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JEREMY BENTHAM
Utilitarianism & Liberty
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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................................3
Information on Jeremy Bentham................................................................................................................3
About his life...............................................................................................................................................3
Utilitarianism Meaning...............................................................................................................................5
Consequentialism................................................................................................................................5

The Principle of Utility................................................................................................................................7

The History of Utilitarianism.......................................................................................................................8

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Bentham’s view on Utilitarianism............................................................................................................10

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Bentham’s View on Liberty.......................................................................................................................15
JEREMY BENTHAM’S FAMOUS QUOTATIONS...........................................................................................18
BIBLIOGRAPHY..........................................................................................................................................19
WEBLIOGRAPHY........................................................................................................................................20
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Introduction
Information on Jeremy Bentham

Jeremy Bentham, jurist and political reformer, is the philosopher whose name is most closely
associated with the foundational era of the modern utilitarian tradition. Earlier moralists had
enunciated several of the core ideas and characteristic terminology of utilitarian philosophy,
most notably John Gay, Francis Hutcheson, David Hume, Claude-Adrien Helvétius and Cesare
Beccaria, but it was Bentham who rendered the theory in its recognizably secular and
systematic form and made it a critical tool of moral and legal philosophy and political and social
improvement. In 1776, he first announced himself to the world as a proponent of utility as the
guiding principle of conduct and law in A Fragment on Government. In An Introduction to the
Principles of Morals and Legislation (printed 1780, published 1789), as a preliminary to
developing a theory of penal law he detailed the basic elements of classical utilitarian theory.
The penal code was to be the first in a collection of codes that would constitute the utilitarian
pannomion, a complete body of law based on the utility principle, the development of which
was to engage Bentham in a lifetime’s work and was to include civil, procedural, and
constitutional law. As a by-product, and in the interstices between the sub-codes of this vast
legislative edifice, Bentham’s writings ranged across ethics, ontology, logic, political economy,
judicial administration, poor law, prison reform, international law, education, religious beliefs
and institutions, democratic theory, government, and administration. In all these areas he made
major contributions that continue to feature in discussions of utilitarianism, notably its moral,
legal, economic and political forms. Upon this rests Bentham’s reputation as one of the great
thinkers in modern philosophy.

About his 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.
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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, Bentham did not write any single text giving the
essential principles of his views on this topic. His most important theoretical work is
the Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789), in which much of his moral
theory—which he said reflected "the greatest happiness principle"—is described and
developed.
In 1781, Bentham became associated with the Earl of Shelburne and, through him, came into
contact with a number of the leading Whig politicians and lawyers. Although his work was
admired by some at the time, Bentham's ideas were still largely unappreciated. In 1785, he
briefly joined his brother Samuel in Russia, where he pursued his writing with even more than
his usual intensity, and he devised a plan for the now infamous "Panopticon"—a model prison
where all prisoners would be observable by (unseen) guards at all times—a project which he
had hoped would interest the Czarina Catherine the Great. After his return to England in 1788,
and for some 20 years thereafter, Bentham pursued—fruitlessly and at great expense—the idea
of the panopticon. Fortunately, an inheritance received in 1796 provided him with financial
stability. By the late 1790s, Bentham's theoretical work came to have a more significant place in
political reform. Still, his influence was, arguably, still greater on the continent. (Bentham was
made an honorary citizen of the fledgling French Republic in 1792, and his The Theory of
Legislation was published first, in French, by his Swiss disciple, Etienne Dumont, in 1802.)
The precise extent of Bentham's influence in British politics has been a matter of some debate.
While he attacked both Tory and Whig policies, both the Reform Bill of 1832 (promoted by
Bentham's disciple, Lord Henry Brougham) and later reforms in the century (such as the secret
ballot, advocated by Bentham's friend, George Grote, who was elected to parliament in 1832)
reflected Benthamite concerns. The impact of Bentham's ideas goes further still. Contemporary
philosophical and economic vocabulary (for example, "international," "maximize," "minimize,"
and "codification") is indebted to Bentham's proclivity for inventing terms, and among his other
disciples were James Mill and his son, John (who was responsible for an early edition of some of
Bentham's manuscripts), as well as the legal theorist, John Austin.
At his death in London, on June 6, 1832, Bentham left literally tens of thousands of manuscript
pages—some of which was work only sketched out, but all of which he hoped would be
prepared for publication. He also left a large estate, which was used to finance the newly-
established University College, London (for those individuals excluded from university education
—that is, non-conformists, Catholics and Jews), and his cadaver, per his instructions, was
dissected, embalmed, dressed, and placed in a chair, and to this day resides in a cabinet in a
corridor of the main building of University College. The Bentham Project, set up in the early
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1960s at University College, has as its aim the publishing of a definitive, scholarly edition of
Bentham's works and correspondence.
Bentham's analytical and empirical method is especially obvious when one looks at some of his
main criticisms of the law and of moral and political discourse in general. His principal target
was the presence of "fictions"—in particular, legal fictions. On his view, to consider any part or
aspect of a thing in abstraction from that thing is to run the risk of confusion or to cause
positive deceit. While, in some cases, such "fictional" terms as "relation," "right," "power," and
"possession" were of some use, in many cases their original warrant had been forgotten, so that
they survived as the product of either prejudice or inattention. In those cases where the terms
could be "cashed out" in terms of the properties of real things, they could continue to be used,
but otherwise they were to be abandoned. Still, Bentham hoped to eliminate legal fictions as far
as possible from the law, including the legal fiction that there was some original contract that
explained why there was any law at all. He thought that, at the very least, clarifications and
justifications could be given that avoided the use of such terms.

