Overview
Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832) was the English founder of classical utilitarianism and a relentless legal reformer. Trained at Oxford and Lincoln’s Inn, he spent decades drafting codes, critiquing common law fictions, and proposing institutions such as the Panopticon. An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789) states the greatest-happiness principle. Handbook dates: 1748–1832. His auto-icon at UCL literalizes a life devoted to public utility.
Main ideas
Pleasure and pain are sovereign masters; the principle of utility judges acts by effects on happiness. Intensities, duration, certainty, and extent of pleasures are measurable in principle—felicific calculus. Rights talk without utility is “nonsense upon stilts,” yet legal rights can be justified instrumentally. Codification should replace opaque precedent with transparent rules. Panoptic surveillance designs discipline through visibility—later a critical metaphor for modern power. Animal suffering counts in the moral calculus because sentience, not reason, matters.
Major works
- An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation
- Of Laws in General
- Constitutional Code
- Panopticon writings
Legacy
Bentham fathered utilitarian ethics, animal ethics openings, and much modern policy analysis language. Foucault and others turned the Panopticon against his progressive self-image. Legal positivism and reform movements continually revisit his drafts.