The Correspondence of Jeremy Bentham, Volume 4

Jeremy Bentham

Athlone Press, 1968 - Biography & Autobiography - 506 pages

Jeremy Bentham was a British philosopher, jurist, and social reformer. He is regarded as the founder of modern utilitarianism. Bentham became a leading theorist in Anglo-American philosophy of law, and a political radical whose ideas influenced the development of welfarism. He advocated individual and economic freedom, the separation of church and state, freedom of expression, equal rights for women, the right to divorce, and the decriminalising of homosexual acts. He called for the abolition of slavery, the abolition of the death penalty, and the abolition of physical punishment, including that of children. He has also become known in recent years as an early advocate of animal rights. Though strongly in favour of the extension of individual legal rights, he opposed the idea of natural law and natural rights, calling them "nonsense upon stilts."

Contents

• Letter: x
• List of Letters in Volume 4: xii
• A List of Missing Letters: xxxviii

About the author

Jeremy Bentham was born in London, in 1748, the son of an attorney. He was admitted to Queen's College, Oxford, at age 12 and graduated in 1763 An English reformer and political philosopher, Bentham spent his life supporting countless social and political reform measures and trying as well to create a science of human behavior. He advocated a utopian welfare state and designed model cities, prisons, schools, and so on, to achieve that goal. He defined his goal as the objective study and measurement of passions and feelings, pleasures and pains, will and action. The principle of "the greatest happiness of the greatest number," set forth in his Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, governed all of his schemes for the improvement of society, and the philosophy he devised, called utilitarianism, set a model for all subsequent reforms based on scientific principles.

Bibliographic information

• Title: The Correspondence of Jeremy Bentham, Volume 4; The Correspondence of Jeremy Bentham, Jeremy Bentham; The collected works of Jeremy Bentham; Volume 1 of Works, Jeremy Bentham
• Author: Jeremy Bentham
• Editors: Timothy Lauro Squire Sprigge, Ian R. Christie, Alexander Taylor Milne, John Rowland Dinwiddy, Stephen Conway, Luke O'Sullivan, Catherine Fuller
• Edition: illustrated
• Publisher: Athlone Press, 1968
• Original from: the University of Michigan
• Digitized: Jun 10, 2009
• ISBN: 0485132044, 9780485132045
• Length: 506 pages
• Subjects: Biography & Autobiography / Philosophers; Philosophy / History & Surveys / General; Philosophy / History & Surveys / Modern; Philosophy / Movements / Utilitarianism