Utilitarianism Meaning

The doctrine that an action is right in so far as it promotes happiness, and that the greatest
happiness of the greatest number should be the guiding principle of conduct. - OXFORD
DICTIONARY
A doctrine that the useful is the good and that the determining consideration of right conduct
should be the usefulness of its consequences; specifically: a theory that the aim of action
should be the largest possible balance of pleasure over pain or the greatest happiness of the
greatest number-Merriam Webster
Utilitarianism is mainly characterized by two elements: happiness and consequentialism.
Utilitarian happiness is the biggest happiness which (supposedly) every human being looks for.
In utilitarianism everything useful to happiness is good. Therefore, the name of the doctrine is
utilitarianism, based on the principle of utility. Utility is found in everything which contributes to
the happiness of every rational being. The criterion of good and evil is balanced between
individual's happiness and the happiness of the community, "each counting in an equal way"
(Bentham, Introduction in the principles of morality and legislation).
Consequentialism in utilitarianism is in the fact that an action must be judged for its
consequences on the happiness of the largest number. That is: my search for happiness stops
when it decreases the happiness of another individual or the happiness of the largest number,
of the society or the community. As personal freedom is considered in respect of the freedom
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of other individuals and of the community, my freedom stops when it diminishes the freedom
of another individual or the well-being of the society. We could say that utilitarianism is the
continuation of Roman legislation, and its modern aspect is shown in the fact that utilitarianism
adds an economical, legislative and political dimension to an ethical concept, that of happiness
and well-being. The modern aspect of the doctrine will evolve throughout the 19th century,
with Bentham, Mill and Sidgwick who succeeds in giving to this doctrine a practical and rational
dimension which we can find in our modern society, in economics, politics and ethics.
"The continuing vitality of the greatest happiness system is not difficult to understand – it
embodies a very natural and compelling model of rationality. This model, which dominates
much of contemporary economics (as well as decision theory, "cost-benefit analysis", and
"public choice theory") sees rational action as an attempt to maximise net utility (i.e. the result
of summing the benefits and costs and subtracting the latter from the former). This view, which
is frequently called "means-end" rationality, goes back (at least) to Aristotle. In the
Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle asserts that "we cannot deliberate about ends but only about the
means by which ends can be attained." If we assume, with Aristotle, that happiness is the
"highest good attainable by action," and hence the aim of politics, we get something very like
Bentham's view. Indeed it is tempting, and not implausible, to interpret philosophers as
different as Adam Smith and Chairman Mao as agreeing that the goal of social institutions is the
maximization of realizing that end.
Of course philosophers who share this vision of the proper function of social institutions like law
and morality may differ on more than the best methods to attain it, as Aristotle noted, there is
widespread agreement that happiness is the goal, but considerable disagreement as to what
constitutes happiness. For Bentham the answer is simple: happiness is just pleasure and
absence of pain. The value (or disvalue) of a pleasure (or pain) depends only on its intensity and
duration, and can (at least in principle) be quantified precisely. Given this, we can reconstruct
one line of Bentham's argument for the principle of UTILITY as something like the following:
1. The good of a society is the sum of happiness of the individuals in that society.
2. The purpose of morality is promotion of the good of society.
3. A moral principle is ideal if and only if universal conformity to it would maximize the
good of society.
4. Universal conformity to the principle of UTILITY ("Act always so as to maximize total net
balance of pleasures and pains") would maximize the good of society.
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The Principle of Utility

