomuch that, in one branch or other of the pursuit, his
researches have nearly embraced the whole field of legislation.
Several causes have conspired at present to bring to light, under this new title, a work which
under its original one had been imperceptibly, but as it had seemed irrevocably, doomed to
oblivion. In the course of eight years, materials for various works, corresponding to the
different branches of the subject of legislation, had been produced, and some nearly reduced
to shape: and, in every one of those works, the principles exhibited in the present publication
had been found so necessary, that, either to transcribe them piecemeal, or to exhibit them
somewhere where they could be referred to in the lump, was found unavoidable. The former
course would have occasioned repetitions too bulky to be employed without necessity in the
execution of a plan unavoidably so voluminous: the latter was therefore indisputably the
preferable one.
To publish the materials in the form in which they were already printed, or to work them up
into a new one, was therefore the only alternative: the latter had all along been his wish, and,
had time and the requisite degree of alacrity been at command, it would as certainly have
been realised. Cogent considerations, however, concur, with the irksomeness of the task, in
placing the accomplishment of it at present at an unfathomable distance.
Another consideration is, that the suppression of the present work, had it been ever so
decidedly wished, is no longer altogether in his power. In the course of so long an interval,
various incidents have introduced copies into various hands, from some of which they have
been transferred by deaths and other accidents, into others that are unknown to him.
Detached, but considerable extracts, have even been published, without any dishonourable
views (for the name of the author was very honestly subjoined to them), but without his
privity, and in publications undertaken without his knowledge.
It may perhaps be necessary to add, to complete his excuse for offering to the public a work
pervaded by blemishes, which have not escaped even the author's partial eye, that the
censure, so justly bestowed upon the form, did not extend itself to the matter.
In sending it thus abroad into the world with all its imperfections upon its head, he thinks it
may be of assistance to the few readers he can expect, to receive a short intimation of the
chief particulars, in respect of which it fails of corresponding with his maturer views. It will
thence be observed how in some respects it fails of quadrating with the design announced by
its original title, as in others it does with that announced by the one it bears at present.
An introduction to a work which takes for its subject the totality of any science, ought to
contain all such matters, and such matters only, as belong in common to every particular
branch of that science, or at least to more branches of it than one. Compared with its present
title, the present work fails in both ways of being conformable to that rule. As an introduction

to the principles of morals, in addition to the analysis it contains of the extensive ideas
signified by the terms pleasure, pain, motive, and disposition, it ought to have given a similar
analysis of the not less extensive, though much less determinate, ideas annexed to the terms
emotion, passion, appetite, virtue, vice, and some others, including the names of the
particular virtues and vices. But as the true, and, if he conceives right, the only true
groundwork for the development of the latter set of terms, has been laid by the explanation of
the former, the completion of such a dictionary, so to style it, would, in comparison of the
commencement, be little more than a mechanical operation.
Again, as an introduction to the principles of legislation in general, it ought rather to have
included matters belonging exclusively to the civil branch, than matters more particularly
applicable to the penal: the latter being but a means of compassing the ends proposed by the
former. In preference therefore, or at least in priority, to the several chapters which will be
found relative to punishment, it ought to have exhibited a set of propositions which have
since presented themselves to him as affording a standard for the operations performed by
government, in the creation and distribution of proprietary and other civil rights. He means
certain axioms of what may be termed mental pathology, expressive of the connection
betwixt the feelings of the parties concerned, and the several classes of incidents, which
either call for, or are produced by, operations of the nature above mentioned. 1 The
consideration of the division of offences, and every thing else that belongs to offences, ought,
besides, to have preceded the consideration of punishment: for the idea of punishment
presupposes the idea of offence: punishment, as such, not being inflicted but in consideration
of offence.
Lastly, the analytical discussions relative to the classification of offences would, according to
his present views, be transferred to a separate treatise, in which the system of legislation is
considered solely in respect of its form: in other words, in respect of its method and
terminology.
In these respects the performance fails of coming up to the author's own ideas of what should
have been exhibited in a work, bearing the title he has now given it. viz., that of an
Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation. He knows however of no other that
would be less unsuitable: nor in particular would so adequate an intimation of its actual
contents have been given, by a title corresponding to the more limited design, with which it
was written: viz., that of serving as an introduction to a penal code.
Yet more. Dry and tedious as a great part of the discussions it contains must unavoidably be
found by the bulk of readers, he knows not how to regret the having written them, nor even
the having made them public. Under every head, the practical uses, to which the discussions
contained under that head appeared applicable, are indicated: nor is there, he believes, a
single proposition that he has not found occasion to build upon in the penning of some article
or other of those provisions of detail, of which a body of law, authoritative or unauthoritative,
must be composed. He will venture to specify particularly, in this view, the several chapters
shortly characterized by the words Sensibility, Actions, Intentionality, Consciousness, Motives,
Dispositions, Consequences.
Even in the enormous chapter on the division of offenses, which, notwithstanding the forced
compression the plan has undergone in several of its parts, in manner there mentioned,
occupies no fewer than one hundred and four closely printed quarto pages, the ten concluding
ones are employed in a statement of the practical advantages that may be reaped from the
plan of classification which it exhibits. Those in whose sight the Defence of Usury has been
fortunate enough to find favour, may reckon as one instance of those advantages the
discovery of the principles developed in that little treatise. In the preface to an anonymous
tract published so long ago as in 1776, 2 he had hinted at the utility of a natural classification
of offenses, in the character of a test for distinguishing genuine from spurious ones. The case
of usury is one among a number of instances of the truth of that observation. A note at the
end of Sect. xxxv. chap. xvi. of the present publication, may serve to show how the opinions,
developed in that tract, owed their origin to the difficulty experienced in the attempt to find a
place in his system for that imaginary offense. To some readers, as a means of helping them

