An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation
By Jeremy Bentham
The First Edition of this work was printed in the year 1780; and first published in 1789. The present Edition is a careful reprint of ‘A New Edition, corrected by the Author,’ which was published in 1823.
First Pub. Date
1789
Publisher
Oxford: Clarendon Press
Pub. Date
1907
Comments
1907 reprint of 1823 edition. (First printed 1780.)
Copyright
The text of this edition is in the public domain. Picture of Jeremy Bentham courtesy of The Warren J. Samuels Portrait Collection at Duke University.
- Preface
- Chapter I, Of the Principle of Utility
- Chapter II, Of Principles Adverse to That of Utility
- Chapter III, Of the Four Sanctions or Sources of Pain and Pleasure
- Chapter IV, Value of a Lot of Pleasure or Pain, How to be Measured
- Chapter V, Pleasures and Pains, Their Kinds
- Chapter VI, Of Circumstances Influencing Sensibility
- Chapter VII, Of Human Actions in General
- Chapter VIII, Of Intentionality
- Chapter IX, Of Consciousness
- Chapter X, Of Motives
- Chapter XI, Of Human Dispositions in General
- Chapter XII, Of the Consequences of a Mischievous Act
- Chapter XIII, Cases Unmeet for Punishment
- Chapter XIV, Of the Proportion between Punishments and Offences
- Chapter XV, Of the Properties to be Given to a Lot of Punishment
- Chapter XVI, Sections 1-2, Division of Offences
- Chapter XVI, Sections 3-4, Division of Offences
- Chapter XVII, Of the Limits of the Penal Branch of Jurisprudence
OF THE FOUR SANCTIONS OR SOURCES OF PAIN AND PLEASURE
Chapter III
I. It has been shown that the happiness of the individuals, of whom a community is composed, that is their pleasures and their security, is the end and the sole end which the legislator ought to have in view: the sole standard, in conformity to which each individual ought, as far as depends upon the legislator, to be
made to fashion his behaviour. But whether it be this or any thing else that is to be
done, there is nothing by which a man can ultimately be
made to do it, but either pain or pleasure. Having taken a general view of these two grand objects (
viz. pleasure, and what comes to the same thing, immunity from pain) in the character of
final causes; it will be necessary to take a view of pleasure and pain itself, in the character of
efficient causes or means.
II. There are four distinguishable sources from which pleasure and pain are in use to flow: considered separately they may be termed the
physical, the
political, the
moral and the
religious: and inasmuch as the pleasures and pains belonging to each of them are capable of giving a binding force to any law or rule of conduct, they may all of them termed
sanctions.*16
III. If it be in the present life, and from the ordinary course of nature, not purposely modified by the interposition of the will of any human being, nor by any extraordinary interposition of any superior invisible being, that the pleasure or the pain takes place or is expected, it may be said to issue from or to belong to the
physical sanction.
IV. If at the hands of a
particular person or set of persons in the community, who under names correspondent to that of
judge, are chosen for the particular purpose of dispensing it, according to the will of the sovereign or supreme ruling power in the state, it may be said to issue from the
political sanction.
V. If at the hands of such
chance persons in the community, as the party in question may happen in the course of his life to have concerns with, according to each man’s spontaneous disposition, and not according to any settled or concerted rule, it may be said to issue from the
moral or
popular sanction.*17
VI. If from the immediate hand of a superior invisible being, either in the present life, or in a future, it may be said to issue from the
religious sanction.
VII. Pleasures or pains which may be expected to issue from the
physical, political, or
moral sanctions, must all of them be expected to be experienced, if ever, in the
present life: those which may be expected to issue from the
religious sanction, may be expected to be experienced either in the
present life or in a
future.
VIII. Those which can be experienced in the present life, can of course be no others than such as human nature in the course of the present life is susceptible of: and from each of these sources may flow all the pleasures or pains of which, in the course of the present life, human nature is susceptible. With regard to these then (with which alone we have in this place any concern) those of them which belong to any one of those sanctions, differ not ultimately in kind from those which belong to any one of the other three: the only difference there is among them lies in the circumstances that accompany their production. A suffering which befalls a man in the natural and spontaneous course of things, shall be styled, for instance, a
calamity; in which case, if it be supposed to befall him through any imprudence of his, it may be styled a punishment issuing from the physical sanction. Now this same suffering, if inflicted by the law, will be what is commonly called a
punishment; if incurred for want of any friendly assistance, which the misconduct, or supposed misconduct, of the sufferer has occasioned to be withholden, a punishment issuing from the
moral sanction; if through the immediate interposition of a particular providence, a punishment issuing from the religious sanction.
