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ON
BENTHAM’S UTILITARIAN THEORY
UNDER
JURISPRUDENCE
BY
ANOOP KUMAR
ROLL NO.
11
SUBMITTED TO
MR. A. P. SINGH
DR. RAM MANOHAR LOHIYA NATIONAL
LAW UNIVERSITY
LUCKNOW
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. On the
one hand the standard of right and wrong, on the other the chain of
causes and effects, are fastened to their throne. They govern us in
all we do, in all we say, in all we think...
Jeremy Bentham
—
The Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789)
PREFACE
The aim of this project is to introduce the reader to the principle of
utilitarianism, propounded Jeremy Bentham, the famous English jurist.
Apart from the theory of utilitarianism, the doctrine of pleasure and pain
propounded by Bentham has also been taken into consideration.
Thanks are due to staff at the Dr. RMLNLU library, the faculty of the
Criminal Law in Dr. RMLNLU, as well as to a number of colleagues who have
directly or indirectly given pointers to how this project should proceed. Thanks
to my parents, who provided me with case materials and his invaluable
blessings.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PREFACE
ABOUT JEREMY BENTHAM
WORKS OF BENTHAM
PRINCIPLE OF UTILITY
What is utility
Principles Adverse to that of Utility
Principle of asceticism.
Principle of sympathy and antipathy
PLEASURES AND PAINS
Several simple pleasures.
Several simple pains.
CONCLUSION
ABOUT JEREMY BENTHAM
Jeremy Bentham ( 1748 to 1832) was an English jurist, philosopher, and
legal and social reformer. He was a political radical and a leading theorist in
utilitarianism and fair treatment of animals. He influenced the development
of liberalism.
Bentham was one of the most influential utilitarians. His influence spread
all around the world, through his and his students. These included his
Mill, James Mill's son John Stuart Mill, and several political leaders. He
attributed his theory to Joseph Priestley.
He also suggested the procedure called Hedonistic or felicific calculus for
estimating the moral status of any action. Utilitarianism was revised and
expanded by Bentham's student, John Stuart Mill.
He was also the staunch supporter of the individual liberty and right to
private property. Austin is called the father of the analytical school but it is
Bentham, who deserves this title. Bentham also advocated for the
codification of laws and also advoced for the legislation.
WORKS OF BENTHAM
Most of the writing of Bentham were never published in his own lifetime;
much of that which was published was prepared for publication by
others.Works published in Bentham's lifetime included:
Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England.
publication 1780, published 1789)
• Defence of Usury (1787)
• Panopticon (1787, 1791)
• Emancipate your Colonies (1793)
• Traité de Législation Civile et Penale (1802)
• Punishments and Rewards (1811)
• A Table of the Springs of Action (1815)
• Parliamentary Reform Catechism (1817)
• ChurchofEnglandism (printed 1817, published 1818)
• Elements of the Art of Packing (1821)
• The Influence of Natural Religion upon the Temporal Happiness of
Mankind (1822)
• Not Paul But Jesus (1823)
• Book of Fallacies (1824)
• A Treatise on Judicial Evidence (1825)
prohibiting homosexuality. It was published for the first time in 1931.
PRINCIPLE OF UTILITY
happiness of the individual or the community. The community can have no
members who compose it.
providing security against the pain. For him it was the greatest happiness of the
happy society constitutes a happy polity. Public good is the object of the
legislator.
To know the true good of the community is science of legislation and
finding the means to realize that good constitutes the art of legislation.
sovereign masters, pain and pleasure. They point out what we ought to do, as
well as to determine what we shall do. They govern us in all our actions and
thoughts. In words a man may pretend to reject their empire: but in reality he
is to nurture the fabric of felicity by the hands of reason and of law.
community must strive to attain four goals of subsistence, abundance, equality,
goal of security was paramount and principal one. Next to security, he gave
emphasis to the goal of equality.
Bentham never questioned the desirability of economic individualism and
private property. The law, according to him, can do nothing to provide directly
for the subsistence of the citizens. It can impose penalty or give rewards, which
indirectly act as the force behind the subsistence of the individual. He did not
force for the limitations on state interventions and social reforms.
whatsoever according to the tendency it appears to have to enhance or diminish
the happiness of the party whose interest is in question.
What is utility:
By utility is meant that property in any object, whereby it tends to produce
benefit, advantage, pleasure, good, or happiness, (all this in the present case
comes to the same thing) or (what comes again to the same thing) to prevent
the happening of mischief, pain, evil, or unhappiness to the party whose interest
is considered, whether that party is the community in general or a particular
persons who are considered as constituting as it were its members. The interest
of the community then is the sum of the interests of the several members who
compose it.
