Introduction to the principles of morals and legislation pdf

Burns and H. An introductory essay by Hart, first published in and a widely acknowledged classic in its own right, is reprinted here. It contains an important analysis of Bentham's principle of utility, theory of action, and an account of the relationship between law and morality. A new introduction by the leading Bentham scholar F.

An introductory essay by Hart, first published in and a widely acknowledged classic in its own right, is reprinted here. It contains an important analysis of Bentham's principle of utility, theory of action, and an account of the relationship between law and morality.

A new introduction by the leading Bentham scholar F. Rosen, specially written for this Clarendon Paperback edition, provides students with a helpful survey of Bentham's main ideas and an extensive bibliographical study of recent critical work on Bentham.

Although people talk about good and bad intentions, the criteria is more directly linked to the motive p. Motives and consequences can be distinguished from each other and the reader's inference is that intentions cannot be distinguished from motives or consequences: "The intention might therefore with perfect propriety be styled a good one, whatever were the motive" p. In other words, people can always claim good intentions regardless of the facts. He gives an example of how people can claim good intentions:.

To warrant the speaking of the intention as being a good one, it is sufficient if the consequences of the act, had they proved what to the agent they seemed likely to be, would have been of a beneficial nature. And in the same manner the intention may be bad, when not only the consequences of the act prove beneficial, but the motive which gave birth to it was a good one.

Bentham distinguishes "intention" from "motive". The example is of somebody who falsely accuses you of a crime. The accuser can claim an good motive because the intent from the acuser's point of view is that the community would be protected from a criminal, but Bentham asserts that the acuser's motive is malice, and is therefore bad p. Absence of intention, absence of consciousness, or presence of mis-supposal constitute extenuation of an offence p.

This is a long chapter about motives. Bentham first describes some attributes of motives, then argues that language can affect how we think of motives. Specifically, he argues that the things that are commonly considered bad motives e. From this he argues that there are no good or bad motives but only good and bad consequences of specific actions. He does acknowledge that understanding motives can help to estimate the magnitude of continuing malicious acts, set punishments, and develop plans to reduce malicious behavior.

The character of any act is affected by the motives that are attributed to it p. A motive is "any thing that can contribute to give birth to, or even to prevent, any kind of action" p.

Speculative motives are those that influence thoughts only. This type of act cannot directly affect pain or pleasure, but "it is only on account of their tendency to produce either pain or pleasure, that any acts can be material" p.

The motives of interest are those that influence actions or forbearance of actions. These are practical motives p. The word motive can have two meanings. One meaning is an incident that gives rise to an act. This is a literal or unfigurative meaning. The other meaning refers to what Bentham calls a "fictitious entity, a passion, an affection of the mind" p.

IV and other such things that motivate actions. Examples of this type of motive are avarice, indolence, and benevolence p. These are figurative meanings of the word motive. Unfigurative real event motives can be divided into internal and external incidents p.

Internal incidents are those that have a relatively direct effect on pleasure or pain. Bentham's examples are the pleasure of acquiring money or the pain of exerting yourself p. The external incidents are one step removed from the internal incidents.

An example is finding a lottery ticket that can be exchanged for money. For people to plan an action, they must look beyond the act and focus on the ultimate consequences.

These consequences, or mental events, are called objects. The future event itself is the posterior possible object , or esse and the current perception of that future is the present existing object , or prospect. These are both called motives p. VI, p.

The most powerful motive is the motive in esse, which is the [current] expectation of the internal motive in prospect p. The example is that if your neighbor's house is on fire, your motive in esse is your current fear that the fire will spread to your house and the external motive in prospect is that your house will eventually burn with you in it.

Anything that can induce a belief about external incidents can influence the will to act p. Identifying motives like this is what it means to give reasons for actions. The example is that if Bentham tells you about your neighbor's house being on fire and explains how the fire can spread to your house, you are motivated to act.

Bentham described this as follows: "I suggest motives to your understanding" p. The most important element of a chain of motives is "the last internal motive in prospect" p.

IX , which is always reducible to a pleasure or pain p. Pleasure is in itself good as is the avoidance of pain: "It follows, therefore, immediately and incontestibly, that there is no such thing as any sort of motive that is in itself a bad one " p. X A footnote explains that even the perpetrator of a terrible act sees some type of pleasure in an act that causes pain to another. There is a need to explore what it means for a motive to be good or bad p.