We wrote that Bentham proposes to use the utility principle instead of ‘rights’ to resolve
conflicts. ‘The right end of all human action is’, says Bentham, ‘the creation of the largest
possible balance of happiness’, and this tendency to produce happiness is what he meant
by utility. For Bentham, the morally right action in any circumstances is the one that will tend to
maximize total happiness. Each individual counts equally in the calculation of how much
pleasure is produced by an action, and the total of pleasurable states is summed to determine
how we should act. Bentham’s utilitarianism aims at achieving the greatest aggregate
happiness, that is the largest total sum of happiness irrespective of how that happiness was
distributed.
This utility principle is the foundation of all Bentham’s schemes of legislation. ‘The end and aim
of a legislator should be the happiness of the people. In matters of legislation, general utility
should be his guiding principle’ (Principles of Legislation, Ch. I). Nature has placed mankind
under the governance of two sovereign masters, pleasure and pain. To these two motives
the principle of utility subjects everything: the principle is respected on an individual or
collective level when ‘anything’ tends to augment pleasure. Hence, (criminal) law becomes ‘a
simple piece of practical business’. Measuring pleasure and pain allows one for to measure the
good or evil of any action; manipulating pleasure and pain allows for controlling the behavior of
man.
This brings us to Bentham’s theory of punishment. Bentham conceived certain pains and
pleasures so annexed to actions as to form bonds, constraining a man, as it were, to the
observance of some particular rule of life or conduct. Hence he believed that the whole duty of
man might be enforced by the operation of ‘physical’, ‘political or legal’, ‘moral or popular’, and
‘religious’ sanctions. ‘Many men’, says Bentham, ‘fear the wrath of Heaven; many men fear loss
of character; but all men are acted upon, more or less, by the fear of the gaol, the scourge, the
gallows, the pillory, and so forth" (Principles of Legislation, Ch. VII). This quote gives us the best
possible illustration of Bentham’s theory of punishment formulated as a genuine theory of
social control.
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The History of Utilitarianism

Utilitarianism is one of the most powerful and persuasive approaches to normative ethics in the
history of philosophy. Though not fully articulated until the 19 th century, proto-utilitarian
positions can be discerned throughout the history of ethical theory.
Though there are many varieties of the view discussed, utilitarianism is generally held to be the
view that the morally right action is the action that produces the most good. There are many
ways to spell out this general claim. One thing to note is that the theory is a form of
consequentialism: the right action is understood entirely in terms of consequences produced.
What distinguishes utilitarianism from egoism has to do with the scope of the relevant
consequences. On the utilitarian view one ought to maximize the overall good — that is,
consider the good of others as well as one's own good.
The Classical Utilitarians, Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill, identified the good with
pleasure, so, like Epicurus, were hedonists about value. They also held that we ought to
maximize the good, that is, bring about ‘the greatest amount of good for the greatest number’.
Utilitarianism is also distinguished by impartiality and agent-neutrality. Everyone's happiness
counts the same. When one maximizes the good, it is the good impartially considered. My good
counts for no more than anyone else's good. Further, the reason I have to promote the overall
good is the same reason anyone else has to so promote the good. It is not peculiar to me.
All of these features of this approach to moral evaluation and/or moral decision-making have
proven to be somewhat controversial and subsequent controversies have led to changes in the
Classical version of the theory.
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Bentham’s view on Utilitarianism

Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832) was influenced both by Hobbes' account of human nature and
Hume's account of social utility. He famously held that humans were ruled by two sovereign
masters — pleasure and pain. We seek pleasure and the avoidance of pain, they “…govern us in
all we do, in all we say, in all we think…” (Bentham PML, 1). Yet he also promulgated the
principle of utility as the standard of right action on the part of governments and individuals.
Actions are approved when they are such as to promote happiness, or pleasure, and
disapproved of when they have a tendency to cause unhappiness, or pain (PML). Combine this
criterion of rightness with a view that we should be actively trying to promote overall
happiness, and one has a serious incompatibility with psychological egoism. Thus, his apparent
endorsement of Hobbesian psychological egoism created problems in understanding his moral
theory since psychological egoism rules out acting to promote the overall well-being when that
it is incompatible with one's own. For the psychological egoist, that is not even a possibility. So,
given ‘ought implies can’ it would follow that we are not obligated to act to promote overall
well-being when that is incompatible with our own. This generates a serious tension in
Bentham's thought, one that was drawn to his attention. He sometimes seemed to think that he
could reconcile the two commitments empirically, that is, by noting that when people act to
promote the good they are helping themselves, too. But this claim only serves to muddy the
waters, since the standard understanding of psychological egoism — and Bentham's own
statement of his view — identifies motives of action which are self-interested. Yet this seems,
again, in conflict with his own specification of the method for making moral decisions which is
not to focus on self-interest — indeed, the addition of extent as a parameter along which to
measure pleasure produced distinguishes this approach from ethical egoism. Aware of the
difficulty, in later years he seemed to pull back from a full-fledged commitment to psychological
egoism, admitting that people do sometimes act benevolently — with the overall good of
humanity in mind.
Bentham also benefited from Hume's work, though in many ways their approaches to moral
philosophy were completely different. Hume rejected the egoistic view of human nature. Hume
also focused on character evaluation in his system. Actions are significant as evidence of
character, but only have this derivative significance. In moral evaluation the main concern is that
of character. Yet Bentham focused on act-evaluation. There was a tendency — remarked on by J.
B. Schneewind (1990), for example — to move away from focus on character evaluation after
Hume and towards act-evaluation. Recall that Bentham was enormously interested in social
reform. Indeed, reflection on what was morally problematic about laws and policies influenced
his thinking on utility as a standard. When one legislates, however, one is legislating in support
of, or against, certain actions. Character — that is, a person's true character — is known, if
known at all, only by that person. If one finds the opacity of the will thesis plausible then
character, while theoretically very interesting, isn't a practical focus for legislation. Further, as
Schneewind notes, there was an increasing sense that focus on character would actually be
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disruptive, socially, particularly if one's view was that a person who didn't agree with one on a
moral issues was defective in terms of his or her character, as opposed to simply making a
mistake reflected in action.
But Bentham does take from Hume the view that utility is the measure of virtue — that is, utility
more broadly construed than Hume's actual usage of the term. This is because Hume made a
distinction between pleasure that the perception of virtue generates in the observer, and social
utility, which consisted in a trait's having tangible benefits for society, any instance of which may
or may not generate pleasure in the observer. But Bentham is not simply reformulating a
Humean position — he's merely been influenced by Hume's arguments to see pleasure as a
measure or standard of moral value. So, why not move from pleasurable responses to traits to
pleasure as a kind of consequence which is good, and in relation to which, actions are morally
right or wrong? Bentham, in making this move, avoids a problem for Hume. On Hume's view it
seems that the response — corrected, to be sure — determines the trait's quality as a virtue or
vice. But on Bentham's view the action (or trait) is morally good, right, virtuous in view of the
consequences it generates, the pleasure or utility it produces, which could be completely
independent of what our responses are to the trait. So, unless Hume endorses a kind of ideal
observer test for virtue, it will be harder for him to account for how it is people make mistakes
in evaluations of virtue and vice. Bentham, on the other hand, can say that people may not
respond to the actions good qualities — perhaps they don't perceive the good effects. But as
long as there are these good effects which are, on balance, better than the effects of any
alternative course of action, then the action is the right one. Rhetorically, anyway, one can see
why this is an important move for Bentham to be able to make. He was a social reformer. He felt
that people often had responses to certain actions — of pleasure or disgust — that did not
reflect anything morally significant at all. Indeed, in his discussions of homosexuality, for
example, he explicitly notes that ‘antipathy’ is not sufficient reason to legislate against a
practice:
The circumstances from which this antipathy may have taken its rise may be worth enquiring
to…. One is the physical antipathy to the offence…. The act is to the highest degree odious and
disgusting, that is, not to the man who does it, for he does it only because it gives him pleasure,
but to one who thinks [?] of it. Be it so, but what is that to him? (Bentham OAO, v. 4, 94)
Bentham then notes that people are prone to use their physical antipathy as a pretext to
transition to moral antipathy, and the attending desire to punish the persons who offend their
taste. This is illegitimate on his view for a variety of reasons, one of which is that to punish a
person for violations of taste, or on the basis of prejudice, would result in runaway
