Jeremy Bentham

BENTHAM, JEREMY

Described as a philosopher, jurist, and reformer, Jeremy Bentham is possibly best known as one of the leading proponents of UTILITARIANISM.

Although he was a devoted scholar who spent much of his life writing about legal reform, he published little. Regardless, Bentham had a profound effect on the politics of his day, influenced many of his contemporaries (including eminent British philosopher JOHN STUART MILL), and introduced a number of terms and definitions, which are still used today in the study of philosophy, economics, and politics.

Bentham was born February 15, 1748, in Houndsditch, near London, into a family of attorneys. He was educated at Oxford and admitted to the bar, but decided not to follow in the footsteps of his father and grandfather. Instead of practicing law, Bentham chose to pursue a career in legal, political, and social reform, applying principles of ethical philosophy to these endeavors.

He was greatly influenced by the work of
Claude-Adrien Helvétius, a French philosopher
who believed that all persons are intellectually
equal and that differences arise solely from educational
opportunities. Helvetius also formulated
a theory that good is measured by the
degree of self-contentment experienced by a
person, and that self-interest is the compelling
force for all action. This latter belief had a profound
effect on Bentham, who incorporated the
idea in the formulation of the basic principles of
utilitarianism.
In 1789, Bentham gained public attention
with the publication of his Introduction to the
Principles of Morals and Legislation, which set
forth his fundamental principles. He believed
that the greatest happiness for the greatest number
is the basis of morality.Happiness and pleasure
were the same, and included social,
intellectual, and moral as well as physical pleasures.
According to Bentham, each pleasure has
certain characteristics, including intensity and
duration, and he established a scale of measurement
to judge the worth of a pleasure or a pain.
Bentham further opined that each person strives
to do what makes him or her happiest. The happiness
of an individual and the GENERAL WELFARE
are complementary; the achievement of
the greatest amount of happiness is the goal of
morality.
Bentham applied his views to reform legislation,
feeling that the purpose of the law was to
maximize total happiness within the limitations
of government. As a result, he achieved great
advances in prison reform, CRIMINAL LAW, civil
service, and insurance and was active in the
compilation of laws into comprehensible text.
Bentham is particularly noted for his theories
of punishment. He claimed that all punishment
required justification, because he believed
that all punishment is inherently evil. Bentham
also believed that to a utilitarian such as himself,
real justice is less important than apparent justice.
In other words, Bentham believed that seeing
justice done is more important than justice
actually being done.
Influenced by the work of Italian philosopher
CESARE BECCARIA, Bentham formed some
harsh notions of punishment, such as his belief
that in certain cases torture could be justified.
He wrote that punishment was a relatively weak
disincentive against RECIDIVISM, and that there
is always a risk that an offender will commit
another offense. He suggested that torture
removes this risk because torture ceases immediately
when a subject complies with the
demands of authority. Of course, this idea discounts
the question of whether the subject can
in fact comply.
As a theorist of punishment, Bentham was
naturally interested in the English penal system.
His studies led him to develop a model of an
English prison that applied his theories of punishment
to incarceration.He called his model the
“Panopticon.” The Panopticon was a prison
building—and a whole system of incarceration—
that allowed guards total surveillance and
physical control over prison inmates.Writing of
the Panopticon, Bentham claimed that hard
labor, constant surveillance and monitoring, and
solitary confinement (for purposes of reflection
and repentance) were fundamental requirements
needed to reform and rehabilitate criminal
offenders. This theory builds upon the notion
that punishment can be the means to make an
offender lead a life of moral and civil rectitude.
Bentham attempted to persuade President
JAMES MADISON to adopt a code of laws that he
himself had devised. The philosopher was careful
to cite existing rules and previous cases to
illustrate that his legal theories were sound.
Madison rejected Bentham’s idea in 1811, but in
the 1830s, a group of U.S. reformers adopted
several of his policies with the objective of formulating
a simplified code of law.
When Bentham died June 6, 1832, he left
behind a vast number of manuscript pages, as
well as a large estate. Funds from the estate were
used to help launch University College, London,
an institution which was established to educate
students excluded from universities of the day.
In accordance with Bentham’s instructions,
upon his death his body was dissected,
embalmed, dressed, and seated in a chair. The
seated Bentham is housed in a cabinet in the
main building of University College.
FURTHER READINGS
Ben-Dor, Oren. 2000. Constitutional Limits and the Public
Sphere: A Critical Study of Bentham’s Constitutionalism.
Oxford; Portland, Ore.: Hart.
“Bentham, Jeremy.” The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Available online at (accessed May 7, 2003).
Burns, J. H., and H. L. A. Hart, eds. 1970. “Jeremy Bentham.”
In An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation.
London, England: Athlone.
Engelmann, Stephen G. 2003. Imagining Interest in Political
Thought: Origins of Economic Rationality. Durham,
N.C.: Duke Univ. Press.
Kelly, Paul Joseph. 1997. Utilitarianism and Distributive
Justice: Jeremy Bentham and the Civil Law. Oxford:
Clarendon.