Philosopher of Utility
Jeremy Bentham
Your quest companion appears in the header, offers one of their ideas on your home page each day, and cheers you on in lessons. You can change companions at any time, and your progress stays the same.
An English philosopher and legal reformer who founded utilitarianism, holding that good laws and right actions are those that produce the greatest happiness, and who argued that animals count because they can suffer.
Key work: An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789)
“The question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?”
Key ideas, in brief (in our words)
Count everyone’s pleasure and pain, each person as one.
Judge a law by what it does to people’s lives.
Customs and laws must answer to their results.
Read more: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
On the climb
Who Counts?
Quest with Jeremy Bentham above to start the climb and open these lessons.
