J EREMY B ENTHAM By Katelyn Schroeder, Stephanie McFadden, Krista Hatfield The business of government is to promote the happiness of the society by punishing and rewarding. (Bentham, Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation )

B IOGRAPHY Born February 15, 1748, in London Bentham was born into a wealthy conservative family Jeremy was a child prodigy, he read from his fathers multi-volume history books of England and studied Latin from the age of three. His father decided that he would follow his footsteps into law, however after studying law Jeremy became disappointed and frustrated with the English legal code which he named the “Demon of Chicane“. After being frustrated with the English legal code he started writing about it instead, he wrote between 10 to 20 manuscripts a day even in his 80’s about his proposals for legal and social reform. Jeremy Bentham died June 6, 1832.

B ENTHAM ’ S B ELIEFS  Bentham first developed the philosophy of modern utilitarianism  “The greatest happiness for the greatest number”  Bentham condemned the belief of natural rights because it inspired violence and bloodshed as seen the French Revolution.  Jeremy was known to have called natural law "nonsense upon stilts." Although strongly in favour of the extension of individual legal rights, he opposed the idea of natural law and natural rights.

B ENTHAM B ELIEVED I N.. He became a leading theorist in Anglo-American philosophy of law, and a political radical whose ideas influenced the development of welfarism. best known for his advocacy of utilitarianism and animal rights, and the idea of the panopticon.  His position included arguments in favour of individual and economic freedom, usury, the separation of church and state, freedom of expression, equal rights for women, the right to divorce, and the decriminalizing of homosexual acts.  argued for the abolition of slavery, physical punishment and the death penalty. human behaviour can be explained by the two primary motives of pleasure and pain; this is the theory of psychological hedonism.

C ONCLUSION Although he never practiced law, Bentham did write a great deal of philosophy of law, spending most of his life critiquing the existing law and strongly advocating legal reform. Throughout his work, he critiques various natural accounts of law which claim, for example, that liberty, rights, and so on exist independent of government. In this way, Bentham arguably developed an early form of what is now often called “legal positivism.”

I S H E S TILL A LIVE ? Nope! But Jeremy Bentham is preserved, so people can see him!

B IBLIOGRAPHY #SH5ahttp:// #SH5a m_Jeremy.html /bldef_bentham.htm