Early eighteenth century philosopher, Jeremy Bentham, had a large impact on the world with his utilitarian views, with special emphasis on the legal system. His opinions on morality and justice changed the society he lived in and continue to have strong influence on our society today. Through this paper I will attempt to explain how Bentham's utilitarian views relate to the law's system of punishments and rewards through the use of pain and pleasure, as he describes them in his works The Rationale of Punishment and The Rationale of Reward. .
In his works, The Hedonistic Calculus, Bentham claims that nature "has placed mankind under two sovereign masters, pleasure and pain" (Gill, 2000). For Bentham, pleasure and pain serve not only as explanations for action, but they also define one's good. It is on the basis of pleasures and pains, which can exist only in individuals, that Bentham thought one could construct a calculus of value. All actions by any person are judged by the community, a group of individuals, to determine if the action is morally good or morally wrong. An action, which is morally good, is an act that serves the greater good, pleasure. This act would be something that would benefit more people than it would hurt, it would produce benefit, pleasure, advantage, good, or happiness. It could also be an act that would prevent mischief, sadness, pain, or evil from happening to a party involved. The party could be an individual, group or entire community. .
To help explain his theories Bentham drew up a calculus, which takes into account six criteria for measuring pain and pleasure. These were: intensity (how much pleasure is experienced), duration (how long it is lasting), certainty or uncertainty (the chance of feeling pleasure as a result of an action), propinquity (how close pleasure is to those affected), fecundity (how productive the pleasure is toward individual ends of those feeling it), and purity (how morally suitable the pleasure is.
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Introduction Throughout history, philosophy has been something that has changed tremendously. The reason for this is due to the fact that new philosophers come into the field of philosophy and have different opinions on various aspects of life. Philosophers in around the 7th Century B.C. asked quest...
