Jeremy Bentham Jeremy Bentham Jeremy Bentham (; 15 February 1748 [O.S. 4 February 1747] – 6 June 1832) was an English philosopher, jurist, and social reformer regarded as the founder of modern utilitarianism. Bentham defined as the "fundamental axiom" of his philosophy the principle that "it is the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right and wrong". He became a leading theorist in Anglo-American philosophy of law, and a political radical whose ideas influenced the development of welfarism. He advocated for individual and economic freedoms, the separation of church and state, freedom of expression, equal rights for
Legal positivism it attempts to interpret the nature of reality beyond the physical and experiential. Thomas Hobbes and "Leviathan" Thomas Hobbes, in his seminal work "Leviathan", postulated the first clear notion of law based on the notion of sovereign power. As Hampton writes, "law is understood [by Hobbes] to depend on the sovereign's will. No matter what a law's content, no matter how unjust it seems, if it has been commanded by the sovereign, then and only then is it law.' There is, however, debate surrounding Hobbes's status as a legal positivist. Jeremy Bentham The English jurist and philosopher, Jeremy Bentham, is