Walkup's Way Home Bentham

Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as to determine what we shall do.                Bentham

Learning Outcomes:

Jeremy Bentham 1748 - 1832
  • Intellectually Precocious child
  • Age 3: Started studying Latin 
  • Age 12: Enrolled at Queen's College, Oxford
  • He studied law & wrote about it
  • Wrote 20-40 pages daily for 40 years (had dad's $)
  • Produced utilitarian justification for democracy
  • Was a leader of radical reform for legal & social reform
  • Advocated prison reform, relief for poor, animal welfare, international law
  • Godfather of John Stuart Mill who later became godfather of Bertrand Russell
Jeremy Bentham Law, and Social Reforms

 Bentham begins An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789)as follows: "Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure."  Bentham envisioned a unity between personal and social morality. They should be one; they should be without apparent disparity; because they should be derived from the same moral principles.

Bentham lived in a time when a poor man could be sent to prison for stealing a loaf of bread to feed his starving family.

Bentham rejected aristocratic privilege and religious faith as legitimate bases for moral evaluation as they served the dominant ruling class and this lead to mistreatment of the poor, of the sick, & of the disenfranchised.

As a political reformer, Bentham wanted laws that would promote the greatest happiness for the greatest #.   Laws would be morally right or wrong to the extent  that they promote and achieve human happiness.

Law would encourage happiness by  discouraging acts that yield evil and unhappy consequences. Private ethics should not be regulated by law.

Bentham wished to repeal some of England's  laws: membership in Anglican church for certain political offices; capital punishment for pick pocketing, imprisonment for failing to pay debts, and certain fornication laws (Falikowski, Anthony, Moral Philosophy for Modern Life, Prentice Hall,Allyn and Bacon Canada, Scarborough, Ontario, c 1998, p68).  Bentham was not a retributist (one who favored "getting back", an eye for an eye), as this, he felt, was intrinsically wrong, and it served no useful purpose. 

What are Bentham's Utilitarian considerations for punishment
He did, however, believe punishment is necessary to prevent future greater evils. Punishment should fit the crime, so that greater offences are given greater punishments, and that punishment must always outweigh the crime so that it serves as a deterrent.

Not to be punished:
He also did not believe in punishing the insane or very young. 
He  did not believe in punishing those who make just compensation to their victims. 
He did not believe in  punishing if it is inefficacious, meaning that it does not prevent or reduce future crimes.

Bentham's Criteria for Meting out Punishment:
Punishments must outweigh the profit.
Large crimes receive greater punishments than small crimes
Punishment should be efficacious.
Punishments should not cause more pain than is absolutely necessary.  
Punishment should be increased when the likelihood of getting caught is slim.
Punishments serve as a deterrent to crime

According to Bentham, which actions are right and wrong?
For Bentham, no action is necessarily right or wrong in itself. Practical consequences and the good produced are the measure. Therefore utilitarianism is a form of consequentialism, meaning that the effect of an action establishes its worth (Falikowski 64)

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What is the Hedonic Calculus ?
A tool by which one can measure pleasure and pain - 

Is there a scientific /easy / simple way to figure out what action to take; what is right for us?
Yes, simply use the hedonic calculus to calculate the amount of pleasure and pain

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The two-dimensional work of art depicted in this image is in the public domain in the United States and in those countries with a copyright term of life of the author plus 100 years. This photograph of the work is also in the public domain in the United States (see Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp.).