Jeremy Bentham

At 84 years old, Jeremy Bentham physical status not available right now. We will update Jeremy Bentham's height, weight, eye color, hair color, build, and measurements.

Benjamin Bentham (15 February 1748 [O.S.] Bentham was an English scholar, jurist, and social reformer who was known as the "fundamental axiom" of his philosophy. "It is the greatest joy of the largest number that is equal and wrong" in terms of right and wrong. He was a leading theorist in Anglo-American philosophy of law and a political radical whose views inspired the rise of welfarism.

He promoted individual and economic rights, church and state separation, the freedom of expression, equal rights for women, the right to marry, and (in an unpublished essay) the criminalization of homosexual acts.

He called for the abolition of slavery, capital punishment, and physical punishment, especially children.

He has also made a name for himself as an early supporter of animal rights.

Though he favoured the extension of individual civil rights, he opposed the prospect of natural law and natural rights (both of which are regarded as "divine" or "God-given" in origin), calling them "nonsense on stilts."

Bentham was also a vocal critic of legal fictions. His tutor and colleague James Mill, the latter's son of the deceased, and Robert Owen, one of the pioneers of utopian socialism, were among Bentham's students.

"He had a large influence on the reform of jails, schools, bad regulations, courts, and Parliament itself," the author states. "Before his death in 1832, Bentham left instructions for his body to be first dissected and then permanently preserved as a "auto-icon" (or self-image), which would be his memorial."

This was done, and the auto-icon is now on public view at University College London (UCL).

He has been dubbed the "spiritual benefactor" of UCL because of his adamant support for education in favor of general education.

Nevertheless, he was only interested in its establishment for a limited extent.

Early life

Bentham was born in Houndsditch, London, on February 15, 1748, to a wealthy family that favored the Tory party. He was found as a toddler at his father's desk reading a multi-volume history of England, and he began to study Latin at the age of three. Bentham learned to play the violin, and at the age of seven, he would perform sonatas by Handel at dinner parties. Samuel Bentham (1757–1831) was his surviving sibling, with whom he was close.

He attended Westminster School from the age of 12, and his father took him to The Queen's College, Oxford, where he obtained his bachelor's degree in 1763 and his master's degree in 1766. He qualified as a lawyer and, although he never practiced, was admitted to the bar in 1769. He became greatly dissatisfied with the complexities of English law, which he described as the "Demon of Chicane." The British government did not give a formal response when the American colonies first published their Declaration of Independence in July 1776, but instead secretly commissioned London lawyer and pamphleteer John Lind to write a rebuttal. The Americans' political convictions were disregarded in the colonies by a 130-page tract, which also contained an essay titled "Short Review of the Declaration" by Bentham, a Lind friend who attacked and mocked the Americans' political philosophy.

Bentham travelled to Krichev (modern Belarus) in 1786 and 1787 to visit his brother, Samuel, who was involved in numerous industrial and other projects for Prince Potemkin. It was Samuel (as Jeremy later confirmed) who suggested the basic idea of a circular building at the heart of a larger compound as a way of allowing a select number of managers to control the operations of a large and unskilled workforce.

Bentham began to develop this model, particularly as it pertains to prisons, and outlined his concepts in a series of letters sent home to his father in England. He expanded the supervisory principle with the prospect of contract management; that is, an employment-based approach to trust, where the director would have a keen interest in lowering the average rate of mortality.

The Panopticon was supposed to be cheaper than the prisons of his time, but Bentham wrote to a commission on the Reform of Criminal Law, "I will be the gaoler." You will see that the gaoler will receive no compensation; it will cost nothing to the nation." Because the watchmen are unable to be seen, they should not be on alert at all times, effectively leaving the watching to the watched. According to Bentham's scheme, the prisoners could also be used as menial labour, walking on wheels to spin looms, or even run a water wheel. This will lower the cost of the prison and give the prisoner a potential source of income.

One of his many calls for political and social reform in England was the ultimately abortive plan for a panopticon jail. However, Bentham spent sixteen years of his life researching and refining his plans for the building, hoping that the government would approve the proposal for a National Penitentiary appointing him as the contractor-governor. Despite the fact that the prison was never built, the theory had a major influence on subsequent generations of thinkers. Michel Foucault, a twentieth-century French scholar, argued that the panopticon was emblematic of several 19th-century "disciplinary" organizations. Bentham remained bitter about the panopticon project throughout his life, fearing that the King and aristocratic elite had defeated it. It was mainly because of his sense of injustice and apprehension that he generated his visions of "sincertitude"—that is, the legitimate interest of the powerful coalition against a larger public interest — which underpinned several of his earlier claims for change.

Bentham had commissioned drawings from an architect, Willey Reveley, on his return to England from Russia. He published the essays he had written as a book in 1791, but he continued to refine his plans for many years to come. He had already decided that he wanted to see the prison built: when it was completed, he'd be able to oversee it by himself as contractor-governor, with the support of Samuel. After failed efforts to compel the authorities in Ireland and revolutionary France, William Pitt, started attempting to convince Prime Minister William Pitt to revive an earlier abandoned plan for a National Penitentiary in England this time as a panopticon. He was eventually successful in over Pitt and his consultants, and he was paid £2,000 for preliminary work on the scheme in 1794.