to support the fatigue of wading through an analysis of such enormous length, he would
almost recommend the beginning with those ten concluding pages.
One good at least may result from the present publication; viz., that the more he has
trespassed on the patience of the reader on this occasion, the less need he will have so to do
on future ones: so that this may do to those, the office which is done, by books of pure
mathematics, to books of mixed mathematics and natural philosophy. The narrower the circle
of readers is, within which the present work may be condemned to confine itself, the less
limited may be the number of those to whom the fruits of his succeeding labours may be
found accessible. He may therefore in this respect find himself in the condition of those
philosophers of antiquity, who are represented as having held two bodies of doctrine, a
popular and an occult one: but, with this difference, that in his instance the occult and the
popular will, he hopes, be found as consistent as in those they were contradictory; and that in
his production whatever there is of occultness has been the pure result of sad necessity, and
in no respect of choice.
Having, in the course of this advertisement, had such frequent occasion to allude to different
arrangements, as having been suggested by more extensive and maturer views, it may
perhaps contribute to the satisfaction of the reader, to receive a short intimation of their
nature: the rather, as, without such explanation, references, made here and there to
unpublished works, might be productive of perplexity and mistake. The following then are the
titles of the works by the publication of which his present designs would be completed. They
are exhibited in the order which seemed to him best fitted for apprehension, and in which
they would stand disposed, were the whole assemblage ready to come out at once: but the
order, in which they will eventually appear, may probably enough be influenced in some
degree by collateral and temporary considerations.
Part the 1st. Principles of legislation in matters of civil, more distinctively termed private
distributive, or for shortness, distributive, law.
Part the 2nd. Principles of legislation in matters of penal law.
Part the 3rd. Principles of legislation in matters of procedure: uniting in one view the criminal
and civil branches, between which no line can be drawn, but a very indistinct one, and that
continually liable to variation.
Part the 4th. Principles of legislation in matters of reward.
Part the 5th. Principles of legislation in matters of public distributive, more concisely as well as
familiarly termed constitutional, law.
Part the 6th. Principles of legislation in matters of political tactics: or of the art of maintaining
order in the proceedings of political assemblies, so as to direct them to the end of their
institution: viz., by a system of rules, which are to the constitutional branch, in some respects,
what the law of procedure is to the civil and the penal.
Part the 7th. Principles of legislation in matters betwixt nation and nation, or, to use a new
though not inexpressive appellation, in matters of international law.
Part the 8th. Principles of legislation in matters of finance.
Part the 9th. Principles of legislation in matters of political economy.
Part the 10th. Plan of a body of law, complete in all its branches, considered in respect of its
form; in other words, in respect of its method and terminology; including a view of the
origination and connexion of the ideas expressed by the short list of terms, the exposition of
which contains all that can be said with propriety to belong to the head of universal
jurisprudence.

