Bentham, Jeremy (1748–1832)

English philosopher, legal and social reformer, and founder of utilitarianism. He believed that every individual action could be submitted to a ‘felicific calculus’, a quantitative comparison of pleasures and pains, the product of which could be used for the purposes of arriving at legislation that would achieve ‘the greatest happiness of the greatest number’. The essence of his moral philosophy is found in Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789).

Although ridiculed for his imprecision, Bentham defended the ‘felicific calculus’ by stating that it was a working hypothesis, not a mechanical procedure. He intended it to take the place of the doctrine of natural rights, which held that individuals had certain absolute moral claims. Modern books on public choice theory term this ‘consequentialism’, judging public action in terms of their practical consequences for everyone. Bentham declared that the ‘utility’ of any law is to be measured by the extent to which it promotes the pleasure, good, and happiness of the people concerned.

In economics, he was a proponent of laissez faire, the theory that the state should not intervene in economic affairs. In Defence of Usury (1787) and Manual of Political Economy (1798) he contended that his principle of utility was best served by allowing every man to pursue his own interests unhindered by restrictive legislation.

Bentham was born in Houndsditch, London, England, and was educated at Westminster School, London, and Queen's College, Oxford, England. After graduating, he read law at Lincoln's Inn, London, but never practiced as a lawyer, taking advantage of an inherited income to devote his life to legal reform. In 1776 he published Fragments on Government. He made suggestions for the reform of the poor law in 1798, which formed the basis of the reforms enacted in 1834, and in his Catechism of Parliamentary Reform (1817) he proposed annual elections, the secret ballot, and universal male suffrage. He was also a pioneer of prison reform. His work has had a major influence on what is now called public law or administrative science. However, most of his ideas were set out in unpublished pages for distribution to a small number of followers and to key individuals with political influence. His enormous influence on British administrative reforms in civil and criminal law in the first half of the 19th-century was not due to his writing but to the application of his ideas by enthusiastic disciples. An 11-volume edition of Bentham's writing was published shortly after his death but this was less than a quarter of his total written output. He was made a citizen of the French Republic in 1792.