Monday, March 29, 2010

A little about Jeremy Bentham.

Jeremy Bentham was born in a little city of London in 1748. A child prodigy from the start, he attended several prestigious throughout his early life. In 1776 when the United States presented their Declaration of Independence, John Lind wrote their rebuttal. Inside of an essay by Bentham himself mocking and attacking the declaration.

I know, I know. But don't dismiss him just yet. Jeremy Bentham actually strived to reform social change. He advocated for the end of slavery, equal rights for women, the seperation of chuch and state, rights for homosexuals, and more. He was quite liberal infact.

Among other things he is sometimes associated with the creation of the University of London. It was the first English college to admit all, regardless of race or political standing, and without the inspiration from Bentham, it might not have been created.

He was also a philosopher, and as we all know, philosopher's love to write. He created many works of literature across his lifespan including Elements of the Art of Packing, Not Paul but Jesus, and Emancipate your Colonies. Although his main motivation in life was utilitarianism which he outlined in The Principles of Morals and Legislation.

Bentham wanted a complete ulitarian code or law and morals. With his idea, people should create laws or act on things knowing it would do the greatest good for the most amount of people. He even came up with a way of judging the morals of any action using a 'felicific caluclus'. John Stuart Mill eventually refined and made his own type of ultilitarianism known.

Jeremy even dabbled in economics and animal rights (in fact, he was one of the first proponents of them). He even wrote a book Offences Against One's Self which argued for making homosexuality legal, although he didn't approve of homosexual acts themselves and never published the book during his lifetime.

One of the most fascinating things about this philosopher's life is actually his death -- or what happened after his death. Bentham's will stated that his body was to be used in an anatomy lecture and then preserved in a wooden box dressed in his own clothes. And it surprisingly happened. You can find him at the University College London on display, although his head has been replaced by wax after some student pranks.

Jeremy Bentham is quite the complax guy and introduced us to some mind-boggling theories on morals and law. Which, you really can't be a philosopher if you don't boggle some minds along the way, right?

No comments:

Post a Comment