Bentham on Liberty : : Jeremy Bentham's idea of liberty in relation to his utilitarianism / / Douglas Long.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter University of Toronto Press eBook-Package Archive 1933-1999
• VerfasserIn: Long, Douglas,
• Place / Publishing House: Toronto : : University of Toronto Press, , [2019]; ©1977
• Year of Publication: 2019
• Language: English
• Series: Heritage
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (312 p.)

Bentham on Liberty focuses on the crucial formative years, when the English social philosopher Jeremy Bentham was in his twenties and thirties between 1770 and 1790, and draws on the unpublished manuscripts held at University College, London, to throw a new light on his early intellectual development. Using also both private correspondence and published works, it shows how Bentham's legal training and enthusiasm for Enlightenment ideas steadily broadened his horizon from criminal law to constitutional law to social theory. Bentham's desire to create a science of man and society modelled on the physical sciences led his systematic exposition of the conception of utilitarianism. His broad perspective came to encompass aspects of what are now called psychology, sociology, political science, moral philosophy, and jurisprudence. A central theme of this study is the way in which, in Bentham's mind, liberty became subordinated to security as an end of social action. The arguments he used to defend this characteristic but controversial principle were novel and significant. The common opinion of Bentham as a liberal and a democrat has been superficial, Professor Long suggests; the evolution of Bentham's thought is to be understood, not in terms of political radicalization, but rather in relation to his commitment to ap articular and growing conception of social science. The implications of that conception are explored in the concluding part of the book, which compares features of Bentham's 'scientific' social theory with the ideas of a modern 'designer of cultures,' B.F. Skinner.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Preface -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- PART ONE/ INSPIRATION -- 1. The Enlightenment -- 2. The school of example: influential writers on liberty -- 3. The school of experience: some issues and thinkers of the 1760sand1770s -- PART TWO/ INVENTION -- 4. Fundamental words -- 5. A'Comment'and a'Fragment' -- 6. Fundamental propositions -- PART THREE/ EXPANSION AND APPLICATION -- 7. Of Laws in General -- 8. 'Indirect legislation' and 'Matters of place and time' -- 9. Two branches of the law -- 10. Civil law -- 11. The fruits of invention -- 12. Freedom of the press and public discussion -- 13. Epilogue: Philosophy, science, politics, and Bentham's social thought -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index