punishments, “…one should never know where to stop…” The prejudice in question can be dealt
with by showing it “to be ill-grounded”. This reduces the antipathy to the act in question. This
demonstrates an optimism in Bentham. If a pain can be demonstrated to be based on false
beliefs then he believes that it can be altered or at the very least ‘assuaged and reduced’. This is
distinct from the view that a pain or pleasure based on a false belief should be discounted.
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Bentham does not believe the latter. Thus Bentham's hedonism is a very straightforward
hedonism. The one intrinsic good is pleasure, the bad is pain. We are to promote pleasure and
act to reduce pain. When called upon to make a moral decision one measures an action's value
with respect to pleasure and pain according to the following: intensity (how strong the pleasure
or pain is), duration (how long it lasts), certainty (how likely the pleasure or pain is to be the
result of the action), proximity (how close the sensation will be to performance of the action),
fecundity (how likely it is to lead to further pleasures or pains), purity (how much intermixture
there is with the other sensation). One also considers extent — the number of people affected
by the action.
Keeping track of all of these parameters can be complicated and time consuming. Bentham
does not recommend that they figure into every act of moral deliberation because of the
efficiency costs which need to be considered. Experience can guide us. We know that the
pleasure of kicking someone is generally outweighed by the pain inflicted on that person, so
such calculations when confronted with a temptation to kick someone are unnecessary. It is
reasonable to judge it wrong on the basis of past experience or consensus. One can use ‘rules of
thumb’ to guide action, but these rules are overridable when abiding by them would conflict
with the promotion of the good.
Bentham's view was surprising to many at the time at least in part because he viewed the moral
quality of an action to be determined instrumentally. It isn't so much that there is a particular
kind of action that is intrinsically wrong; actions that are wrong are wrong simply in virtue of
their effects, thus, instrumentally wrong. This cut against the view that there are some actions
that by their very nature are just wrong, regardless of their effects. Some may be wrong
because they are ‘unnatural’ — and, again, Bentham would dismiss this as a legitimate criterion.
Some may be wrong because they violate liberty, or autonomy. Again, Bentham would view
liberty and autonomy as good — but good instrumentally, not intrinsically. Thus, any action
deemed wrong due to a violation of autonomy is derivatively wrong on instrumental grounds as
well. This is interesting in moral philosophy — as it is far removed from the Kantian approach to
moral evaluation as well as from natural law approaches. It is also interesting in terms of
political philosophy and social policy. On Bentham's view the law is not monolithic and
immutable. Since effects of a given policy may change, the moral quality of the policy may
change as well. Nancy Rosenblum noted that for Bentham one doesn't simply decide on good
laws and leave it at that: “Lawmaking must be recognized as a continual process in response to
diverse and changing desires that require adjustment” (Rosenblum 1978, 9). A law that is good
at one point in time may be a bad law at some other point in time. Thus, lawmakers have to be
sensitive to changing social circumstances. To be fair to Bentham's critics, of course, they are
free to agree with him that this is the case in many situations, just not all — and that there is
still a subset of laws that reflect the fact that some actions just are intrinsically wrong regardless
of consequences. Bentham is in the much more difficult position of arguing that effects are all
there are to moral evaluation of action and policy.
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In Bentham's theory, an action conforming to the principle of utility is right or at least not
wrong; it ought to be done, or at least it is not the case that it ought not be done. But Bentham
does not use the word 'duty' here. For Bentham, rights and duties are legal notions, linked with
the notions of command and sanction. What we call moral duties and rights would require a
moral legislator (a divine being presumably) but theological notions are outside the scope of his
theory. To talk of natural rights and duties suggests, as it were, a law without a legislator, and is
nonsensical in the same way as talk of a son without a parent. Apart from theoretical
considerations, Bentham also condemned the belief in natural rights on the grounds that it
inspired violence and bloodshed, as seen in the excesses of the French Revolution.
Bentham at first believed that enlightened and public-spirited statesmen would overcome
conservative stupidity and institute progressive reforms to promote public happiness. When
disillusionment set in, he developed greater sympathy for democratic reform and an extension
of the franchise. He believed that with the gradual improvement in the level of education in
society, people would be more likely to decide and vote on the basis of rational calculation of
what would be for their own long-term benefit, and individual rational decision-making would
therefore, in aggregate, increasingly tend to promote the greater general happiness.
Bentham had first-hand knowledge of the legal profession and criticized it vehemently. He also
wrote a highly entertaining Handbook of Political Fallacies 1824, which deals with the logic and
rhetoric of political debate.
Bentham figured prominently among the small number of men who became known
as phlosophical radicals, but his utilitarianism was not much discussed until the latter half of the
nineteenth century. His prolific writings were published in part by devoted disciples, but some
were published for the first time in the 1940s and after, and the publication of his complete
works is still in progress. Among these writings is an analysis of the logic of deontic concepts,
and On Laws in General contains a carefully elaborated theory of jurisprudence."
Published Works of Jeremy Bentham relevant to liberty and Utilitarianism
An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (London, T.Payne, 1789).
On the Liberty of the Press and Public Discussions (London, W. Hone, 1821).
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Bentham’s View on Liberty