The use of the principles laid down under the above several heads is to prepare the way for
the body of law itself exhibited in terminis; and which to be complete, with reference to any
political state, must consequently be calculated for the meridian, and adapted to the
circumstances, of some one such state in particular.
Had he an unlimited power of drawing upon time, and every other condition necessary, it
would be his wish to postpone the publication of each part to the completion of the whole. In
particular, the use of the ten parts, which exhibit what appear to him the dictates of utility in
every line, being no other than to furnish reasons for the several corresponding provisions
contained in the body of law itself, the exact truth of the former can never be precisely
ascertained, till the provisions, to which they are destined to apply, are themselves
ascertained, and that in terminis. But as the infirmity of human nature renders all plans
precarious in the execution, in proportion as they are extensive in the design, and as he has
already made considerable advances in several branches of the theory, without having made
correspondent advances in the practical applications, he deems it more than probable, that
the eventual order of publication will not correspond exactly with that which, had it been
equally practicable, would have appeared most eligible. Of this irregularity the unavoidable
result will be, a multitude of imperfections, which, if the execution of the body of law in
terminis had kept pace with the development of the principles, so that each part had been
adjusted and corrected by the other, might have been avoided. His conduct however will be
the less swayed by this inconvenience, from his suspecting it to be of the number of those in
which the personal vanity of the author is much more concerned, than the instruction of the
public: since whatever amendments may be suggested in the detail of the principles, by the
literal fixation of the provisions to which they are relative, may easily be made in a corrected
edition of the former, succeeding upon the publication of the latter.
In the course of the ensuing pages, references will be found, as already intimated, some to
the plan of a penal code to which this work was meant as an introduction, some to other
branches of the above-mentioned general plan, under titles somewhat different from those,
by which they have been mentioned here. The giving this warning is all which it is in the
author's power to do, to save the reader from the perplexity of looking out for what has not as
yet any existence. The recollection of the change of plan will in like manner account for
several similar incongruities not worth particularizing.
Allusion was made, at the outset of this advertisement, to some unspecified difficulties, as the
causes of the original suspension, and unfinished complexion, of the present work. Ashamed
of his defeat, and unable to dissemble it, he knows not how to reface himself the benefit of
such an apology as a slight sketch of the nature of those difficulties may afford.. The
discovery of them was produced by the attempt to solve the questions that will be found at
the conclusion of the volume: Wherein consisted the identity and completeness of a law?
What the distinction, and where the separation, between a penal and a civil law? What the
distinction, and where the separation, between the penal and other branches of the law?
To give a complete and correct answer to these questions, it is but too evident that the
relations and dependencies of every part of the legislative system, with respect to every
other, must have been comprehended and ascertained. But it is only upon a view of these
parts themselves, that such an operation could have been performed. To the accuracy of such
a survey one necessary condition would therefore be, the complete existence of the fabric to
be surveyed. To the performance of this condition no example is as yet to be met with any
where. Common law, as it styles itself in England, judiciary law as it might aptly be styled
every where. that fictitious composition which has no known person for its author, no known
assemblage of words for its substance, forms every where the main body of the legal fabric:
like that fancied ether, which, in default of sensible matter, fills up the measure of the
universe. Shreds and scraps of real law, stuck on upon that imaginary ground, compose the
furniture of every national code. What follows? that he who, for the purpose just mentioned
or for any other, wants an example of a complete body of law to refer to, must begin with
making one.

