The central intuition that guides the argument of this book is that both the technical and reductionist methodology associated with utilitarianism do not do ...

This course is an introduction to political theory by way of a history of ideas about politics, and these ideas are of course related to ideas concerning ethics, religion and other fields.

The Declaration of Rights -- I mean the paper published under that name by the French National Assembly in 1791 -- assumes for its subject-matter a field of disquisition as unbounded in point of extent as it is important in its nature. But the more ample the extent given to any proposition or string of propositions, the more difficult it is to keep the import of it confined without deviation, within the bounds of truth and reason. If in the smallest (...) corners of the field it ranges over, it fail of coinciding with the line of rigid rectitude, no sooner is the aberration pointed out, than (inasmuch as there is no medium between truth and falsehood) its pretensions to the appellation of truism are gone, and whoever looks upon it must recognise it to be false and erroneous, -- and if, as here, political conduct be the theme, so far as the error extends and fails of being detected, pernicious. (shrink)

The work emerged from Bentham's attempt to distinguish between civil and penal law, which led him into an exposition of the nature and scope of an individual ...

Definitions and distinctions -- Classification -- Of the ends of punishment -- Cases unmeet for punishment -- Expense of punishment -- Measure of punishment -- Of the properties to be given to a lot of punishment -- Of analogy between crimes and punishment -- Of retaliation -- Popularity -- Simple afflictive punishments -- Of complex afflictive punishments -- Of restrictive punishments--territorial confinement -- Imprisonment -- Imprisonment--fees -- Imprisonment examined -- General scheme of imprisonment -- Of other species of territorial confinement--quasi-imprisonment--relegation--banishment (...) -- Of simply restrictive punishments -- Of active or laborious punishment -- Capital punishment -- Capital punishment examined -- Punishment analyzed -- Of the punishments belonging to the moral sanction -- Forfeiture of reputation -- Of pecuniary forfeitures -- Forfeiture of condition -- Forfeiture of the protection of the law -- Naturally extravasting punishment--rules concerning it -- Punishment apparently, but not really, mis-seated--civil responsibility -- Mis-seated punishment, varieties of -- Vicarious punishment -- Transitive punishment -- Disadvantages of this mode of punishment -- Collective punishment -- Random punishment -- Cause of the frequency of mis-seated punishment -- Inconveniences of complex punishments -- Of transportation -- Panopticon penitentiary -- Felony -- Of præmunire -- Outlawry -- Excommunication -- Choice of punishment--latitude to be allowed to the judges -- Of subsidiary punishments -- Of surety for good conduct -- Defeazance of punishment. (shrink)

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.

A critical edition of three works of Bentham, Deontology and The Article on Utilitarianism were previously unpublished. Together with An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, they provide a comrehensive exposition of Bentham's views. Based entirely on manuscripts by Bentham of his amanuenses, this edition's full introduction linking the three works. Each work is supplemented with detailed and critical notes.

. CHRESTOMATHIA: BEING A COLLECTION OF PAPERS EXPLANATORY OF THE DESIGN OF AN INSTITUTION PROPOSED TO BE SET ON FOOT UNDER THE NAME OF THE ...

Bentham offers a detailed critique of William Blackstone's 'Commentaries on the Laws of England' (1765-9).

Preface Although Bentham wrote voluminously in the field of political philosophy , he did not write any one single work that, like Hobbes's Leviathan or ...

Early memoranda, 1773-75.--A fragment on government.--An introduction to the principles of morals and legislation.--The limits of jurisprudence defined.--Indirect legislation.--Panopticon papers.--Rationale of judicial evidence.--Pannomial fragments.--Chrestomathia.--On the art of invention.--Parliamentary reform catechism.--The book of fallacies.--Last epigrams and sayings.

v. 1. 1752-76.--v. 2. 1777-80.--v. 3. January 1781 to October 1788.--v. 4. 1788-1793.--v. 5. 1794-1797.--v. 6. January 1798 to December 1801.--v. 7. January 1802 to December 1808.--v. 8. January 1809 to December 1816.--v. 9. January 1817 to June 1820.-- v. 10. July 1820 to December 1821.--v. 11. January 1822 to June 1824.--v. 12. July 1824-June 1828.

Introduction, by C.K. Ogden.--The theory of fictions, by Jeremy Bentham.

Principles of legislation.--Principles of the civil code.--Principles of the penal code.

This volume makes available one of the central texts in the development of utilitarian tradition, in the authoritative 1977 edition prepared by Professors Burns and Hart as part of Bentham's Collected Works. Certain that history was on his side, Bentham sought to rid the world of the hideous mess wrought by legal obfuscation and confusion, and to transform politics into a rational, scientific activity, premised on the fundamental axiom that "it is the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is (...) the measure of right and wrong.". (shrink)

Explains every part of the theory of the law of evidence, including the nature and species of judicial proof, means of protection against falsehood, grounds of excluding proof, and peculiarities of certain species of evidence.

Bentham's best-known book stands as a classic of both philosophy and jurisprudence. The 1789 work articulates an important statement of the foundations of utilitarian philosophy — it also represents a pioneering study of crime and punishment. Bentham's reasoning remains central to contemporary debates in moral and political philosophy, economics, and legal theory.