The notion of liberty present in Bentham's account is what is now generally referred to as
"negative" liberty—freedom from external restraint or compulsion. Bentham says that "liberty is
the absence of restraint" and so, to the extent that one is not hindered by others, one has
liberty and is "free." Bentham denies that liberty is "natural" (in the sense of existing "prior to"
social life and thereby imposing limits on the state) or that there is an a priori sphere of liberty
in which the individual is sovereign. In fact, Bentham holds that people have always lived in
society, and so there can be no state of nature (though he does distinguish between political
society and "natural society") and no "social contract" (a notion which he held was not only
unhistorical but pernicious). Nevertheless, he does note that there is an important distinction
between one's public and private life that has morally significant consequences, and he holds
that liberty is a good—that, even though it is not something that is a fundamental value, it
reflects the greatest happiness principle.
Correlative with this account of liberty, Bentham (as Thomas Hobbes before him) viewed law as
"negative." Given that pleasure and pain are fundamental to—indeed, provide—the standard of
value for Bentham, liberty is a good (because it is "pleasant") and the restriction of liberty is an
evil (because it is "painful"). Law, which is by its very nature a restriction of liberty and painful to
those whose freedom is restricted, is a prima facie evil. It is only so far as control by the state is
limited that the individual is free. Law is, Bentham recognized, necessary to social order and
good laws are clearly essential to good government. Indeed, perhaps more than Locke,
Bentham saw the positive role to be played by law and government, particularly in achieving
community well-being. To the extent that law advances and protects one's economic and
personal goods and that what government exists is self-government, law reflects the interests of
the individual.
Unlike many earlier thinkers, Bentham held that law is not rooted in a "natural law" but is
simply a command expressing the will of the sovereign. (This account of law, later developed by
Austin, is characteristic of legal positivism.) Thus, a law that commands morally questionable or
morally evil actions, or that is not based on consent, is still law.

