An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation is a book by the English philosopher and legal theorist Jeremy Bentham "originally printed in 1780, and first published in 1789." Bentham's "most important theoretical work," it is where Bentham develops his theory of utilitarianism and is the first major book on the topic. Bentham was the first major philosopher to develop and defend a utilitarian theory of ethics. Like John Stuart Mill, whom he greatly influenced, Bentham believed that happiness or pleasure is the only thing that is good for its
Jeremy Bentham French Revolution, Bentham was declared an honorary citizen of France. He was an outspoken critic of the revolutionary discourse of natural rights and of the violence that arose after the Jacobins took power (1792). Between 1808 and 1810, he held a personal friendship with Latin American Independence Precursor Francisco de Miranda and paid visits to Miranda's Grafton Way house in London. In 1823, he co-founded the "Westminster Review" with James Mill as a journal for the "Philosophical Radicals"a group of younger disciples through whom Bentham exerted considerable influence in British public life. One was John Bowring, to whom Bentham became