Abstract

James Collins writes that some modern philosophers have not been given revisionary treatment by their critics.This is the case with Wolff, Bentham, and Comte, who are held fast in their respective categories of rationalism and utilitarianism and positivism, with only minor flurries of research aimed at reconsidering them from a fresh angle.Fortunately, Bentham's day has now come, and we have in David Lyons’ In the Interest of the Governed, a major new interpretation. Lyons permits us to continue to call Bentham a “utilitarian,” but we have to revise what we understand by the term in this context.