Dimensions
140 x 203 x 25mm
The word utilitarianism was coined by Jeremy Bentham in 1781 in a letter to a friend in which he said: "A new religion would be an odd sort of thing without a name." While the doctrine never quite became a religion, its thesis - that the good and right are to be defined as that which promotes happiness - became the dominant naturalistic theory of the 19th century and provided the moral basis for classical liberalism. On Liberty is at once a reaction against the Philosophical Radicalism of the early Benthamite utilitarians and a defence of the individual entrepreneurs in the marketplace, moving far beyond the limited view of Bentham. Mill's Essay on Bentham along with Bentham's Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation and John Austin's second lecture, The Province of Jurisprudence Determined, continue the dialogue between Mill's sophisticated utilitarianism and Philosophical Radicalism. These essays offer a comprehensive view of the development of a major philosophical trend of Western intellectual history.
