Jeremy Bentham
1748-1832 · Utilitarianism · Renowned
Bentham founded utilitarianism and wanted morals settled by arithmetic. His felicific calculus adds up the pleasure and subtracts the pain, and the right act is whichever leaves the larger total, aiming at the greatest happiness of the greatest number, with every person counting as one. A radical law reformer, he called natural rights nonsense upon stilts, and drew up the Panopticon, a prison where a guard might be watching at any moment.
Signature
The position Bentham is most identified with in the Profiler:
- Meaning
- leans Constructed
- Ethics Basis
- Utilitarian Calculation
Positions on the 13 axes the sources answer
- Natural Processes
- leans Mechanistic (25 on a 0–100 scale from Mechanistic to Purposeful)
- Society
- leans Individualism (75 on a 0–100 scale from Collectivism to Individualism)
- Mind
- leans Brain Only (25 on a 0–100 scale from Brain Only to Beyond Brain)
- The Divine
- strongly leans Indescribable (100 on a 0–100 scale from Describable to Indescribable)
- Universals
- leans Nominalism (75 on a 0–100 scale from Realism to Nominalism)
- Meaning
- leans Constructed (25 on a 0–100 scale from Constructed to Inherent)
- Order
- leans Horizontal (75 on a 0–100 scale from Vertical to Horizontal)
- Ground of Being
- leans Immanence (25 on a 0–100 scale from Immanence to Transcendence)
- Nature
- leans Mastery (25 on a 0–100 scale from Mastery to Harmony)
- Polity
- leans Liberalism (75 on a 0–100 scale from Illiberalism to Liberalism)
- Ethics
- strongly leans Ends (8 on a 0–100 scale from Ends to Means)
- Conviction
- leans Certain (75 on a 0–100 scale from Uncertain to Certain)
- Allegiance
- leans Global (75 on a 0–100 scale from Local to Global)
7 of 20 axes are left blank: the sources do not answer them, or Bentham refused the framing. Nothing is imputed; a blank is not a middling score.
Foundational questions
- Theology
- Atheism
What is your position on the existence and nature of God or gods? - Government
- Representative Democracy
What is your ideal form of government? - Highest Good
- Pleasure
What is the highest good? - Knowledge
- Sense Experience
What is the ultimate foundation of knowledge? - Ethics Basis
- Utilitarian Calculation
What is the ultimate basis of ethics? - Agency
- Compatibilism
What is the nature of human agency and freedom? - Time
- Linear Progressive
What is the fundamental shape of time? - Economy
- Market Capitalism
What is the ideal organization of economic life? - Authority
- Consent of the Governed
What is the legitimate source of authority? - Law
- Legal Positivism
What is the ultimate source of legitimate law? - Primary Bond
- Humanity
What is your primary bond and loyalty?