Royal Commission into the Operation of the Poor Laws 1832 Commission were:, The first seven were appointed in 1832, the last two in 1833. The writers of the report suggested radical changes to English Poor Laws: There was strong support for the report from all sides of Parliament. The report's ideas were quickly passed into law. The Whigs controlled the House of Commons and supported the utilitarian arguments of thinkers such as Jeremy Bentham. Those that did not support the bill were more concerned with the levels of centralisation the act would bring rather than the recommendations of the report such as the building of workhouses. The report lowered the
Jeremy Bentham came to expressing it was in the form "the good and happiness of the members, that is the majority of the members of any state, is the great standard by which every thing relating to that state must finally be determined". The "greatest happiness principle", or the principle of utility, forms the cornerstone of all Bentham's thought. By "happiness", he understood a predominance of "pleasure" over "pain". He wrote in "The Principles of Morals and Legislation": Bentham was a rare major figure in the history of philosophy to endorse psychological egoism. Bentham was a determined opponent of religion. Crimmins observes: