Utilitarianism - Jeremy Bentham

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From the course by Universiteit Leiden

Political Economy of Institutions and Development

112 ratings

Universiteit Leiden

Political Economy of Institutions and Development

112 ratings

This course is part of the SDG initiative <http://www.sdginitiative.org/> addressing the UN Sustainable Development Goals, specifically for the following SDGs [1, 8, 10 and 16]. We hope you will join in our efforts to reach the SDG’s in small but measurable and actionable ways, cooperating with Development Done Differently. Expand your impact. You can create a better world. In today’s world, politics and economics are interconnected, but what is the nature of this connectivity? What are the power relationships that shape the world economy today and create new challenges for international institutions facing globalization? What makes some countries wealthier than others? Do we face cultural diversity or fragmentation? Does the type of governance effect economic development and social change or is it the other way around? How do we measure it and how trustworthy is the data? These issues and many more will be examined in this course along with a wide library of sources and a biting criticism.

From the lesson

Extra Material

Not for the test - but very good for your general knowledge!

The Invisible Hand - Adam Smith4:12

Utilitarianism - Jeremy Bentham3:17

Relative Backwardness - Alexander Gerschenkron3:55

Classical Liberalism - Friedrich August von Hayek3:49

Keynesianism - John Maynard Keynes3:44

Critical Political Economy - Robert Cox4:08

The Take Off - Walt W. Rostow3:43

Marxism - Karl Marx4:20

Small States - Peter Katzenstein4:17

World Systems Theory - Immanuel Wallerstein3:52

New Institutional Economics- Ronald Coase3:46

Economic Structuralism- Raúl Prebisch3:41

Meet the Instructors

Richard Thomas Griffiths
Prof. dr.
Faculty of Humanities

Jeremy Bentham was born in London in 1748,

son of a prosperous lawyer.

He was such a bright child that he went to Oxford University at the age of 12,

where he studied law then became an active publicist and political radical.

His pamphlet, "A Fragment on Government," which he wrote in 1776,

he formulated the principle for government and that it

should aim for the greatest happiness for the greatest number.

Number happiness, just to get it right,

he meant the predominance of pleasure over pain,

both physical and spiritual.

However, in measuring pleasure and pain,

every single person had to be considered equal.

There has been no favoring of the interests of the wealthy,

the powerful or the well-endowed.

The Later Work.

An introduction to the principles of morals and legislation written in 1789,

he encapsulated this idea into a concept of utility and he drafted a set of

measures for governments to consider in

balancing pleasure and pain when drafting legislation.

For him, if a law did no good, it was no good.

Perhaps surprisingly, he was against physical punishment and the death penalty.

You would have thought that the execution of a criminal to

protect the lives of others and the property of others,

and therefore to allow society to derive pleasure from these,

would have been perfectly acceptable, but for Bentham,

that pain wasn't suffered by one person but suffered spiritually by

all society and any such punishment

might call forth more evil than it was trying to prevent.

On the other hand, he was opposed to any concept of universal rights.

He argued that the right of an individual had to be measured against the needs,

the pleasure of the rest of society.

Many of Bentham's ideas were taken up in

the work of an infinitely more and well-known political philosopher,

John Stuart Mill, but Bentham deserves to be remembered if only for one other thing.

He believed that after death,

one should preserve the body as a sort of auto-icon so that you

could continue to enjoy the company of family and friends after your demise.

He arranged to have his own body stripped down to

a skeleton and to have his head preserved intact.

His skeleton was padded out in hay,

clothed and placed surmounted by his head in a special box.

It's still there at University College London today.

Unfortunately, the preservation of the head didn't go

entirely to plan so it's been replaced by a wax replica and the real head,

for a time, was placed in a hat box underneath his chair.

Since that proved too much temptation for young undergraduates,

it's since been taken away and locked up safely elsewhere.

Interestingly, on the 150th anniversary of University College London,

he actually attended the celebratory meeting.

He was registered in the minutes of having been present but not voting.

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