Jeremy Bentham was well-known for his refutation of the idea of human rights, such as those
used in the French Declaration of rights. Natural rights, he writes, are ‘simple nonsense’ and
‘natural and imprescriptible rights’ were ‘nonsense upon stilts’. This will be recalled in Theory of
Legislation, a work that is central in this chapter.
In this book, Bentham holds that natural laws are the product of the imagination of those that
invoke them and anyone may lay down what he pleases (Principles of Legislation, Ch. XIII).
Liberty can be secured only where ‘real’ rights are established through a legal system. To work
out such a system, Bentham proposes to use the utility principle rather than ‘natural rights’ to
resolve conflicts.
‘The utility or interest of an individual’ are the basic ingredients of Bentham’s societal calculus.
‘The science of legislation consists in determining what makes for the good of the particular
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community whose interests are stake, while its art consists in contriving some means of
realization’ (Principles of Legislation)
According to Bentham, the ‘common interest’ to be furthered by his schemes for reform
‘corresponds to the immediately subordinate right and proper ends of government’. These ends
or objects which the legislator should seek to attain
are security, subsistence, abundance and equality, the first being the most important (Principles
of the Civil Code, Part I, Ch. 2). Other ‘objects’, such as equality, justice, and liberty, command
respect and ought to enter into the views of the legislator, but they must be subordinate to the
happiness and security of the community (Principles of Legislation, Ch. IV).
‘Some persons’, Bentham says, ‘may be surprised to find that ‘Liberty’ is not ranked among the
principal objects of the law’, but ‘we must regard it as a branch of “Security” to avoid confusion’.
‘Personal liberty is security against a certain class of wrongs which affects the person; while
what is called political liberty is also a branch of security -security against injustice at the hands
of the persons entrusted with government’ (Principles of the Civil Code, Part I, Ch. 2). Liberty or
individual liberty are not part of Bentham’s priorities. Liberty is a ‘chimera’ in the world of
politics, a passion building up to fanaticism, that blinds men at a point where they do not
trouble ‘whether a state is well administered, whether its laws afford protection to persons and
property, whether, in a word, its people are happy’ (Principles of Legislation, Ch. IV).
In these paragraphs, Bentham comes very close to Hobbes who considered liberty to halt once
the social contract was signed. Both discuss civil society wherein the idea of liberty is absent or
entirely subjected to the general interest or happiness. Where there is law, there is no freedom,
Bentham assumes, and where there is freedom, there can always come law, since freedom is
one of the goals that can be subjected to the happiness and security of the community. More so
than Burke, merely opposed to ‘abstract freedom’, Bentham is the first post revolutionary
thinker to make liberty completely disappear from the legal domain. What remains of it should
be legally considered as a branch of ‘Security’ to avoid confusion.
The sum total of the Benthamite liberty is very different from the idea of complex freedom. In
his conception of liberty there is only the question of liberty understood as a privacy right, viz.
as a shield against intrusion and interference by other people or by holders of authority. Liberty
understood as the ideal of the free or autonomous person, giving full weight to the individual’s
willingness and tendency for self-development, is left out of Bentham’s legal picture. This
approach to liberty necessitates two or three remarks.
Firstly, it is important to recognize the influence of Montesquieu’s and Beccaria’s work, with
which Bentham was familiar. Bentham’s use of their narrow liberty concept can help to explain
the poor treatment of liberty in most western nineteenth century constitutions. Affirming
liberty was not felt to be a necessity anymore. The fathers of the Belgian 1831 Constitution
considered the legal job concerning liberty done, by drafting an article protecting the citizen
against unlawful arrest.
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Secondly, Bentham’s ‘proper ends of government’ do not correspond wholly with the ‘ends’ of
the social contract enumerated in the French and American basic constitutional documents. The
expressions subsistence and abundance are absent and security, Bentham’s primary end, is
equally lacking. To ‘effect’ ‘safety of the people’ is clearly one of the tasks of government in the
American Declaration, but this has to be done while ‘securing the said unalienable rights’. The
French Déclaration is even less ambiguous. There is no other ‘end’ of government than this of
preserving the said natural and inalienable rights. ‘Security’ is clearly not on the list and it
cannot be equated with the notion of sûreté used in article 2 of the French Déclaration. If the
said article includes ‘sûreté’ in the list of natural rights, the term was not to be given the actual
meaning of the term ‘security’. Rather, the National Assembly meant by it a guarantee against
arbitrary state interventions in the life of the citizen. The intention was Beccarian, viz. to provide
for protection against the so-called lettres de cachet, not to target delinquency (Bonnemaison,
1987). Hence, Article 2 is essentially saying no more than that the citizen should be protected
against actions of the government. Even when interpreted very broadly, the said Article can
under no circumstances be read as stating that security is a primary goal of government,
implying far going subjection of all individual rights and implying the cooperation of the citizen
to fulfil this task. Bentham, on the contrary, seems to assume that without government there
will be no security and hence no individual rights.
Thirdly, and more technically, one should understand Bentham’s approach to liberty by taking
into account his narrow theory of rights. We already discussed his famous attack upon natural
and inprescriptible rights (supra). Correlative to this is his adherence to what is later termed
‘the benefit theory of rights’ (Freeden, 1987). A right is the legal expectation of the discharge of
a legal duty, intended to benefit the right-bearer. A legislator can only distribute rights or
obligations, Bentham holds, and there cannot be question of a right, without there being
question of a duty imposed on somebody else. The second part of the proposition can be
questioned. In our opinion, nothing stands in the way of the recognition of legal goods that do
not impose duties on particular persons.