There is, or rather there ought to be, a logic of the will. as well as of the understanding: the
operations of the former faculty, are neither less susceptible, nor less worthy, then those of
the latter, of being delineated by rules. Of these two branches of that recondite art, Aristotle
saw only the latter: succeeding logicians, treading in the steps of their great founder, have
concurred in seeing with no other eyes. Yet so far as a difference can be assigned between
branches so intimately connected, whatever difference there is, in point of importance, is in
favour of the logic of the will. Since it is only by their capacity of directing the operations of
this faculty, that the operations of the understanding are of any consequence. Of this logic of
the will, the science of law, considered in respect of its form, is the most considerable branch,
the most important application. It is, to the art of legislation, what the science of anatomy
is to the art of medicine: with this difference, that the subject of it is what the artist has to
work with, instead of being what he has to operate upon. Nor is the body politic less in danger
from a want of acquaintance with the one science, than the body natural from ignorance in
the other. One example, amongst a thousand that might be adduced in proof of this assertion,
may be seen in the note which terminates this volume. Such then were the difficulties: such
the preliminaries: an unexampled work to achieve, and then a new science to create: a new
branch to add to one of the most abstruse of sciences.
Yet more: a body of proposed law, how complete soever, would be comparatively useless and
uninstructive, unless explained and justified, and that in every tittle, by a continued
accompaniment, a perpetual commentary of reasons: which reasons, that the comparative
value of such as point in opposite directions may be estimated, and the conjunct force, of
such as point in the same direction may be felt. must be marshalled, and put under
subordination to such extensive and leading ones as are termed principles. There must be
therefore, not one system only, but two parallel and connected systems, running on together.
the one of legislative provisions, the other of political reasons, each affording to the other
correction and support.
Are enterprises like these achievable? He knows not. This only he knows, that they have been
undertaken, proceeded in, and that some progress has been made in all of them. He will
venture to add, if at all achievable, never at least by one, to whom the fatigue of attending to
discussions, as arid as those which occupy the ensuing pages, would either appear useless, or
feel intolerable. He will repeat it boldly (for it has been said before him), truths that form the
basis of political and moral science are not to be discovered but by investigations as severe as
mathematical ones, and beyond all comparison more intricate and extensive. The familiarity
of the terms is a presumption, but is a most fallacious one, of the facility of the matter. Truths
in general have been called stubborn things: the truths just mentioned are so in their own
way. They are not to be forced into detached and general propositions, unincumbered with
explanations and exceptions. They will not compress themselves into epigrams. They recoil
from the tongue and the pen of the declaimer. They flourish not in the same soil with
sentiment. They grow among thorns; and are not to be plucked, like daisies, by infants as they
run. Labour, the inevitable lot of humanity, is in no track more inevitable than here. In vain
would an Alexander bespeak a peculiar road for royal vanity, or a Ptolemy, a smoother one,
for royal indolence. There is no King's Road, no Stadtholder's Gate, to legislative, any more
than to mathematic science.

Chapter VII: Of Human Actions in General (nagpapakita lang ito na ang mga acts
ng mga tao ay hindi attributed sa kunh ano-anong bagay tulad ng natura ng tao o
ng kanyang rational , ang mga act ng mga tao, halimbawa krimen ay bunga lamang
ng kanyang sariling aksyon at wala ng iba.. you can also point out here how
bentham would like the government to intervene in a mans acts epecially that
they have the tendency to do crimes)
I. The business of government is to promote the happiness of the society, by
punishing and rewarding. That part of its business which consists in punishing, is
more particularly the subject of penal law. In proportion as an act tends to disturb that
happiness, in proportion as the tendency of it is pernicious, will be the demand it creates for

punishment. What happiness consists of we have already seen: enjoyment of pleasures,

security from pains.
VI. In every transaction, therefore, which is examined with a view to punishment,
there are four articles to be considered:
1. The act itself, which is done.
2. The circumstances in which it is done.
3. The intentionality that may have accompanied it.
4.The consciousness, unconsciousness, or false consciousness, that may have accompanied
it. What regards the act and the circumstances will be the subject of the present chapter:
what regards intention and consciousness, that of the two succeeding.
VII. There are also two other articles on which the general tendency of an act
depends: and on that, as well as on other accounts, the demand which it creates
for punishment. These are,
1. The particular motive or motives which gave birth to it.
2. The general disposition which it indicates. These articles will be the subject of two other
chapters.