Jeremybentham-john/dereck

1748 - 1832

Born on February 15th 1748 Studied at Queen’s College in Oxford in 1760, and after he

studied law at Lincoln’s Inn.In 1776 Bentham published his first

book A Fragment on Government.Bentham defined his theory of utilitarianism

in his book The Introduction to the Principled of Morals and Legislation published in 1789

Biography

Bentham died on June 6th 1832Bentham directed that his body was to be mummified and put in a wooden cabinet called an Auto-icon.

Biography Cont’d

The Auto-icon has a wax head, as Bentham's head was badly damaged in the preservation process

From his book “Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation”, he stated that the greatest happiness for the greatest number is the basis of morality.

A moral principle which legal and social reforms could be based.

This philosophy is known as UTILITARIANISM.

also suggested a procedure to mechanically estimate the moral status of any action, which he called the FELICIFIC CALCULUS.

A Fragment on Government (1776), which is an excerpt from a longer work published only in 1928 is a Comment on Blackstone’s Commentaries. He attacked the legal theory of Sir William Blackstone. , Blackstone’s defense of tradition in law.

As a theorist of punishment, he develop a model of an English prison that applied his theories of punishment to imprisonment. He called his model the PANOPTICON.

The concept of the design is to allow an observer to observe (-opticon) all (pan-) prisoners without the incarcerated being able to tell whether they are being watched (sentiment of invisible omniscience).

He described the Panopticon as "a new mode of obtaining power of mind over mind, in a quantity till now without example."

Liberty is good because it is pleasant and the restriction of liberty is an evil because

it is painful. Law, which is by its very nature a restriction of liberty and painful to those whose freedom is restricted, is a

prima facie evil.

Still he recognized, good laws are still necessary to social order and clearly essential to good government. Indeed, more than Locke, Bentham in spite of everything saw the positive role to be played by law and government in achieving community well-being. To the extent that law advances and protects one’s economic and personal goods and that what government exists is self-government, law reflects the interests of the individual.

“What ought a person to do?”

Utilitarianism

Natural Law or Positive Law

“Every law is an infraction of liberty”

“Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign monster; pain

and pleasure”

“Every law is an infraction of liberty”

How has utilitarianism affected the law system?

If abortion was made illegal how would it affect society?

If marijuana was made legal how would it affect society?

Does it secure the happiness of the majority of the people?

Created by : FREDERICK ABLAZA

LEADER:FREDERICK ABLAZA MEMBERS:NIKKO MAMPLATA