Jeremy Bentham

Dzieła

• 1789Wprowadzenie do zasad moralności i prawodawstwa

  Ból i przyjemność jako suwerenni panowie – zasada użyteczności.

• 1791Panoptikon

  Projekt więzienia, w którym każdy mógłby być obserwowany w każdej chwili.

Stanowisko

Bentham held that nature has placed mankind under two masters, pain and pleasure. The principle of utility follows: actions and laws are right insofar as they produce the greatest happiness of the greatest number. Pleasures and pains can in principle be measured by intensity, duration, certainty and other dimensions, in a “felicific calculus”. On this basis Bentham criticised traditional law, called natural rights “nonsense upon stilts” and advocated reforms of the penal system, democracy, legal codification and animal welfare. His design for the Panopticon prison later became a symbol of surveillance through Foucault. He founded classical utilitarianism, refined by his pupil John Stuart Mill.

Życie i kontekst

Born in London in 1748, Bentham entered Oxford at twelve and trained as a lawyer but never practised; he devoted his life to reforming law and institutions. Financially independent, he wrote enormous quantities of manuscripts and gathered reformers such as James Mill around him. His ideas shaped the spirit of University College London, where his preserved body is still displayed. He died in 1832.

Dalsze główne dzieła

• A Fragment on Government (1776)
• An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789)
• Panopticon (1791)
• Constitutional Code (1830)

Pojawia się w

• Podróż „Co jest sprawiedliwe?” · Przystanek 6 z 10
• Debata „Zwierzęta i hodowla przemysłowa”
• Debata „Prawa dla zwierząt?”
• Debata „Eksperymenty na zwierzętach”