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Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) was an English atheistic philosopher who created the concept of [[utilitarianism]]. Utilitarianism means that government should do whatever maximizes overall "utility" (benefits minus costs). If killing one innocent man saves ten other lives, then utilitarianism would favor it. Under utilitarianism there is no Christian morality, and it is replaced by comparing benefits versus costs. Under this view government should experiment on embryonic stem cells today if benefits are greater than costs.
'''Jeremy Bentham''' (1748-1832) was an English [[philosopher]] and [[economist]] who popularized the concept of [[utilitarianism]].<ref>http://www.ucl.ac.uk/Bentham-Project/info/jb.htm</ref> Utilitarianism is a moral philosophy which states that individual actors (or indeed government) should do whatever maximizes overall "utility" (pleasure minus pain).<ref name=appraisal>Bentham started from the following premise: "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, as well as to determine what we shall do." [http://www.tparents.org/Library/Unification/Books/Euth/Euth06-04.htm Appraisal of Traditional Theories of Ethics from the Viewpoint of the Unification Theory of Ethics]</ref>
If killing one innocent man saves ten other lives, then utilitarianism would favor it. Under utilitarianism there is no Christian morality, and it is replaced by comparing benefits versus costs.
Bentham influenced socialist reformer [[Robert Owen]], who agreed with Bentham's idea of "the greatest happiness of the greatest number",<ref name=appraisal /> and he participated in the rebuttal to the [[Declaration of Independence]], in which he argued that America was hypocritical for proclaiming "all men are equal" while at the same time not freeing every single slave.<ref>An Answer to the Declaration of the American Congress, Answer to Article XXVII</ref> He was also a major influence on the [[liberal]] philosopher and [[atheist]] [[John Stuart Mill]], and a friend of his father, James Mill.
Bentham developed the idea of the [[Panopticon]].
== Quotes ==
{{cquote|As to the evil which results from censorship, it is impossible to measure it, because it is impossible to tell where it ends.<ref>https://quotefancy.com/quote/1090548/Jeremy-Bentham-As-to-the-evil-which-results-from-censorship-it-is-impossible-to-measure#:~:text=Jeremy%20Bentham%20Quote%3A%20%E2%80%9CAs%20to,tell%20where%20it%20...%E2%80%9D</ref>}}
==External links==
* [https://archive.org/details/cihm_20519 An answer to the Declaration of the American Congress],John Lind and Jeremy Bentham, 1776
* [https://librivox.org/author/290 Works by Jeremy Bentham - text and free audio] - [[LibriVox]]
==References==
<references />
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bentham, Jeremy}}
[[Category:Philosophers]]
[[Category:Enlightenment]]