IX. A man’s goods, or his person, are consumed by fire. If this happened to him by what is called an accident, it was a calamity: if by reason of his own imprudence (for instance, from his neglecting to put his candle out) it may be styled a punishment of the physical sanction: if it happened to him by the sentence of the political magistrate, a punishment belonging to the political sanction; that is, what is commonly called a punishment: if for want of any assistance which his
neighbour withheld from him out of some dislike to his
moral character, a punishment of the
moral sanction: if by an immediate act of
God’s displeasure, manifested on account of some
sin committed by him, or through any distraction of mind, occasioned by the dread of such displeasure, a punishment of the
religious sanction.
*18
X. As to such of the pleasures and pains belonging to the religious sanction, as regard a future life, of what kind these may be we cannot know. These lie not open to our observation. During the present life they are matter only of expectation: and, whether that expectation be derived from natural or revealed religion, the particular kind of pleasure or pain, if it be different from all those which lie open to our observation, is what we can have no idea of. The best ideas we can obtain of such pains and pleasures are altogether unliquidated in point of quality. In what other respects our ideas of them
may be liquidated will be considered in another place.
*19
XI. Of these four sanctions the physical is altogether, we may observe, the ground-work of the political and the moral: so is it also of the religious, in as far as the latter bears relation to the present life. It is included in each of those other three. This may operate in any case, (that is, any of the pains or pleasures belonging to it may operate) independently of
them: none of
them can operate but by means of this. In a word, the powers of nature may operate of themselves; but neither the magistrate, nor men at large,
can operate, nor is God in the case in question
supposed to operate, but through the powers of nature.
XII. For these four objects, which in their nature have so much in common, it seemed of use to find a common name. It seemed of use, in the first place, for the convenience of giving a name to certain pleasures and pains, for which a name equally characteristic could hardly otherwise have been found: in the second place, for the sake of holding up the efficacy of certain moral forces, the influence of which is apt not to be sufficiently attended to. Does the political sanction exert an influence over the conduct of mankind? The moral, the religious sanctions do so too. In every inch of his career are the operations of the political magistrate liable to be aided or impeded by these two foreign powers: who, one or other of them, or both, are sure to be either his rivals or his allies. Does it happen to him to leave them out in his calculations? he will be sure almost to find himself mistaken in the result. Of all this we shall find abundant proofs in the sequel of this work. It behoves him, therefore, to have them continually before his eyes; and that under such a name as exhibits the relation they bear to his own purposes and designs.
act of binding, and, by a common grammatical transition,
any thing which serves to bind a man: to wit, to the observance of such or such a mode of conduct. According to a Latin grammarian,* the import of the word is derived by rather a far-fetched process (such as those commonly are, and in a great measure indeed must be, by which intellectual ideas are derived from sensible ones) from the word
sanguis, blood: because, among the Romans, with a view to inculcate into the people a persuasion that such or such a mode of conduct would be rendered obligatory upon a man by the force of what I call the religious sanction (that is, that he would be made to suffer by the extraordinary interposition of some superior being, if he failed to observe the mode of conduct in question) certain ceremonies were contrived by the priests: in the course of which ceremonies the blood of victims was made use of.
A Sanction then is a source of obligatory powers or
motives: that is, of
pains and
pleasures; which, according as they are connected with such or such modes of conduct, operate, and are indeed the only things which can operate, as
motives. See
Chap. x. [Motives].
* Servius. See Ainsworth’s Dict. Ad verbum
Sanctio.
popular, as more directly indicative of its constituent cause; as likewise of its relation to the more common phrase
public opinion, in French
opinion publique, the name there given to that tutelary power, of which of late so much is said, and by which so much is done. The latter appellation is however unhappy and inexpressive; since if
opinion is material, it is only in virtue of the influence it exercises over action, through the medium of the affections and the will.
judgment: instead of saying, a suffering inflicted on him in consequence of a special judgment formed, and resolution thereupon taken, by the Deity.