Bentham, a founder of political science based on the calculation of interest, has been misread as a crass materialist. I argue, instead, that Bentham's interest is a specific product of the imagination, and the pleasures and pains of which it is composed are also products of the imagination. On my reading, interests and imaginations are always governed and the role of Bentham's political science is to help govern them more effectively and efficiently. Political science is a mode of what he (...) calls. Various interest-based modes of analysis have been attacked by constructivist critics, but I argue that the arch-theorist of interest himself relies on constructivist modes of analysis. What lessons can we learn from this? We should pay less attention to methodological and foundational conflicts, and pay more attention to the practices of government that social science may or may not indirectly legislate. (shrink)

Jeremy Bentham, philosopher and reformer, is one of the most influential thinkers of the modern age. This introduction to his writings presents a representative selection of texts authoritatively restored by the Bentham Project, University College London. As well as more familiar pieces on utility, law, and politics/policy, highlights include the succinct essay “On Retrenchment” and a never-before-published treatise on sex. The volume is completed by major interpretative essays by Mark Canuel, David Lieberman, Jennifer Pitts, and Philip Schofield. The texts included (...) in the book are: -Sex -An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, Preface and Chapters 1–5 -Place and Time -Rationale of Judicial Evidence, Specially Applied to English Practice, Book 1, Chapter 1 -Constitutional Code Rationale, Chapters 1 and 2 -Pannomial Fragments -Panopticon, or, the Inspection-House, Letters 1, 2, and 6 -Of Publicity -Manual of Political Economy, Chapters 1 and 2 -Nonsense Upon Stilts -On Retrenchment. (shrink)