Jeremy Bentham
English philosopher, jurist and social reformer (1748–1832), a prodigy who entered Oxford at twelve and graduated in law at fifteen, though he never practised as a barrister, being drawn instead to criticism of the existing legal system, and the founder of modern utilitarianism, the ethical doctrine that gave systematic shape to the principle that the right action is the one producing 'the greatest happiness of the greatest number'. In An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789) he set out the 'felicific calculus', a method for quantitatively measuring the pleasure and pain produced by any action according to variables such as intensity, duration, certainty and propinquity, aiming to apply mathematical rigour to ethics and, above all, to comprehensive legislative reform. A fierce critic of English common law, legal fictions and 'natural rights' —which he famously called 'nonsense upon stilts'— he devoted his life to practical reform projects: the design of the Panopticon, a circular prison of centralised surveillance meant to render corporal punishment unnecessary through the mere constant possibility of being observed, the decriminalisation of homosexuality (advocated in a manuscript left unpublished during his lifetime for fear of social scandal), equal rights for women, universal suffrage, and the wholesale reform of Britain's legislative, judicial and penal systems. Together with his disciples, among them James Mill —father of John Stuart Mill, who would later refine and qualify his teacher's utilitarianism— he founded the 'philosophic radicals' movement, influential in nineteenth-century British political and social reforms. By his own wish, his embalmed body, dressed and topped with a wax head since his own skull was poorly preserved, remains on display today in a cabinet at University College London, the institution he helped found and inspired with his ideals of universal access to education.
9 works
- A Fragment on Government
- An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation
- Anarchical Fallacies; being an Examination of the Declarations of Rights issued
- Defence of Usury
- Not Paul, but Jesus
- Of the Levelling System
- Panopticon or the Inspection-House
- Short Review of the Declaration
- The Book of Fallacies