Jeremy Bentham

Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832) was an English philosopher and legal reformer who founded modern utilitarianism and designed the Panopticon as a model prison.

Utilitarianism: An ethical theory that judges actions and policies by their consequences for overall well-being. Bentham made utility—the promotion of happiness and reduction of suffering—the basis of moral and legal judgment.
Panopticon: A prison design in which a central observer can potentially watch inmates in cells arranged around a tower. Bentham designed it to make surveillance economical and encourage inmates to regulate their own conduct.
Enlightenment: An intellectual movement emphasizing reason, criticism, and reform that shaped European thought in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Bentham’s confidence in rationally redesigning laws and institutions belongs to this reforming tradition.
John Stuart Mill: A British philosopher and political economist who revised utilitarian ethics and defended individual liberty. Mill inherited Bentham’s utilitarian project but gave greater weight to the quality of pleasures and personal freedom.
James Mill: A Scottish historian and philosopher who promoted utilitarianism and helped organize the Philosophical Radicals. Mill helped advance Benthamite ideas and educated the next generation of utilitarian thinkers.
Principle of utility: The standard that evaluates conduct by whether it increases or diminishes the happiness of those affected. Bentham treated this principle as the foundation for evaluating laws and institutions.
Panopticism: A model of power in which possible observation induces people to monitor and discipline themselves. Bentham’s prison design made the uncertainty of being watched a means of controlling behavior.
Hume's is–ought problem: The distinction between descriptive claims about what is and normative claims about what ought to be. Bentham’s effort to ground ethics in pleasure and pain responds to problems about moral foundations debated by earlier philosophers.
Benthamism: The political and ethical movement inspired by Bentham’s utilitarian philosophy and program of legal reform. Bentham’s followers carried his principles into campaigns for changes to law, administration, and representation.
Edwin Chadwick: An English social reformer whose administrative work influenced public health and poor-law policy. Chadwick applied Benthamite principles of administrative efficiency to nineteenth-century social reform.

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