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First published 1907

An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation

by Jeremy Bentham

Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1907; Online Library of Liberty edition249 pages

An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation by Jeremy Bentham is available as a free PDF and EPUB download at freecapitalists.org.

Author
Jeremy Bentham
First published
1907
Format
PDF and EPUB
Pages
249
Publisher
Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1907; Online Library of Liberty edition
License
Public domain by publication date.

Bentham's foundational statement of utilitarianism, printed in 1780 and published in 1789, here in the Clarendon Press edition of 1907. He builds ethics and law on the principle of utility, catalogs kinds of pleasure and pain, and works out how punishments should be measured. It is one of the founding texts of nineteenth-century utilitarian reform.

What's in it

35 chapters · 135,270 words · free to read here

  1. Preface
  2. Chapter I: OF THE PRINCIPLE OF UTILITY
  3. Chapter II: OF PRINCIPLES ADVERSE TO THAT OF UTILITY
  4. Chapter III: OF THE FOUR SANCTIONS OR SOURCES OF PAIN AND PLEASURE
  5. Chapter IV: VALUE OF A LOT OF PLEASURE OR PAIN, HOW TO BE MEASURED
  6. Chapter V: PLEASURES AND PAINS, THEIR KINDS
  7. Chapter VI: OF CIRCUMSTANCES INFLUENCING SENSIBILITY
  8. Chapter VII: OF HUMAN ACTIONS IN GENERAL
  9. Chapter VIII: OF INTENTIONALITY
  10. Chapter IX: OF CONSCIOUSNESS
  11. § 1. Different senses of the word motive.1
  12. § 2. No motives either constantly good or constantly bad.
  13. § 3. Catalogue of motives corresponding to that of Pleasures and Pains.
  14. § 4. Order of pre-eminence among motives.
  15. § 5. Conflict among motives.
  16. Chapter XI: OF HUMAN DISPOSITIONS IN GENERAL
  17. §1. Shapes in which the mischief of an act may show itself.
  18. § 2. How Intentionality, &c. may influence the mischief of an act.
  19. § 1. General view of cases unmeet for punishment.
  20. § 2. Cases in which punishment is groundless.
  21. § 3. Cases in which punishment must be inefficacious
  22. § 3. Cases where punishment is unprofitable.
  23. § 3. Cases where punishment is needless.
  24. Chapter XIV: OF THE PROPORTION BETWEEN PUNISHMENTS AND OFFENCES
  25. Chapter XV: OF THE PROPERTIES TO BE GIVEN TO A LOT OF PUNISHMENT
  26. §1. Classes of Offences.
  27. § 2. Divisions and sub-divisions.
  28. § 3. Genera of Class I.
  29. § 4. Advantages of the present method.
  30. § 5. Characters of the five classes
  31. § 1. Limits between Private Ethics and the Art of Legislation.
  32. § 2. Jurisprudence, its branches.
  33. About Liberty Fund
  34. The Online Library of Liberty
  35. Copyright Information

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