UTILITARIANISM BY JEREMY BENTHAM. LONDON : PROGRESSIVE PUBLISHING COMPANY, "58 Stonecutter Street, ...

This article examines the three works of Jeremy Bentham on capital punishment dating Irom 1775, 1809, and 1831. Besides Hugo Bedau’s analysis of Bentham’s 1775 and 1831 works and James Crimmins’s assessment of Bentham’s 1809 work, little attention has been paid to his abolitionist arguments on this contentious issue. I review some of the developments in Bentham’s position, noting where the later work corrects some deficiencies in the earlier work, and I assess the cogency of the position as it evolves. (...) I concentrate on deterrence and irremissibility, though I also comment on his discussion of popularity in his 1831 address and his 1775 essay.Cet article se penche sur les trois textes qu’a écrits Jeremy Bentham sur la peine capitale (ils datent de 1775, 1809 et 1831). Hormis l’analyse qu’a faite Hugo Bedau des textes de 1775 et 1831 et la prise en compte, par Benjamin Crimmins, de celui de 1809, la position abolitionniste de Bentham sur cette question controversée ne s’est méritée que très peu d’attention de la part des spécialistes. Je passe en revue le développement de quelques-unes des argumentations de Bentham, en soulignant sur quels points les ouvrages publiés plus tard corrigent certains délauts de ceux publiés auparavant, et j’évalue la cohérence de son argumentation dans le cadre de cette évolution. Je concentre mon attention sur les notions de dissuasion et d’irrémissibilité, tout en commentant le traitement qu’il fait de la question de lapopularité dans son discours de 1831 et dans son texte de 1775. (shrink)

Jeremy Bentham provided a comprehensive list of the sources of pleasure and pain, rather in the manner of modern researchers into human well-being. He explicitly used the term well-being and made both qualitative and quantitative proposals for its measurement. Bentham insisted that the measurement of well-being should be firmly based on the concerns and subjective valuations of those directly concerned, in the context of a liberal society. Those who wished to superimpose other judgements were dismissed as "ipsedixitists." He also addressed, (...) though of course could not solve, some of the measurement problems more recently tackled by "neo-Benthamites." The paper concludes that many of Bentham’s observations about the measurement of well-being are still relevant to issues in current research. Key Words: utilitarianism • Bentham • well-being • capabilities. (shrink)

Jeremy Bentham, the founder of utilitarianism, made a powerful impact on several major areas of thought and policy: ethics, jurisprudence, political and constitutional theory, and social and administrative reform. Yet from the start his ideas have been subject to misunderstanding and caricature. John Dinwiddy's Bentham is regarded as the best introduction to this important jurist and reformer. Dinwiddy examines the various components of Bentham's philosophy and shows how each was shaped by the radical rethinking entailed by the utilitarian approach. He (...) also discusses interpretations of Benthamism and its contemporary significance and the controversial question of Bentham's influence on reform. Bentham is reproduced here in full together with three classic essays that deal with key issues in understanding Bentham: his conversion to political radicalism, the relations between private and public ethics, and his theory of adjudication. A new introduction and select bibliography by William Twining set the context and survey the developments in Bentham studies since the book's original publication in 1989. (shrink)

Jeremy Bentham, the founder of utilitarianism, made a powerful impact on several major areas of thought and policy: ethics, jurisprudence, political and constitutional theory, and social and administrative reform. Yet from the start his ideas have been subject to misunderstanding and caricature. John Dinwiddy's Bentham is regarded as the best introduction to this important jurist and reformer. Dinwiddy examines the various components of Bentham's philosophy and shows how each was shaped by the radical rethinking entailed by the utilitarian approach. He (...) also discusses interpretations of Benthamism and its contemporary significance and the controversial question of Bentham's influence on reform. Bentham is reproduced here in full together with three classic essays that deal with key issues in understanding Bentham: his conversion to political radicalism, the relations between private and public ethics, and his theory of adjudication. A new introduction and select bibliography by William Twining set the context and survey the developments in Bentham studies since the book's original publication in 1989. (shrink)

This book is available either individually, or as part of the specially-priced Arguments of the Philosphers Collection.

Most accounts of Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) deal with him as a prophet of either utilitarianism or of liberal democracy. This book discusses a less familiar but very important aspect of his political thought: his theory of how government institutions should be organised in order to function as efficient and yet responsive guardians of the community's interests. It thus focuses on his programme for he executive and judicial branches of government rather than for the legislature and the electorate. Dr Hume suggests (...) that eighteenth-century political thought was richer in ideas about government that has usually been allowed, but that Bentham's special qualities of mind enabled him to widen and deepen those ideas much further than his contemporaries could have foreseen. (shrink)

Drawing extensively on Bentham's unpublished civil and distributive law writings, classical and recent Bentham scholarship, and contemporary work in moral and political philosophy, Kelly here presents the first full-length exposition and sympathetic defense of Bentham's unique utilitarian theory of justice. Kelly shows how Bentham developed a moderate welfare-state liberal theory of justice with egalitarian leanings, the aim of which was to secure the material and political conditions of each citizen's pursuit of the good life in cooperation with each other. A (...) striking and original addition to the growing literature on Bentham's legal and political thought, this incisive study also makes a valuable contribution to contemporary political philosophy. (shrink)