• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation Jeremy Bentham Copyright © Jonathan Bennett 2017. All rights reserved [Brackets] enclose editorial explanations. Small ·dots· enclose material that has been added, but can be read as though it were part of the original text. Occasional •bullets, and also indenting of passages that are not quotations, are meant as aids to grasping the structure of a sentence or a thought. Every four-point ellipsis . indicates the omission of a brief passage that seems to present more difficulty than it is worth. Longer omissions are reported between brackets in normal-sized type.—The numbering of paragraphs in small bold type is Bentham’s.—The First Edition of this work was privately printed in 1780 and first published in 1789. The present version is based on ‘A New Edition, corrected by the Author’ [but not changed much], published in 1823. Contents Preface (1789) 1 Chapter 1: The Principle of Utility 6 Chapter 2: Principles opposing the Principle of Utility 10 Chapter 3: The Four Sanctions or Sources of Pain and Pleasure 20 Chapter 4: Measuring Pleasure and Pain 22 Chapter 5: The Kinds of Pleasure and Pain 24 Chapter 6: Circumstances influencing Sensibility 29 Principles of Morals and Legislation Jeremy Bentham Chapter 7: Human Actions in General 43 Chapter 8: Intentionality 49 Chapter 9: Consciousness 52 Chapter 10: Motives 55 1. Different senses of ‘motive’.................................................... 55 2. No motives constantly good or constantly bad......................................... 57 3. Matching motives against pleasures and pains........................................ 59 4. Order of pre-eminence among motives............................................. 68 5. Conflict among motives...................................................... 71 Chapter 11: Human Dispositions in General 72 Chapter 12: A harmful Act’s Consequences 83 1. Forms in which the mischief of an act may show itself.................................... 83 2. How intentionality etc. can influence the mischief of an act................................. 89 Chapter 13: Cases not right for Punishment 92 1. General view of cases not right for punishment........................................ 92 2. Cases where punishment is groundless............................................. 93 3. Cases where punishment must be ineffective......................................... 93 4. Cases where punishment is unprofitable............................................ 95 5. Cases where punishment is needless.............................................. 95 Chapter 14: The Proportion between Punishment and Offences 96 Chapter 15: The Properties to be given to a Lot of Punishment 101 Chapter 16: Classifying Offences 108 1. Five Classes of Offences...................................................... 108 2. Divisions and sub-divisions of them............................................... 110 3. Further subdivision of Class 1: Offences Against Individuals................................ 119 4. Advantages of this method.................................................... 137 5. Characters of the five classes................................................... 139 Principles of Morals and Legislation Jeremy Bentham Chapter 17: The Boundary around Penal Jurisprudence 142 1. Borderline between private ethics and the art of legislation................................. 142 2. Branches of jurisprudence.................................................... 149 Material added nine years later 152 Principles of Morals and Legislation Jeremy Bentham Glossary affection: In the early modern period, ‘affection’ could evil: This noun means merely ‘something bad’. Don’t load it mean ‘fondness’, as it does today; but it was also often with all the force it has in English when used as an adjective used, as it is in this work, to cover every sort of pro or con (‘the problem of evil’ merely means ‘the problem posed by attitude—desires, approvals, likings, disapprovals, dislikings, the existence of bad states of affairs’). Bentham’s half-dozen etc. uses of ‘evil’ as an adjective are replaced in this version by his more usual ‘bad’, as he clearly isn’t making any distinction. art: In Bentham’s time an ‘art’ was any human activity that requires skill and involves techniques or rules of procedure. excite: This means ‘arouse’ or ‘cause’; our present notion ‘Arts’ in this sense include medicine, farming, painting, and of excitement doesn’t come into it. An ‘exciting cause’ in law-making. Bentham’s usage is just a cause; he puts in the adjective, presumably, to mark it off from ‘final cause’, which meant body of the work: This phrase, as it occurs on pages 95, ‘purpose’ or ‘intention’ or the like, though in fact he uses 119 and 138, reflects the fact that