Motives can be good or bad only according to their effects p. A word that conveys a good sense expresses approval, and a word that conveys a bad sense expresses disapproval, and these judgments are based on the circumstances p. Some words like piety and honor have only good meanings, but there are many more words that have only bad meanings p.

Language seems to forbid referring to some traditionally bad acts as good or vice-versa, so new phrases would be useful p. Bentham now reviews some concepts to show that some of the words that have only a bad meaning are really part of a spectrum of meanings that has bad at one and and good at the other p. The first example is desire, which is a broad category that, at one end, includes the bad motive sensuality at least it had a negative connotation in Bentham's day, before Lady GaGa existed!

Bentham notes that there is no word to express the good side of desire p. Love of good cheer is really part of a dimension that includes greediness, voraciousness, and gluttony pp. To the pleasures of the sexual sense corresponds the motive which, in a neutral sense, may be termed sexual desire. In a bad sense, it is spoken of under the name lasciviousness, and a variety of other names of reprobation. Name used in a good sense it has none.

Bentham added a footnote that mentioned love as a good version of this concept, but noted that the word love also adds meaning beyond sexual sense. Another example of word usage is that pleasures of wealth can be referenced with the neutral term pecuniary interest or the negative terms avarice, covetousness, rapacity, or lucre p.

In some cases frugality has a positive meaning. The desire of ingratiating oneself can motivate a man to make his wife happy, but in other cases it might lead him to poison her p. In the same way a woman can "preserve the favour" of a wealthy man by lawful or unlawful means, but the motive is the same p. The pleasure of a good name can also be called a love of reputation, the desire of ingratiating one's self, honour, false honour, pride, or vanity p.

XXII , or even fear of dishonour, fear of disgrace, fear of infamy or fear of shame: "The pleasures belonging to the moral sanction run undistinguishably into the pains derived from the same source" p. Love of power leads to a similar range of behaviors p.

XXIII , as does love of God versus fear of God, which can lead to piety or assassinating somebody for religious reasons p. Sympathy can take the form of good-will, benevolence or pity and compassion p. In others it can become patriotism. Perhaps such sympathy could lead somebody to break another person from prison p. Malevolence can take the form of dislike or anger, or wrath. One example of this motive is that if a person commits a crime and is punished, the criminal might then retaliate against the person who filed the claim and hang that person.

This would be considered detestable, but in another case a criminal kills somebody and the victim's son prosecutes and has the criminal executed--this is considered laudable.

Both are the same motives p. Pleasure and pain exist on a continuum: "Now in many instances the desire of pleasure, and the sense of pain, run into one another undistinguishably" p.

Slight pain is sometimes indistinguishable from slight pleasure. Motives of self-preservation is sometimes indistinguishable from pleasure-seeking. Bentham mentions fear of poverty as a type of self-preservation, presumably in contrast to the pursuit of wealth. Self-preservation can lead people to terrible deeds, such as the mother of an illegitimate child who kills the baby to hide her shame p.

Avoidance of exertion laziness has no good name p. In one circumstance, it might lead parents to abandon their children while in another it might lead slaves to escape or motivates a mechanic to develop a labor-saving device p. The inference from these examples is that "there is no such thing as any sort of motive which is a bad one in itself" p.

The motives that are typically considered bad, such as lust, cruelty, and avarice, are simply the names applied when the related outcome is bad, but are more generally to be considered sexual desire, displeasure, and pecuniary interest p. Instead of referring to motives as good or bad, look to the consequences:. Although Bentham does not allow for a full-scale exception to his theory of motives, he identifies one motive that is closer to the principle of utility than others: "Of all these sorts of motives, good-will is that of which the dictates, taken in a general view, are surest of coinciding with those of the principle of utility" p.

Good-will can fail to be consistent with utility when the agent considers how the effects of an action affect only a small group of people rather than the full population p. Love of reputation is the second best motive in terms of its typical effects on utility pp. Actions stemming from love of reputation will coincide with the principle of good-will only so far as the actions are expected to be publicly known p. Desire for amity is the next best motive, and it varies according "to the number of the persons whose amity a man has occasion to desire" p.

Religious beliefs are so varied that it is difficult to generalize them or assign motives to them p. People claim that the divine being is benevolent, "but they do not mean that he is so in reality" p. The dictates of religion are simply the biases of people, and dictates can be produced from poor interpretation of religious texts p.