Bentham believed that there were no natural rights to be interfered with.

Trained in law, Bentham never practiced, choosing instead to focus on judicial and legal reforms.
His reform plans went beyond rewriting legislative acts to include detailed administrative plans
to implement his proposals. In his plan for prisons, workhouses, and other institutions, Bentham
devised compensation schemes, building designs, worker timetables, and even new accounting
systems. A guiding principle of Bentham’s schemes was that incentives should be designed “to
make it each man’s interest to observe on every occasion that conduct which it is his duty to
observe.” Interestingly, Bentham’s thinking led him to the conclusion, which he shared with
Smith, that professors should not be salaried
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JEREMY BENTHAM’S FAMOUS QUOTATIONS

 ‘’It is the greatest good to the greatest number of people which is the measure of right
and wrong.
All punishment is mischief; all punishment in itself is evil.’’

 ‘’Lawyers are the only persons in whom ignorance of the law is not punished.’’

 ‘’Every law is an infraction of liberty’’

 ‘’No power of government ought to be employed in the endeavor to establish any
system or article of belief on the subject of religion’’ ‘
 ’Nature has placed mankind under the government of two sovereign masters, pain and
pleasure... they govern us in all we do, in all we say, in all we think: every effort we can
make to throw off our subjection, will serve but to demonstrate and confirm it.’’
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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Alok Pradhan (2010), The Political Theory, Pacific Publication, Delhi.

G. Sreedathan (2006), Western Political Thought and Theories, Deep and Deep Publications Pvt.
Ltd., New Delhi.
Radhay Shyam Chaurasia, History of Western Political Thought: Volume 1, Atlantic Publishers &
Dist., New Delhi.
Shefali Jha, Western Political Thought: From Plato to Marx, Dorling Kindersley (India) Pvt. Ltd.,
New Delhi.
Subrata Mukherjee & Anr., (2005), A History of Political Thought: Plato to Marx, Prentice-Hall of
India Pvt. Ltd., New Delhi.
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WEBLIOGRAPHY
1. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/bentham/#LifWri
2. http://sk.sagepub.com/reference/behavioralsciences/n2634.xml
3. https://books.google.co.in/books/about/The_Classical_Utilitarians_Bentham_and_M.html?
id=13f5Zm_8veIC&redir_esc=y&hl=en
4. http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/j/jeremy_bentham.html