An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation
- Language:
- English
- Status:
- Complete work
- Authorship:
- Written by the author
- Condition of the text:
- Some scanning errors (automatic measure over the whole text, not checked by hand) · 1 illegible passage, excluded from answers
- Extent:
- ~120,000 words · 572 passages
Cite this work
- APAJeremy Bentham. (n.d.). An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation. Digital reproduction: SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/jeremy-bentham/an-introduction-to-the-principles-of-morals-and-legislation
- MLAJeremy Bentham. An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation. Digital reproduction, SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/jeremy-bentham/an-introduction-to-the-principles-of-morals-and-legislation.
- ChicagoJeremy Bentham. An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation. Digital reproduction, SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/jeremy-bentham/an-introduction-to-the-principles-of-morals-and-legislation.
Reference to the edition that SigPhi reproduces: SigPhi is its digital reproduction, not its publisher. The edition's year is not in the metadata (hence "n.d."), and the translator appears only when recorded.
What it is about
The founding book of utilitarianism: morals and law are to be judged by one measure only, the quantity of happiness and pain they produce.
Context and history
Printed in 1780 and published in 1789. It opens with the sentence about nature having placed mankind under two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure, and everything follows from that: the felicific calculus, which weighs intensity, duration, certainty and extent; the classification of offences; and the principle that punishment is justified only where it prevents more mischief than it inflicts. The footnote on animals — the question is not, can they reason, nor can they talk, but can they suffer — is the origin of the modern ethical argument about animals. Mill came out of this book, and then departed from it.
Editorial context, not a citable source: unlike the passages of the work itself, these statements cannot be checked against the corpus.
most civilized nations are continally falling into the same error §. This, in short, is the case wheresoever the punishment is fixed while the profit of delinquency is indefinite : or, to speak more precisely, where the punishment is limited to such a mark, that the profit of delinquency may reach beyond it. t Wilkin's Leg. Anglo-sax. p. 71, 72, See Hume, Vol. I. App. I. p. 219. $ See in particular the English Statute laws throughout, Bonaparte's Penal Code, and the recently enacted or not enacted Spanhh Penal Code. Note by the Author, July, 1822. VOL. IL C punishment will be thrown away : it will be altogether inefficacious *. IX. The pro- The above rule has been often objected to, on taking the account of its seeuiiug harshness : but this can strength of „.,. the tempta- ouly havc happened for want of its being properly ground of uudcrstood. The strength of the temptation, no objection ccEtcvis pttribus, IS as the profit of the offence : the lis in e. q^jjj^^yjjj Qf ^\^Q punishment must rise with the