In hmolscience, Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) (IQ:180|#112) (Cattell 1000:327) [RGM:376|1,250+] (FA:87) was English jurist and philosopher notable for []
Utilitarianism
In 1789, Bentham, in his Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, took ideas from: Helvetius, Denis Diderot, Voltaire, John Locke, and David Hume, while simultaneously discarding ideas from: Plato, Aristotle, and Immanuel Kant, e.g. his "categorical imperative" (1785), and therein introduced the so-called: ‘utilitarianism’ system of morality, wherein he suggested that we forget about parsing "good and evil" and work logically to minimize pain and increase pleasure; aimed at the greatest happiness for the greatest number. [4]
This utility-based moral model was later developed further by John Mill.
Other
Bentham was also involved a noted two cultures stylized debate with English poet-philosopher Samuel Coleridge (Coleridge noted for his participation in the 1833 Whewell-Coleridge debate, as a result of which the term "scientist", distinguished from that of the natural philosopher, was coined). [1]
In Stark classification, Bentham is classified as being a secondary form of mechanistic social thought.
Mills
Bentham was a friend of like-minded philosopher James Mill and he helped to educate Mill's son John Mill, along with the help of Francis Place.
Quotes | On
The following are quotes on Bentham:
“Bentham’s idea is that all our actions are determined by pleasure and pain.”
— Howard W. Odum (1929), Introduction to Social Research [3]
“Snow is the spokesperson for the technologico-Benthamite reduction of human experience to the quantifiable, the measurable, the manageable.”— Frank Leavis (1962), “The Significance of C.P. Snow” [1]
“Meslier, d’Holbach, Diderot, Hume, and Bentham can, with fair certainly, be called atheists.”
— Sunand Joshi (2014), The Original Atheists
Quotes | By
The following are quotes by Bentham:
“Pain and pleasure govern us in all we do, in all we say, in all we think.”
— Jeremy Bentham (c.1810), Publication; cited by Matthew Lieberman (2013) Social: Why Our Brains are Wired to Connect (preface) (Ѻ)
“Philosophical radicalism is nothing but an attempt to apply the principles of Newton to the affairs of politics and morals.”
— Jeremy Bentham (c.1810) [2]
References
1. (a) Leavis, Frank R. (1962). “The Significance of C.P. Snow”, Spectator, Mar 9.
(b) Collini, Stefan. (1993). “Introduction”, in: The Two Cultures (by Charles Snow) (technologio-Benthamite, pg. xxxiii; Coleridge vs. Bentham, pg. xxxv). Canto.
2. (a) Matson, Floyd. (1964). The Broken Image: Man, Science, and Society (§Homo ex Machina: the Legacy of Newton, pg. 34). G. Braziller Anchor Books.
(b) Brown, Richard H. (1977). A Poetic for Sociology: Toward a Logic of Discovery for the Human Sciences (pg. 138). University of Chicago Press, 1989.
3. Odum, Howard W. and Jocher, Katharine C. (1929). An Introduction to Social Research (pg. 190). H. Holt and Co.
External links
● Jeremy Bentham – Wikipedia.
