Jeremy Bentham essays

Jeremy Bentham essays Jeremy Bentham was an English philosopher who founded the principle of utilitarianism. Under utilitarianism, everything is classified by its utility or usefulness. Utility is the objects ability to produce happiness. Bentham wanted to create happiness in his society. He believed that happiness can be measured in exact quantities and that individuals only care about their own pleasure and ways of increasing it. According to these principles, a person should always act for the greater good of the community rather than themselves. As Mr. Spock put it, The needs of the many outweigh the needs the one. Jeremy Bentham was a child prodigy, at the age of three he was reading and not only that, he was reading important political manifestos. By age five, he was quite proficient at playing the violin and was studying Latin and French at age six. As if this wasnt amazing enough, he enrolled at Oxford when he was twelve and, presumably, four years later was granted admittance into the Bar. Instead of practicing and studying to be a lawyer, he spent most of his time in his room reading about the English government. His personal goal was to write fifteen pages a day, criticizing the government. In 1766, he published a book titled A Fragment on Government which criticized Blackstone, an English author who published books on law. The book was popular at first, but when the public found out who had written it, they soon lost interest. His book did gain the attention of a Lord Shelburne, who introduced him to the world of the upper class. Shelburne also inspired Bentham to criticize the constitutional laws in addition to the civil and penal laws. Bentham was a revolutionary in his time; no one would dare criticize the government and certainly not the British Constitution. Perhaps his greatest accomplishment is his second book, An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legi ...