An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislations, Jeremy Bentham's best-known work, is a classic text in modern philosophy and jurisprudence. First published in 1789, it contains the important statement of the foundations of utilitarian philosophy and a pioneering study of crime and punishment, both of which remain at the heart of contemporary debates in moral and political philosophy, economics, and legal theory. A new introduction by the leading Bentham scholar F. Rosen, specially written for this edition, provides students with a helpful survey of Bentham's main ideas and an...

Bentham's central concern during the 1810s and 1820s was with the codification of the law. The materials presented in this volume constitute not only the basis for a biography of Bentham during these years, but also an important and illuminating account of his mature legal and political theory.

Political Tactics, composed for the Estates General in the months just prior to the outbreak of the French Revolution, is one of Jeremy Bentham's most original works. It contains the earliest and perhaps most important theoretical analysis of parliamentary procedure ever written. With typical thoroughness and insight, Bentham discusses such central themes as the publicity of procedings, the rules of debate, and the proper steps to be taken in composing, proposing, and voting on a motion.

This eleventh volume of Bentham's Correspondence contains nearly three hundred letters, and covers the period from January 1822 to June 1824. By the early 1820s Bentham had acquired an international reputation, and corresponded with leading figures in Europe, the United States of America, and many of the newly independent states of Central and South America.

A critical edition of three works of Bentham, Deontology and The Article on Utilitarianism were previously unpublished. Together with An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, they provide a comrehensive exposition of Bentham's views. Based entirely on manuscripts by Bentham of his amanuenses, this edition's full introduction linking the three works. Each work is supplemented with detailed and critical notes.

This is a major theoretical analysis of the harmful effects of colonies on commerce and constitutional democracy, and is one of the most important studies of colonialism written in the nineteenth century. In these essays, Bentham provided a penetrating critique of colonialism from within the liberal utilitarian tradition.

This is a collection of Bentham's essays, dating mainly from late 1822 and early 1823, concerning his attempts to draw up legislation for one Islamic state, and offer advice to another in the process of throwing off Islamic rule. The writings for Tripoli include the famous "Securities Against Misrule," as well as discussion of the social, political, and religious institutions of the country. The writings for Greece include a rare commentary on the first Greek constitution of 1822, and advice and warnings to the Greek legislators against the temptation of "sinister appetites." Both groups of...

This volume collects four essays--"Economy as Applied to Office," "Identification of Interests," "Supreme Operative," and "Constitutional Code Rationale"--dating from the spring and summer of 1822. Based exclusively on manuscripts, many of which have never been published, the essays represent an important application of utilitarian principles to the structure and organization of government and are a major contribution to the theory of representative democracy.

Much of Bentham's correspondence of this period is concerned with his persistent but eventually unsuccessful efforts to secure the implementation of his Panopticon penitentiary scheme. The letters also throw light on his work in other fields, especially public finance and the reform of the police.

In 1824 Bentham conceived the idea of publishing a collection of essays in order to illustrate his own ideal of constitutional law, encapsulated in the aphorism "aptitude maximized, expense minimized" and to contrast it with practice under the British constitution, which he believed to be based on entirely the opposite principle. The volume was published in 1830 and was intended to complement the detailed administrative provisions which he had been drafting for his Constitutional Code, the major endeavor of the final decade of his life. The two works are therefore closely related, both...