A thing is said to promote the interest of an individual, when it tends to
add to the sum total of his pleasures or, to diminish the sum total of his pains.
An action then may be said to be conformable to the principle of utility, when it
tends to enlarge the happiness of the community is greater than to diminish it.
A measure of government may be said to be conformable to or dictated by the
principle of utility, when it tends to augment the happiness of the community
disapproves any action, or any measure, on account of the tendency it has to
augment or to diminish the happiness of the community.
Those actions are conformable to the principle of utility, which one may
always say either that it is one that ought to be done, or at least that it is not one
that ought not to be done. His works were based on "the greatest happiness of
the greatest number” principle.
Principles Adverse to that of Utility
A principle may be different from that of utility in two ways:
asceticism.
2. By being sometimes opposed to it, and sometimes not as in a case of the
principle of sympathy and antipathy.
Principle of asceticism.
By the principle of asceticism, Bentham meant that principle, which, acting
inversely to the principle of utility, approve of actions in as far as they tend to
diminish his happiness and disapprove of them in as far as they tend to
augment it.
This principle has been followed by two classes of men. The one class
belongs to philosophers and the other to devotees. The ascetic philosophers
have flattered themselves with the idea to rise above humanity, by despising
vulgar pleasures. The ascetic devotees are tormented by ineffective terrors. The
devotees have carried the ascetic principle further than the philosophers. The
philosophical party have paid a heap to degenerate pleasure but the devotees
have frequently gone so far as to make it a matter of merit and of duty to court
pain
The pleasure was received and applauded when it took the titles of
asceticism never was, nor ever can be, consistently pursued by any living
creature.
Principle of sympathy and antipathy.
tending to augment the happiness or on account of their tending to diminish the
happiness of the party whose interest is in question. This principle meant the
approbation or disapprobation of certain action by a man on ground that a man
approbation or disapprobation as a sufficient reason for itself, and denying the
necessity of looking out for any extrinsic ground. The quantum of punishment,
based on this principle, dictates to punish less if man hates that action less,
more if he hates it more.
The principle of sympathy and antipathy is most apt to err on the side of
severity. It is for applying punishment in many cases which deserve none: in
many cases which deserve some, it is for applying more than they deserve.
mischief, from which this principle may not extract a ground of punishment.
PLEASURES AND PAINS
Bentham has referred the pains and pleasures by one general word, interesting
perceptions. Interesting perceptions are either simple or complex. The simple
ones are those which cannot be resolved into more: complex are those which
are resolvable into divers simple ones. A complex interesting perception may
accordingly be composed either:
1. Of pleasures alone
2. Of pains alone: or,
3. Of a pleasure or pleasures, and a pain or pains together.
Several simple pleasures.
The simple pleasures, according to Bentham, include:
1. The pleasures of sense.
2. The pleasures of wealth.
3. The pleasures of skill.
4. The pleasures of amity.
5. The pleasures of a good name.
6. The pleasures of power.
7. The pleasures of piety.
8. The pleasures of benevolence.
9. The pleasures of malevolence.
10. The pleasures of memory.
11. The pleasures of imagination.
12. The pleasures of expectation.
13. The pleasures dependent on association.
14. The pleasures of relief.
Several simple pains.
Several simple pains can be listed as follows:
1. The pains of privation.
2. The pains of the senses.
3. The pains of awkwardness.
4. The pains of enmity.
5. The pains of an ill name.
6. The pains of piety.
7. The pains of benevolence.
8. The pains of malevolence.
9. The pains of the memory.
10. The pains of the imagination.
11. The pains of expectation.
12. The pains dependent on association.
CONCLUSION
Bentham's contributed his best in the creation of a "Pannomion", a complete
Utilitarian code of law. Bentham not only proposed many legal and social
should be based. This philosophy, utilitarianism, argued that the right act or
policy was that which would cause "the greatest happiness of the greatest
number” often referred to as the principle of utility.
Thogh he supported the state interventions and reforms, he was a staunch
supporter of individualism and private property ownerships. Utilitarianism was
theory, unlike Mill's, faces several criticisms.
REFERENCES
URLs.
• http://socserv.mcmaster.ca/econ/ugcm/3ll3/bentham/morals.pdf
• http://www.la.utexas.edu/labyrinth/ipml/ipml.c05.html
• http://www.la.utexas.edu/labyrinth/ipml/ipml.toc.html
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Bentham#Utilitarianism
Books.
• Baxi, Upendra, Bentham’s Theory of Legislation, 7th ed. (reprint), 2006, Lexis
Nexis, New Delhi.
• Bodenheimer, Edgar, Jurisprudence the Philosophy and Method of the Law,
5th ed. (Reprint), 2006, Universal Law Publishing Co., Delhi.