Jeremy Bentham
1748 – 1832 · London
The founder of modern utilitarianism, who held that the right action is the one that produces the greatest happiness, and counted animals in the sum.
Key ideas
Bentham argued that pain and pleasure govern everything we do, and that the only sensible test of laws and actions is the principle of utility: does it increase or decrease total happiness? He proposed measuring pleasures by intensity, duration, certainty and other factors, a 'felicific calculus'. This is the root of utilitarianism and the consequentialist side of the main ethical theories.
Because the question is happiness and suffering, he saw no reason to exclude animals. His famous footnote asks not whether they can reason or talk but whether they can suffer. It made him a founding figure for animal ethics.
He was a radical reformer: he argued for the separation of church and state, the abolition of slavery and of the death penalty, equal rights for women, and the decriminalisation of homosexuality, positions far ahead of his time.
“The question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?”
Jeremy Bentham, An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, ch. 17 (1789)
Life, briefly
Bentham was a child prodigy who entered Oxford at twelve and trained as a lawyer, but never practised. He spent his life writing proposals for reforming the law, prisons (including the circular 'panopticon') and government.
At his request his body was dissected for science and his preserved skeleton, dressed in his clothes, is displayed at University College London as his 'auto-icon'.
Major works
- A Fragment on Government (1776)
- An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789)
- Panopticon (1791)
Schools of thought
Appears in
Further reading
- EncyclopediaStanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Jeremy Bentham
- WikipediaJeremy Bentham