Jeremy Bentham
English philosopher (1748–1832) who founded utilitarianism, the doctrine that the right action maximizes total happiness, and designed the Panopticon, the prison architecture of perfect surveillance that Foucault used to analyze modern power.
Bentham's foundational principle: nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do.' From this, he derived utilitarianism: the morally correct action maximizes aggregate happiness (pleasure minus pain) across all affected persons. The 'greatest happiness of the greatest number' is the measure of all policy.
This was radically democratic: by treating each person's pleasure and pain as equally significant, Bentham implicitly challenged aristocratic privilege. If a peasant's suffering counts equally with a lord's pleasure, the entire social hierarchy requires justification. His framework became foundational to liberal political theory and cost-benefit analysis in public policy.
His Panopticon, a circular prison with a central watchtower from which all cells are visible, was designed so that prisoners could never know when they were being observed. Not knowing whether they were watched, they would behave as if always watched, internalizing surveillance. Michel Foucault used the Panopticon as a metaphor for modern society's disciplinary power: surveillance that transforms citizens into self-regulating subjects. The Panopticon is the architectural expression of modernity's inner logic.
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Frequently asked questions
What is Bentham's greatest happiness principle? ＋
The morally right action is the one that produces the greatest happiness for the greatest number, measuring happiness as pleasure minus pain across all affected persons. Each person's happiness counts equally, regardless of social position.
What is Bentham's Panopticon? ＋
A circular prison with a central tower from which all cells are visible, inmates never know when they're observed, so they behave as if always watched. Foucault used it as a metaphor for modern disciplinary society: surveillance internalizes control, making citizens self-regulating.