See also: Bentham
Jeremy Bentham (born the February 15th 1748 with London and dead the June 6th 1832 in the same city) was a philosopher, Jurisconsulte and British reformer .
Its life
Jeremy Bentham was born in London the February 15th 1748, of a father famous lawyer. The Bentham young person quickly showed important aptitudes for the study: he studied Latin at three years and controlled French at Sept. He led his studies to the College of Westminster, then, as from 1760, in Queen' S College of Oxford where he accepted Bachelor (1763) and Master off Arts (1766) with respectively fifteen and eighteen years. Bentham followed there the courses of the famous natural law professor of the time, the jurisconsult Blackstone. Its working life began in 1769; he became lawyer. However, Bentham is diverted right quickly, resting by too according to him on the faults of the legislation, the sluggishnesses of the procedure and the bad faith of lawyers (the “ Démon of the Baffle ”). He is revolted defects of the British laws and by the abuses any species which reign in the courts. He likes to better devote his life to reform them, and endeavors to constitute on new bases the legislation and the policy. Imbu of the doctrines of Helvétius, it poses like basic principle that in legislation and morals one should admit of another rule only the utility: what made him give to its school the name of Utilitarisme.
The publication of its first work - anonymity - government has Fragment one (1776) ensures to him the benevolence of Lord Shelburne. It constitutes a violent attack of the designs of Blackstone, and astonishes the contemporaries by the radicality by the project. Contrary to Jean-Jacques Rousseau or other philosophers, Bentham there rejects the concept of social contract, and justifies the existence of the State by its only utility.
Between 1785 and 1788, Bentham travels through the Europe - France, Italy, Constantinople, Russia, where his/her brother is with the service of the tsarina, Poland, Germany, Holland. It benefits from it to bind to the philosophers, such of Alembert. Defense off Usury (1788) meets a great success; it shows there the nonsense of the control of the interest rate recommended by Adam Smith in the Richesse of the nations . It publishes in 1789 more a major work Introduction to the Principles off Morals .
Although savagely opposed to the concepts of natural Right which support the Déclaration of the Human rights and the Citizen , Bentham accommodates with benevolence the French revolution. It was extremely dependant with conventional the Brissot. The young French Republic the fact besides citizen of honor the August 23rd 1792. This same year, his/her father dies; the heritage will enable him to live with dignity with Westminster for the remainder of its days. But in this period of disorders, it is in France that Bentham deploys its great activity: it made there several proposals concerning the establishment of the right, the legal system, penitentiary, the political organization of the State, and the policy with respect to the colonies ( Emancipate your Colonies ). Of return to the the United Kingdom, after the advent of the First Consul, Bentham continues his work and proposes with the government an innovative penitentiary project, the Panopticon , which was never carried out.
After its death, the June 6th 1832, Bentham, in accordance with its testamentary wish, was dissected (practical opposite with manners of time, but useful from a scientific point of view) and was embaumé. Its body rests with the University College off London.
Its doctrines: utilitarianism
As of its withdrawal of the bar, Bentham chooses to devote its existence to the design of a legal and political system having other bases that the use, the habit, manners or the beliefs. The base of this system can be summarized by a formula of Joseph Priestley, read by Bentham in 1768: “the greatest happiness of the greatest number”. Allured by this idea, Bentham is plunged in the writings of Priestley, David Hume, Beccaria, and Helvétius.
The thought of Bentham leaves the following principle: the individuals conceive their interests only under the report/ratio of the pleasure and the sorrow. They seek “to maximize” their happiness, expressed by the surplus of pleasure on the sorrow. It is a question for each individual of carrying out a calculation hedonist. Each action has negative effects and positive effects, and this, for a more or less long time with various degrees of intensity; it is thus a question for the individual of carrying out those which bring the most happiness to him. It will give the name of Utilitarisme to these doctrines as of 1781.
Bentham had developed a method, " The calculation of happiness and the peines" , which aims at scientifically determining - i.e. while using of precise rules - the quantity of pleasure and sorrow generated by our various actions.
These criteria are seven:
- Lasted : A long and durable pleasure is more useful than a momentary pleasure.
- Intensity : An intense pleasure is more useful than a pleasure of low intensity.
- Certainty : A pleasure is more useful if one is sure that it will be carried out.
- Proximity : An immediate pleasure is more useful than a pleasure which will be carried out in the long run.
- Wide : A pleasure lived with several is more useful than a pleasure lived only.
- Fruitfulness : A pleasure which involves others of them is more useful than a simple pleasure.
- Purity : A pleasure which does not involve a later suffering is more useful than a pleasure which is likely to bring some.
In order to ensure the happiness of the population in its entirety, the State is necessary, because only is legitimate for him to guarantee the respect of individual freedoms and to promote collective happiness. It must take the legislative measures and social making it possible to maximize total happiness. Thus a law should be judged “good” or “bad” only under the report/ratio of its capacity to increase the pleasure of all. He thus proposes that the State:
- guarantees minimum wages for all, protects the goods and the people, defends the citizens of the external aggressions;
- encourages the economic growth (increase of collective happiness) and demographic (for a better national defense, factor of collective happiness);
- ensures a redistribution of the richnesses suitable to increase collective happiness (it is in favor of a progressive tax on the heritages).
The nature of this State can be only democratic, a however élitiste democracy: Bentham wishes the vote censitaire (only enlightened people can vote). Indeed, a monarch or a dictatorship would tend only to maximize their own happiness; an oligarchical mode, that to maximize the happiness of controlling. To defend the interest of the greatest number, it is necessary necessarily that the State proceeds of the greatest number; it must thus be purely democratic.
Many philosophers developed and enriched the utilitarian thought, among which John Stuart Mill, John Austin, Herbert Spencer, Henry Sidgwick or James Mill.
Its influence
Although it is not most known of the philosophers, Jeremy Bentham had a considerable influence on the Western companies. France owes him divisions of sound Civil code French , the political economy owes him the popularization of the concept of Utilité, which it extended to the Droit (v. in particular concept of arithmetic morals) and to other social sciences. Adam Smith, Jean-Baptiste Say, and Charles Count counted among his friends; John Stuart Mill was her disciple.
Other biographical elements
He created the concept of Panoptique , kind of prison model, allowing the permanent observation of the actions of the prisoners. Besides he implied himself directly in his realization, even if he failed for problems of financings. Michel Foucault will criticize this theory in Surveiller and to punish, and will point out that this type of construction is applicable also for the factories, the schools…
Starting from 1822, it begins, with personal capacity, the drafting of a constitutional code which it wants to give in model.
He dies in 1832 and its body is preserved and exposed, according to its last wills, with the University College with London.
Its nephew is George Bentham, eminent botanist.
Bentham wrote number as of its French works. One of its disciples, Switzerland Etienne Dumont, minister Calviniste with Geneva, was devoted to their publication. Some even appeared only in French.
Publications
-
1776 : has Fragment one Government
- 1780: an introduction to the principle of morals and legislation
- 1785: Essay one Pæderasty (first edition in 1931 by C.K. Ogden. This text is the first test scholar known in English language on homosexuality.)
- 1786: drafting of the Panoptical which will be published only in 1791: Panoptical or House of inspection , where was proposed for the first time the penitentiary Système
- 1787: Defense of wear , in the shape of letters
- 1802: Treaty of civil and penal legislation
- 1811: Theory of the sorrows and the rewards
- 1816: Tactical of the deliberating assemblies
- 1816: Of the Sophism S policies
- 1830: constitutional Code
- 1834: Deontology or Science of morals (posthumous) established by John Bowring, his executor
Its complete Œuvres was published in Brussels in 1845.
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