Perspective on Life and Death

-----INTRODUCTION------
Every people in the world has their own perspective on life and death .Some people

have many beliefs that they believed because of some proofs that experienced by the

people around them . There are different explanation on life and death around us

including the Bible. The Holy Bible proofs that there are many speculations about death

To know that after death there is life, after the darkness there is day—well, it changes

your perspective. That insight, the psalmist says, can give you wisdom. It can give you

understanding. It cuts one way for the wicked. The psalmist says in verses 13-14, "This

is the fate of those who trust in themselves, and of their followers, who approve their

sayings. Like sheep they are destined for the grave, and death will feed on them."

Psalm 23 says, "The Lord is my shepherd." But in Psalm 49, death is a shepherd—a

shepherd who leads a flock to the slaughterhouse and, after the flock is killed, eats the

meat. And after he eats the meat, all that is left is bones. This is clear in the

personification of death in the New Revised Standard Version, where "Death will feed

on them" is translated as "Death shall be their shepherd."

There are many famous philosophers that have a own perspective about life and

death. Therefore people believed on them because of encouraging words by the

famous philosophers .For this term paper I will make you to believe to the perspective

of Jeremy Bentham about life and death.

JEREMY BENTHAM
1748 - 1832
 JEREMY BENTHAM
Jeremy Bentham 1748-1832 was an English philosopher jurist, and social reformer

regarded as the founder of modern utilitarianism.

Bentham defined as the "fundamental axiom" of his philosophy the principle that "it is

the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right and wrong".

He became a leading theorist in Anglo-American philosophy of law and a political

radical whose ideas influenced the development of welfarism. He advocated for

individual and economic freedoms the separation of church and state freedom of

expression equal rights for women, the right to divorce, and the decriminalising of

homosexual acts. He called for the abolition of slavery the death penalty and physical

punishment including that of children.[7] He has also become known as an early

advocate of animal rights Though strongly in favour of the extension of individual legal

rights he opposed the idea of natural law and natural rights (both of which are

considered "divine" or "God-given" in origin), calling them "nonsense upon stilts".

Bentham was also a sharp critic of legal fictions.

Bentham's students included his secretary and collaborator James Mill the latter's son,

John Stuart Mill the legal philosopher John Austin as well as Robert Owen one of the

founders of utopian socialism He "had considerable influence on the reform of prisons,

schools, poor laws, law courts, and Parliament itself.

On his death in 1832, Bentham left instructions for his body to be first dissected, anthen

to be permanently preserved as an "auto-icon" , which would be his memorial.

 Perspective on Life and Death
Of Jeremy Bentham

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.

 Perspective on Life and Death
Of Jeremy Bentham

Bentham detected a serious and potentially debilitating defect in rendering the

utility principle as the “greatest happiness of the greatest number”. He came to see that

such a principle could justify inordinate sacrifices by a minority, however that minority

might be composed, in the interest of enhancing the happiness of a majority. He

considered this a false conclusion, but one that needed to be addressed. “Be the

community in question what it may”, he writes, “divide it into two unequal parts, call one

of them the majority, the other the minority, lay out of the account the feelings of the

minority, include in the account no feelings but those of the majority, the result you will

find is that to the aggregate stock of the happiness of the community, loss, not profit, is

the result of the operation”. The less the numerical difference between the minority and

majority, the more obvious the deficiency in aggregate happiness will be (1983a, 309).

Logically, then, the closer we approximate the happiness of all the members of the

community, the greater the aggregate of happiness.

THE GREATEST HAPPINESS PRINCIPLE:

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"

(Ch. 1). That which does not maximize the greatest happiness (such as an act of pure

ascetic sacrifice) is, therefore, morally wrong.

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.

UTILITARIANISM

The guiding principle of Bentham’s thought was the principle of utility: human actions

and social institutions should be judged right or wrong depending upon their tendency to

promote the pleasure or happiness of the greatest number of people. A popular

formulation of the principle is “promote the greatest happiness for the greatest number.”

Bentham himself defined the principle of utility as “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.”

Bentham was not clear as to whether the principle referred to the utility of individual

actions or classes of actions, but he was clear “the party whose interest is in question”

refers to “anything that can suffer.” Thus, utilitarianism was the first moral philosophy to

give a significant place to nonhuman animals.

THE CONSEQUENCES
The second key concept of utilitarianism is that we judge moral actions by the

consequences they produce. The only thing that counts in morality is the happiness and

unhappiness produced by an action. In other words, according to utilitarianism, the ends

justify the means. It does not matter how you do think it means you take as long as you

increase the net utility. In most cases, as we have already mentioned, the action that

utilitarians recommend mimics the recommendations of other moral theories. For

instance, given the choice of telling Sue that she looks beautiful or terrible, we would

usually maximize utility by telling her the former. Similarly, given the choice of granting

or denying her request for a loan, we would usually maximize utility by granting her

request. However, if she will probably use the money to buy drugs, become intoxicated

and then beat her children, we should deny her request. On the other hand, if Bob will

use our money to feed his children, we should probably loan it to him. We should

always perform that action that will, most likely, increase the happiness and decrease

the misery of all involved.

