John Stuart Mill

Jeremy Bentham

In his essays on Bentham and Coleridge, and above all in Utilitarianism, Mill balanced the claims of reason and the imagination, justice and expediency, individuality and social well-being in a system of ethics that is as relevant to today's intellectual and moral dilemmas as it was to the nineteenth century's.

Utilitarianism and Other Essays

Jeremy Bentham's work on The Principles of Morals and Legislation emerges from its historic roots in hedonism and teleology as a scientific attempt to assess the moral content of human action by focusing on its results or consequences. Proceeding from the assumption that human beings desire pleasure (and avoid pain), Bentham's unique perspective, known as utilitarianism, is used to construct a fascinating calculus for determining which action to perform when confronted with situations requiring moral decision-makingthe goal of which is to arrive at the "greatest happiness of the greatest number." Toward this end, he endeavors to delineate the sources and kinds of pleasure and pain and how they can be measured when assessing one's moral options. Bentham supports his arguments with discussions of intentionality, consciousness, motives, and dispositions. Bentham concludes this groundbreaking work with an analysis of punishment: its purpose and the proper role that law and jurisprudence should play in its determination and implementation. Here we find Bentham as social reformer seeking to resolve the tension that inevitably exists when the concerns of the many conflict with individual freedom. The Principles of Morals and Legislation offers readers the rare opportunity to experience one of the great works of moral philosophy, a volume that has influenced the course of ethical theory for over a century.

The Principles of Morals and Legislation

Herbert Lionel Adolphus Hart

James Henderson Burns

This volume makes available to a student readership one of the central texts in the utilitarian tradition, in the authoritative 1977 edition prepared by Professors Burns and Hart as part of Bentham's Collected works. A Fragment on Government is, as Ross Harrison observes in his introduction, a young man's work, and Bentham's exuberant prose reflects his own confidence that the Fragment 'was the first publication by which men at large were invited to break loose from the trammels of authority and ancestor-wisdom on the field of law'. Certain that history was on his side, Bentham sought to rid the world of the hideous mess wrought by legal obfuscation and confusion, and to transform politics into a rational scientific activity, premised on the hideous politics into a rational scientific activity, premised on the fundamental axiom that 'it is the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right and wrong'. In the context of a European social and political order still based upon privilege and hereditary right, this was a profoundly subversive sentiment. This edition of the Fragment on Government contains several important students aids, including a guide to further reading and a chronology of the principal events in Bentham's life.

Bentham: A Fragment on Government

Tobias Skinner

John J. Crandall

*In this edition hundreds of problems in punctuation and spelling that frustrated reading have been corrected (British spellings have been left alone). *Contains a new Forward by Tobias Skinner. *In Not Paul, But Jesus Jeremy Bentham offers solid proof that the books of the Bible ascribed to Paul could not have been divinely inspired due to the numerous fallacies and contradictions contained within them. Indeed, argues Bentham, Paul's works even contradict the teachings of Christ. It is likely the books ascribed to Paul, many of which are merely letters to early Christian churches, were added by the church because the doctrine of Paul allows the church to play a far larger role in the life of Christians than would be the case without the books included. Paul wanted the various churches he visited to practice Christianity his way. His letters tell them to do so, and apparently some influential leaders of the early and later church approved. Whatever the case, Bentham offers convincing proof that an infallible God could not have inspired the writings of Paul, which are far from infallible. In Bentham's view, Paul plays the role of an anti-Christ by making Christ subservient to Paul in the doctrine of Christianity.

Proof the Works of Paul Are Not the Word of God

Not Paul, But Jesus

Selected Writings on Utilitarianism

Deontology; or, The Science of Morality

Defence of Usury

being an examination of the Declarations of rights issued during the French Revolution

Anarchical fallacies

Containing Six of the Principal Rules Proper to be Observed by a Political Assembly, in the Process of Forming a Decision ...

Essay on Political Tactics

This volume includes the complete texts of two of John Stuart Mill's most important works, Utilitarianism and On Liberty, and selections from his other writings, including the complete text of his Remarks on Bentham's Philosophy. The selection from Mill's A System of Logic is of special relevance to the debate between those who read Mill as an Act-Utilitarian and those who interpret him as a Rule-Utilitarian. Also included are selections from the writings of Jeremy Bentham, founder of modern Utilitarianism and mentor (together with James Mill) of John Stuart Mill. Bentham's Principles of Morals and Legislation had important effects on political and legal reform in his own time and continues to provide insights for political theorists and philosophers of law. Seven chapters of Bentham's Principles are here in their entirety, together with a number of shorter selections, including one in which Bentham repudiates the slogan often used to characterize his philosophy: The Greatest Happiness of the Greatest Number. John Troyer's Introduction presents the central themes and arguments of Bentham and Mill and assesses their relevance to current discussions of Utilitarianism. The volume also provides indexes, a glossary, and notes.

Bentham and Mill

The Classical Utilitarians

Offences Against One's Self

Works of Jeremy Bentham

Miran Božovič

A thought-provoking series brings together works by top left-wing intellectuals and covers everything from philosophy to politcal science to literary criticism.

Jeremy Bentham

Books

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