The intended location was one that had been approved (under an act of 1779) for the earlier Penitentiary in Battersea Rise; but the new plans ran into technical difficulties and objections from the local landowner, Earl Spencer. Other locations were considered, including one at Hanging Wood near Woolwich, but all of them were unsatisfactory. Eventually, Bentham moved to Tothill Fields, near Westminster, near Westminster. Despite the fact that this was common property with no landowner, there were a number of parties with an interest in it, including Earl Grosvenor, who owned a house on a nearby property and opposed to the possibility of a prison overlooking it. The scheme came to a halt again, this time. At this point, however, it became abundantly that a Millbank, adjacent to the Thames, was available for purchase, and it was during this period that life became more normal. Bentham purchased the property on behalf of the Crown for £12,000 in November 1799, using government funds.

The site was far from optimal, being sluggish, unhealthy, and too small, from his point of view. When he asked the government for more property and more funds, the answer was that he should only create a small-scale experimental jail, which he mistook for the fact that penal reform's concept of the panopticon was a pillar. Negotiations continued, but Pitt resigned from office in 1801, and the new Addington government decided not to go forward with the initiative in 1803. "They've murdered my best days," Bentham said.

However, a few years later, the government revived the possibility of a National Penitentiary, and in 1811 and 1812, the use of a panopticon was revived. Bentham, who is now 60, is still eager to serve as governor. However, when it became clear that there was no genuine commitment to the plan, he shed hope and instead concentrated on receiving financial compensation for his years of fruitless service. His initial claim was for over £700,000, but he later settled for a much smaller (but still significant) sum of £23,000. In 1812, an Act of Parliament transferred his name to the Crown.

Patrick Colquhoun's partnership in fighting the corruption in the Pool of London was more fruitful. The Thames Police Bill of 1798, which was passed in 1800, was enacted. The bill established the Thames River Police, which was the first preventive police force in the country and served as a model for Robert Peel's reforms 30 years ago.

: 67–69

Bentham was in correspondence with several influential individuals. For example, Bentham maintained a correspondence with the aging Adam Smith in an unsuccessful attempt to convince Smith that interest rates should be allowed to freely float. Bentham was named an honorary citizen of France as a result of his association with Mirabeau and other leaders of the French Revolution. He was a vocal critic of the revolutionary discourse of natural rights and of the brutality that emerged after the Jacobins took power (1792). He had a personal relationship with Latin American revolutionary Francisco de Miranda from 1808 to 1810, as well as paid visits to Miranda's Grafton Way house in London. He also developed links with José Cecilio del Valle.

The National Colonization Society's committee approved the printing of its plan to establish a free colony on the south coast of Australia, which would be granted powers of self-government as soon as possible. Bentham had no involvement in the preparation of the 'Proposal to His Majesty's Government for establishing a colony on the Southern Coast of Australia, contrary to belief. Bentham did, however, draft a draft of a company proposal titled 'Colonization Company Proposal,' which is his testimony on the National Colonization Society's 'Proposal' in August 1831.

He co-founded The Westminster Review with James Mill in 1823 as a journal for the "Philosophical Radicals," a group of younger disciples through whom Bentham wielded sway in British public life. One of John Bowring, to whom Bentham became attached, referred to them as "son and father": he appointed Bowring political editor and then literary executor. Edwin Chadwick, a journalist who wrote about hygiene, sanitation, and policing, was one of the principal contributors to the Poor Law Amendment Act; Bentham retained Chadwick as a secretary and left him a substantial legacy.

: 94

Bentham had several obsessions with women and wrote about sex. He never married.

In Michael St. John Packe's The Life of John Stuart Mill, an insight into his character is given.

According to a psychobiological study by Philip Lucas and Anne Sheeran, he may have Asperger's syndrome. Bentham was an atheist.

Bentham's daily routine was to rise at 6 a.m., walk for 2 hours or more, and then work until 4 p.m.

The Faculty of Laws at University College in London is located in Bentham House, which is adjacent to the main UCL campus.

The name of Bentham IMF Limited was changed to Bentham IMF Limited on November 28, 2013, in honor of Bentham's being "among the first to promote the use of litigation funding."

Personal life

Bentham had several obsessions with women and wrote about sex. He never married.

In Michael St. John Packe's The Life of John Stuart Mill, an insight into his personality is given.

According to a psychobiological research by Philip Lucas and Anne Sheeran, he may have Asperger's syndrome. Bentham was an atheist.

Bentham's daily routine was to rise at 6 a.m., walk for 2 hours or more, and then work until 4 p.m.

University College London's Faculty of Laws is located in Bentham House, which is next to the main UCL campus.

The Australian litigation funder IMF Limited renamed Bentham IMF Limited to become Bentham IMF Limited on November 28, 2013, acknowledging Bentham's position as "among the first to advocate for litigation support."

Source