Jeremy Bentham: Lights and Shadows

Abstract

This paper presents the fundamental ideas of Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) in legal theory, ethics and political philosophy. It intends to show that his account has its roots in an empiricist epistemology, a nominalist ontology and an original philosophy of language. The theory of law contains a theory of norms that incorporates a valuable precedent of deontic logic. Hedonist utilitarianism, whose only aim is the maximization of happiness, constitutes the foundation of his theory of democracy: a theory that distrusts all mechanisms of power and supplies institutional tools for checking them. The last section analyses the fortune of Bentham in the history of ideas, trying to be faithful to the lights and the shadows of his intellectual legacy.