Quotes About Jeremy Bentham

Utilitarianism: A moral and political philosophy that proposes the doctrine of the greatest good/happiness for the greatest number of people. According to one of Utilitarianism's chief architects, Jeremy Bentham, the basic idea is to find a balance between the individual's happiness and the happiness of the community, "each counting in an equal way." In positing happiness as its aim, Utilitarianism is a type of hedonism.

Natural rights is simple nonsense: natural and imprescriptible rights, rhetorical nonsense—nonsense upon stilts.

Look at the great tradition of Western political philosophy. Those people were all immersed in revolutionary movements. Most weren't career academics - often, they were too radical to be accepted in the academy. Rousseau's books were banned. Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill couldn't hold academic positions because they were atheists.

To what shall the character of utility be ascribed, if not to that which is a source of pleasure?

In Europe, it's a done deal. Jean-Jacques Rousseau's social contract is being slowly but surely replaced by a life contract inspired by Jeremy Bentham's utilitarianism and the "panopticon" of his surveillance state.

It is vain to talk of the interest of the community, without understanding what is the interest of the individual