An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation

by Jeremy Bentham

Pain and pleasure govern man and determine his behavior. Man cannot escape their domination. Utility is the foundation of the present work: utility is that principle which approves or disapproves of every action whatsoever, according to the tendency which it appears to augment or diminish the happiness of the party whose interest is in question. The interest of the community is one of the most general expressions that can occur: the interest of the community is the sum of the interests of the several members who compose it. Individual is the community.

Of Principles Adverse to Utility:

If it is ok to be governed by utility, then all other principles must be wrong. The only way to combat it is through a strictly regimented society. Ascetics concluded that certain pleasures when reaped in the long run attended with pains more than equivalent to thme, took occasion to quarrel with everything that offered itself under the name of pleasure. The principle of utility is capable of being consistently pursued while otherwise not.

If you hate much, punish much: if you hate little; punish little; punish as you hate. The fine feelings of soul are to be overborne and tyrannized by the harsh and rugged dicates of political utility. Right and wrong merely sympathy and antipathy: avoid the obligation of appealing to any external standard, and prevail upon the reader to accept of the author's senitment or opinion a reason for itself.