Jeremy Bentham "Between 1809 and 1823 Jeremy Bentham carried out an exhaustive examination of religion with the declared aim of extirpating religious beliefs, even the idea of religion itself, from the minds of men." Bentham suggested a procedure for estimating the moral status of any action, which he called the Hedonistic or felicific calculus. Utilitarianism was revised and expanded by Bentham's student John Stuart Mill. In Mill's hands, "Benthamism" became a major element in the liberal conception of state policy objectives. Bentham's critics have claimed that he undermined the foundation of a free society by rejecting natural rights. In his exposition of
James Bentham reformer Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832). From Ely Grammar School, James was admitted 26 March 1727 to Trinity College, Cambridge, from which he graduated B.A. in 1730, and M.A. in 1738. In 1733 he was presented to the vicarage of Stapleford in Cambridgeshire, which he resigned in 1737, when he was made a minor canon of Ely. In 1767 Bentham was presented by Bishop Matthias Mawson to the vicarage of Wymondham in Norfolk, and upon his resignation of that living in the following year to the rectory of Feltwell St Nicholas in the same county. This preferment he held till 1774, when