JEREMY BENTHAM: THE FATHER OF UTILITARIANISM IN ENGLISH JURISPRUDENCE


When the name Jeremy Bentham, is exemplified in the English law and practice, he is acknowledged as a theoretical jurist, which is, in sharp contrast to Sir William Blackstone, who was his former lecturer, and known of his careful philosophical review, dissented as commentaries on the English common law, during the 17th and 18th Century AD. Bentham became an arch-developer of the Utilitarian doctrine of the English law, and therefore, accorded, the status, as the father of Utilitarianism.

Utilitarian, in the normative ethics of the law, from it inception within the 18th Century AD, had examined ‘Actions’ as either ‘Right’ or ‘Wrong’, and the effects, either creating happiness /pleasure or unhappiness /pain, which goes beyond the performer of the action, to it community.

In the writings of Bentham, on censorial jurisprudence, of what the law ought to be, as an analysis to the existing English legal system of the 17th Century AD, and the development of utilitarian pannomiom, he argued; in the theory of language, words, ideas and propositions, must represent or describe real entities, in a form of perception or substance.

For detail discussion, and elaboration of the theory of utility, in the English law, demand knowing who is Jeremy Bentham? The young boy Bentham Jeremy, was born in the year 15th February 1748 at the Spitalfields, London, England; to a father, who was an Attorney, Mr. Jeremiah Bentham Jr., and mother, Alicia Woodward. He is noted to have spent much of his early days with the Grand mother, Rebecca Tabor, and got himself admitted to Westminister School; a School noted of it early inception, as a charity school founded by Benedictine monks, in the year (1179), which became a secular school through King Henry VIII, in the year (1540), and got refounded by Queen Elizabeth I, in the year (1560), as a distinguished public school. In his graduation from Westminister School, Bentham got admission to the Queen’s College, Oxford University, in the year (1760) at the age of 12 years old. In his three years of study at Oxford University, got him admitted to Lincoln’s Inn, to study law at the King’s Bench division of the High Court in the year (1764). At the age of 16 years, he was under the tutelage of the Chief Justice Lord Mansfield and Sir. William Blackstone. And went further with his studies, until the year (1767) to obtain his Master of Arts degree in Law at Oxford University, during his 19th birth day.

And was called to the bar in the year (1769) as a trained Barrister at law, at age of 21 years, but never practice, rather, spent the greater part of the remaining years of his life, developing the utilitarian theory and penal code, within the framework of the English legal system.

The tenet of  Bentham’s argument was, ‘Utility’ as a principle of ethics, should be rooted in empirical and verifiable facts, felt in the experience of pains and pleasures. He sought to dismiss concept used by advocates, in analyzing ‘Utility principles’, as ‘moral sense’, ‘common sense’, ‘law of reason’, ‘natural justice’ and ‘natural equity’. He considered those choices of words, as merely empty phrases, that lacks, verifiable reality. The theoretical focus of Bentham work, was how do legislators, influence individual actions, to stimulate conformity to a common decision?

He, therefore, delineated four sanctions, as either a source of pain or pleasure, serving as control mechanism of behaviour. These sanctions were labeled as Physical, Political, Moral and Religious, as a tool for self-interested individuals, to be encouraged, in other to perform actions that promote, the greatest happiness of both themselves and others. With doctrinal view, that utility of an action, is independent of its originating motives, the act , is determined solely by its consequence. Thereby, the performer of the act, should be responsible to calculate, reasonably, how to handle the pain, and the pleasure, for oneself and the community, so should the legislator, be guided by similar calculation, in formulating laws.

Thou, the above assertion, constituted the implicit of consequentialism in utilitarian theory, the bedrock to Bentham theory of Punishment. Arguing that, punishment prescribed by law, should be in proportion to the mischief produced by the crime, and sufficient to deter others, from committing the same offence, hence, his postulation, has been the fundamental doctrine of modern penal code, in the English legal system.

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Photo of Jeremy Bentham © H. W. Pickersgill 1829. National Portrait Gallery, London.

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Emmanuel Tweneboah Senzu, DBA, Ph.D., SJD.

Professor of Constitutional Law and Economic Criminology, fellow, University of Sierra Leone. Fulbright Research Fellow, J. Reuben Clark Law School, Brigham Young University, USA.

 

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