Bentham had planned ‘final cause’ only once in this work. the present work as a mere introduction to something much bigger, the body of the work. See the note on page4. expensive: When Bentham speaks of a punishment as being ‘too expensive’ he means that it inflicts too much suffering cæteris paribus: Latin = other things being equal. for the amount of good it does. See the editorial note on caprice: whim; think of it in terms of the cognate adjective, page 92. ‘capricious’. fiduciary: Having to do with a trust. difference: A technical term relating to definitions. To define ideal: Existing only as an idea, i.e. fictional, unreal, or the (the name of) a kind K of thing ‘by genus and difference’ is like. to identify some larger sort G that includes K and add D the ‘difference’ that marks off K within G. Famously, a K human indifferent: Neither good not bad. being is an G animal that is D rational. The Latin differentia interesting: When Bentham calls a mental event or ‘percep- was often used instead. tion’ interesting he means that it hooks into the interests of education: In early modern times this word had a somewhat the person who has it: for him it isn’t neutral, is in some broader meaning than it does today. It wouldn’t have been way positive or negative, draws him in or pushes him back. misleading to replace it by ‘upbringing’ on almost every irritable: Highly responsive, physically or mentally, to occasion. See especially 18 on page 39. stimuli. event: In some of its uses in this work, as often in early lot: In Bentham’s usage, a ‘lot’ of pleasure, of pain, of modern times, ‘event’ means ‘outcome’, ‘result’. Shakespeare: punishment etc. is an episode or dose of pleasure, pain, ‘I’ll after him and see the event of this.’ etc. There is no suggestion of a large amount. Principles of Morals and Legislation Jeremy Bentham lucre: In a now obsolete sense, ‘greed for profit or gain’ party: Bentham regularly uses ‘the party’ to mean ‘the (OED). individual or group of individuals’. In assessing some action by a government, the ‘party’ whose interests are at stake magistrate: In this work, as in general in early modern could be you, or the entire community. times, a ‘magistrate’ is anyone with an official role in gov- ernment. The phrase ‘the magistrate’—e.g. in paragraph 41. peculiar: This usually meant ‘pertaining exclusively to one on page 40—refers to the whole legal=judicial system or to individual’; but Bentham often uses it to mean ‘pertaining those who operate it. exclusively to one kind of individual’. The line he draws on page 108 between •properties of offences that are shared material: When on page 43 Bentham speaks of ‘conse- with other things and •properties that ‘are peculiar’, he is quences that are material’ he means consequences that distinguishing (e.g.) •being-performed-by-a-human-being matter. He uses the phrase ‘material or important’. from (e.g.) •being-against-the-law’. member: Any part or organ of an organic body (not nec- positive pain: Bentham evidently counts as ‘positive’ any essarily a limb). When on page7 Bentham writes of a pain that isn’t a ‘pain of privation’, on which see 17. on community as a ‘fictitious body composed of the individuals page 26. who are. .as it were its members’, this is a metaphor. science: In early modern times this word applied to any method: On pages2 and4, and throughout chapter 16, body of knowledge or theory that is (perhaps) axiomatised Bentham uses ‘method’ in the sense of ‘system of classifica- and (certainly) conceptually highly organised. tion’. sensibility: Capacity for feeling, proneness to have feelings. mischief: This meant ‘harm, hurt, damage’—stronger and (It’s in the latter sense that quantity comes in on page 29— darker than the word’s meaning today. Bentham’s ‘mis- the notion of how prone a person is to feel pleasure or pain. chievous’ and ‘mischievousness’ are replaced throughout by sentiment: This can mean ‘feeling’ or ‘belief’, and Bentham ‘harmful’ and ‘harmfulness’, words that don’t occur in the uses it in both senses. The word is always left untouched; original it’s for you to decide what each instance of it means. moral: In early modern times ‘moral’ had a use in which it uneasiness: An extremely general term. It stands for any meant something like ‘having to do with intentional human unpleasant sense you may have that something in you or action’. When Bentham speaks of ‘moral science’ or ‘moral about you is wrong, unacceptable, in need of fixing. This physiology’ he is referring to psychology. In virtually all his usage is prominent in—popularized by?—Locke’s theory that other uses of ‘moral’ he means by it roughly what we mean every intentional act is the agent’s attempt to relieve his today. ‘uneasiness’. nicety: ‘precision, accuracy,

Load more

  55

Copy Link