The dictates of religion seem to be growing closer to the principle of utility p. This happens because people increasingly "borrow continually a new and a new leaf out of the book of utility" p.

In other words, Bentham says that religious interpretation is influenced by an underlying focus on utility as a basis for morality. When motives conflict, it becomes difficult to choose a course of action p. Conflicting motives are impelling , tending to produce action, or restraining , tending to prohibit it. These, however, are interchangeable depending on whether the act is considered positive or negative p. Bentham argues that, considering the interchangeability of these terms, all motives lead to action, so no two motives can oppose one another p.

A bad act is one in which the benevolent motive was insufficient. Motives for malicious acts are important because they affect the magnitude of the outcome and they affect the judgment for punishment p.

Understanding these motives might also help to identify ways to combat the problem preemptively. This chapter examines human dispositions: enduring tendencies to engage in certain types of acts or to act with certain motives. This topic is relevant to legislators who might find reasons to adjust criminal punishment according to the perceived depravity of the offender.

The opening of the chapter reminds us that motives cannot be good or bad in themselves but hints that there is something about a person that is good or bad. This is the person's disposition , a "fictitious entity" that refers to enduring characteristics of a person p. Dispositions will be judged according to their consequences p.

The consequences of one's disposition can affect the self or others. Dispositions can be considered virtuous or vicious but the magnitude of the good or bad connotation is questionable p. If a particular disposition affects only the self, the matter is within the domain of moralists as opposed to legislators and this book is about legislators; p. A person with a mischievous disposition is generally expected to engage in pernicious acts p.

If a person with a mischievous disposition thinks that an act will be beneficial, but the act has a bad outcome, the observer should continue to consider that person mischievous, but if a person with a good disposition thinks that an act will be bad and the outcome is actually good, that person should still be considered good p.

Bentham judges disposition based on its consequences, not on the person's perception of their outcomes. Actions typically produce outcomes that are consistent with the underlying intentions p.

Bad intentions at one point tend to be correlated with bad intentions in the future p. The character of a disposition depends on the tendency of the act and the motive p. If an act benefits the self, and the tendency of the behavior is good, there is little grounds for evaluating the quality of the underlying disposition p. If an act benefits the self and the tendency of the behavior is bad, it suggests a bad disposition.

The example is of stealing bread p. An act with a good tendency and a good motive suggests a good disposition. An act with a bad tendency combined with good motive could suggest either a good or bad disposition, but cannot exist without contradiction p. An example of this is a person from a starving family steals some bread and takes none of it but gives it to the other family members p.

Bentham gives more complicated examples involving somebody who kills the king and is doomed to torture, but the offender's son knows that his father will repent and thereby illegally frees him from prison the good part is preventing his father's torture and the bad part is the illegal jail-break. An act can suggest a good disposition when the act is good and the motive is semi-social e. An act of revenge cannot be good p.

An act with a bad tendency and a religious motive is questionable p. Religiously-motivated acts frequently diverge from the principle of utility p.

If the tendency of the act is bad and the motive is bad, then it suggests a mischievous disposition p. The example is of stealing bread and then destroying it. After reviewing mostly bad dispositions, Bentham declares that the book, being about penal law, is not going to cover meritorious acts or dispositions p.

Bentham concludes that the evaluation of dispositions depends on the motives and is the sum of all intentions:. It is evident, that the nature of a man's disposition must depend upon the nature of the motives he is apt to be influenced by: in other words, upon the degree of his sensibility to the force of such and such motives. For his disposition is, as it were, the sum of his intentions: the disposition he is of during a certain period, the sum or result of his intentions during that period.

These included his secretary and collaborator on the utilitarian school of philosophy, James Mill; James Mill's son John Stuart Mill; John Austin, legal philosopher; and several political leaders, including Robert Owen, a founder of modern socialism. He is also considered the godfather of University College London. Bentham's ambition in life was to create a "Pannomion", a complete utilitarian code of law. Bentham not only proposed many legal and social reforms, but also expounded an underlying moral principle on which they should be based.

This utilitarianism philosophy argued that the right act or policy was that which would cause "the greatest good for the greatest number of people", also known as "the greatest happiness principle", or the principle of utility. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as to determine what we shall do. On the one hand the standard of right and wrong, on the other the chain of causes and effects, are fastened to their throne. They govern us in all we do, in all we say, in all we think..