John Stuart Mill, a protegé of Bentham and Mill’s father James Mill, became the most

eloquent spokesman for utilitarianism. Mill was one of the most fascinating individuals in

the history of Western philosophy. A child prodigy, he studied Greek and mathematics

from the age of three and read all of Plato’s dialogues in Greek by his early teens. Mill’s

classic work, Utilitarianism, sets forth the major tenets of the doctrine and reformulates

many of Bentham’s ideas.

The Problems with Happiness
A first difficulty with using happiness as the moral standard is that the concept of the net

utility implies that happiness and unhappiness are measurable quantities. Otherwise,

we cannot determine which actions produce the greatest net utility. Bentham elaborated

a “hedonistic calculus” which measured different kinds of happiness and unhappiness

according to their intensity, duration, purity, and so on. Some say that it is impossible to

attach precise numerical values to different kinds of happiness and unhappiness. For

example, it may be impossible to assign a numerical value to the happiness of eating

ice cream compared to the happiness of reading Aristotle. Still, we can prefer one to the

other, say ice cream to Aristotle, and, therefore, we do not need precise numerical

calculations to reason as a utilitarian.

A second difficulty is that it may be impossible to have “interpersonal” comparisons of

utility. Should we give Sue our Aristotle book or Sam our ice cream? Does Sue’s

reading pleasure exceed Sam’s eating pleasure? There is no doubt that different things

make different people happy. For some, reading and learning is an immense joy, for

others, it is an exceptional ordeal. But we can still maximize utility. We should give Sue

the book and Sam the ice cream, or if we can only do one or the other, we make our

best judgment as to which action maximizes utility. Besides, we agree about many of

the things that makes us happy and unhappy. Everyone is happy with some wealth,

health, friends, and knowledge. Everyone becomes unhappy when they are in pain,

hungry, tired, thirsty, and the like. We do not need precise interpersonal comparisons of

utility to reason as a utilitarian.

The Problems with Rule Utilitarianism
Problems of this sort are precisely what led to the formulation of rule utilitarianism. Rule

utilitarians claim that the rules “never violate a person’s privacy” or “never frame

innocent persons” maximize utility compared with the rules “sometimes violate a

person’s privacy” or “sometimes frame innocent persons.” But rule utilitarianism is beset

by its own unique difficulties.

A first problem is whether utilitarian rules allow exceptions. To illustrate, consider that

the moral rule “never kill the innocent” maximizes utility compared to the rule “always kill

the innocent,” and thus a strict rule utilitarian adopts the former, from these two choices,

without exceptions. But the rule “never kill the innocent except to save more innocent

lives” might maximize the utility better than either of the other two rules. If it did, a strict

rule utilitarian would adopt it without exceptions. But this is not the best possible rule

either. The best possible rule is “never kill innocent people except when it maximizes

the utility to do so.

The issue is further complicated by the fact that different interpretations of rule

utilitarianism exist. In what we will call a strong rule utilitarianism, moral rules have no

exceptions. In what we will call a weak rule utilitarianism, rules have some exceptions.

The more exceptions we build into our moral rules, the weaker our version of rule

utilitarianism becomes. But if we build enough exceptions into our moral rules, rule

utilitarianism becomes indistinguishable from act utilitarianism.

 Perspective on Life and Death
Of Jeremy Bentham

---------CONCLUSION-------------

I therefore conclude that the every statement that Jeremy Bentham stated

was very convincing that will leave you thinking deeply by his mindful explanation on

every perspective that he stated. I learned many informative explanations by reading

his masterpiece . I believe that Jeremy Bentham has a very bright and meaningful mind.

He was one of the most prominent philosopher in his era .I hope that you can learn

Such great things from the perspective of Bentham beliefs.

a. Bentham's Works

The standard edition of Bentham's writings is The Works of Jeremy Bentham, (ed. John
Bowring), London, 1838-1843; Reprinted New York, 1962. The contents are as follows:

 Volume 1: Introduction; An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation; Essay on the
Promulgation of Laws, Essay on the Influence of Time and Place in Matters of Legislation, A Table
of the Springs of Action, A Fragment on Government: or A Comment on the Commentaries;
Principles of the Civil Code; Principles of Penal Law
 Volume 2: Principles of Judicial Procedure, with the outlines of a Procedural Code; The Rationale
of Reward; Leading Principles of a Constitutional Code, for any state; On the Liberty of the Press,
and public discussion; The Book of Fallacies, from unfinished papers; Anarchical Fallacies;
Principles of International Law; A Protest Against Law Taxes; Supply without Burden; Tax with
Monopoly
 Volume 3: Defence of Usury; A Manual of Political Economy; Observations on the Restrictive and
Prohibitory Commercial System; A Plan for saving all trouble and expense in the transfer of stock;
A General View of a Complete Code of Laws; Pannomial Fragments; Nomography, or the art of
inditing laws; Equal Dispatch Court Bill; Plan of Parliamentary Reform, in the form of a
catechism; Radical Reform Bill; Radicalism Not Dangerous
PERSPECTIVE
IN
LIFE & DEATH
OF
JEREMY
BENTHAM
MAGDAMIT,KIAN

11-MATTHEW

MS.ACOSTA