Product Description

Originally printed in 1780, and first published in 1789, this work contains Bentham's most famous analysis of the principle of utility, wherein he distinguishes between its role in explaining why agents act as they do, and in pointing out the way in which they ought to act. The work also includes seminal discussions of the limits of legislation and the nature of offences and punishment.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #141983 in Books
• Published on: 2009-01-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 416 pages

From the Publisher
The new critical edition of the works and correspondence of Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) is being prepared and published under the supervision of the Bentham Committee of University College London. Despite his importance as jurist, philosopher, social scientist, and leader of the Utilitarian reformers, the only previous edition of his works was a poorly edited and incomplete one brought out within a decade or so of his death. Eight volumes of the new Collected Works (five of correspondence and three of writings on jurisprudence) were published between 1968 and 1981 by the Athlone Press. A further six volumes of correspondence and eleven other works have been published by Oxford University Press since 1983. Work is currently being undertaken on further volumes of correspondence, and writings on political reform at the time of the French Revolution, on the Poor Laws, on Language and Logic, and on Evidence and Judicial Procedure. The overall plan and principles of the edition are set out in the General Preface to The Correspondence of Jeremy Bentham, volume 1. It is now estimated that the edition will run to some sixty or so volumes.

About the Author
The philosopher and jurist Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) was born in Spitalfields, London, on 15 February 1748. He proved to be something of a child prodigy: while still a toddler he was discovered sitting at his father's desk reading a multi-volume history of England, and he began to study Latin at the age of three. At twelve, he was sent to Queen's College Oxford, his father, a prosperous attorney, having decided that Jeremy would follow him into the law, and feeling quite sure that his brilliant son would one day be Lord Chancellor of England.

Bentham, however, soon became disillusioned with the law, especially after hearing the lectures of the leading authority of the day, Sir William Blackstone (1723-80). Instead of practising the law, he decided to write about it, and he spent his life criticising the existing law and suggesting ways for its improvement. His father's death in 1792 left him financially independent, and for nearly forty years he lived quietly in Westminster, producing between ten and twenty sheets of manuscript a day, even when he was in his eighties.

Even for those who have never read a line of Bentham, he will always be associated with the doctrine of Utilitarianism and the principle of `the greatest happiness of the greatest number'. This, however, was only his starting point for a radical critique of society, which aimed to test the usefulness of existing institutions, practices and beliefs against an objective evaluative standard. He was an outspoken advocate of law reform, a pugnacious critic of established political doctrines like natural law and contractarianism, and the first to produce a utilitarian justification for democracy. He also had much to say of note on subjects as diverse as prison reform, religion, poor relief, international law, and animal welfare. A visionary far ahead of his time, he advocated universal suffrage and the decriminalisation of homosexuality.

By the 1820s Bentham had become a widely respected figure, both in Britain and in other parts of the world. His ideas were greatly to influence the reforms of public administration made during the nineteenth century, and his writings are still at the centre of academic debate, especially as regards social policy, legal positivism, and welfare economics. Research into his work continues at UCL in the Bentham Project, set up in the early 1960s with the aim of producing the first scholarly edition of his works and correspondence, a projected total of some sixty volumes!

Customer Reviews

Bentham's Morals and Legislation (Dover publication)
The content is just as expected, the Bentham original text. It is great that Dover is publishing these Philosophical Classics to make them accessible. It is a shame that the quality of the binding is so poor that it will not cope with regular use without the pages coming loose. I would be prepared to pay more for a quality product that these books deserve. The books should be made to last as long as the ideas they contain.