The first five volumes of the Correspondence of Jeremy Bentham contain over 1,300 letters written both to and from Bentham over a 50-year period, beginning in 1752 (aged three) with his earliest surviving letter to his grandmother, and ending in 1797 with correspondence concerning his attempts to set up a national scheme for the provision of poor relief. Against the background of the debates on the American Revolution of 1776 and the French Revolution of 1789, to which he made significant contributions, Bentham worked first on producing a complete penal code, which involved him in detailed explorations of fundamental legal ideas, and then on his panopticon prison scheme. Despite developing a host of original and ground-breaking ideas, contained in a mass of manuscripts, he published little during these years, and remained, at the close of this period, a relatively obscure individual. Nevertheless, these volumes reveal how the foundations were laid for the remarkable rise of Benthamite utilitarianism in the early nineteenth century. Bentham’s early life is marked by his extraordinary precociousness, but also family tragedy: by the age of 10 he had lost five infant siblings and his mother. The letters in this volume document his difficult relationship with his father and his increasing attachment to his surviving younger brother Samuel, his education, his interest in chemistry and botany, and his committing himself to a life of philosophy and legal reform.

The Correspondence of Jeremy Bentham, Volume 13 contains authoritative and fully annotated texts of all known and publishable letters sent both to and from Bentham between 1 July 1828 and his death on 6 June 1832. In addition to 474 letters, the volume contains three memorandums concerning Bentham’s health shortly before this death, his Last Will and Testament, and extracts from both the Autobiography and the manuscript diaries of Bentham’s nephew George. Of the letters that have already been published, most are drawn from the edition of The Works of Jeremy Bentham, prepared under the superintendence of Bentham’s literary executor John Bowring. A small number of letters have been reproduced from newspapers and periodicals. This volume publishes for the first time all the extant correspondence between Bentham and Daniel O’Connell, the Irish Liberator. Other new acquaintances included Charles Sinclair Cullen, barrister and law reformer, and John Tyrrell, the Real Property Commissioner. Throughout the period, Bentham maintained regular contact with old friends and connections, but he also entered into sporadic correspondence with such leading figures in government as the Duke of Wellington, Robert Peel and Henry Brougham. Further afield, Bentham corresponded, amongst others, with the Marquis de La Fayette in France, Edward Livingston in the United States of America and José Del Valle in Guatemala.

The present edition of Panopticon versus New South Wales and other writings on Australia consists of fragmentary comments headed ‘New Wales’, dating from 1791; a compilation of material sent to William Wilberforce in August 1802; three ‘Letters to Lord Pelham’ and ‘A Plea for the Constitution’, written in 1802–3; and ‘Colonization Company Proposal’, written in August 1831, the majority of which is published here for the first time. These writings, with the exception of ‘Colonization Company Proposal’, are intimately linked with Bentham’s panopticon penitentiary scheme, which he regarded as an immeasurably superior alternative to criminal transportation, the prison hulks, and English gaols in terms of its effectiveness in achieving the ends of punishment. He argued, moreover, that there was no adequate legal basis for the authority exercised by the Governor of New South Wales. In contrast to his opposition to New South Wales, Bentham later composed ‘Colonization Company Proposal’ in support of a scheme proposed by the National Colonization Society to establish a colony of free settlers in southern Australia. He advocated the ‘vicinity-maximizing principle’, whereby plots of land would be sold in an orderly fashion radiating from the main settlement, and suggested that, within a few years, the government of the colony should be transformed into a representative democracy.

Recovering Bentham's thoughts on policing and what they mean for criminology today. Jeremy Bentham theorized the panopticon as modern policing emerged across the British Empire, yet while his theoretical writing became canonical in criminology, his perspective on the police remains obscure. Jeremy Bentham on Police recovers the reformer's writings on policing alongside a series of essays that demonstrate their significance to the past, present, and future of criminology.

Bentham and the Arts considers the sceptical challenge presented by Bentham’s hedonistic utilitarianism to the existence of the aesthetic, as represented in the oft-quoted statement that, ‘Prejudice apart, the game of push-pin is of equal value with the arts and sciences of music and poetry. If the game of push-pin furnish more pleasure, it is more valuable than either.’ This statement is one part of a complex set of arguments on culture, taste, and utility that Bentham pursued over his lifetime, in which sensations of pleasure and pain were opposed to aesthetic sensibility. Leading scholars from a variety of disciplines reflect on the implications of Bentham’s radical utilitarian approach for our understanding of the history and contemporary nature of art, literature, and aesthetics more generally.

Discusses morals' functions and natures that affect the legislation in general. Bases the discussions on pain and pleasure as basic principle of law embodiment. Mentions of the circumstance influencing sensibility, general human actions, intentionality, conciousness, motives, human dispositions, consequencess of mischievous act, case of punishment, and offences' division.

The first five volumes of the Correspondence of Jeremy Bentham contain over 1,300 letters written both to and from Bentham over a 50-year period, beginning in 1752 (aged three) with his earliest surviving letter to his grandmother, and ending in 1797 with correspondence concerning his attempts to set up a national scheme for the provision of poor relief. Against the background of the debates on the American Revolution of 1776 and the French Revolution of 1789, to which he made significant contributions, Bentham worked first on producing a complete penal code, which involved him in detailed explorations of fundamental legal ideas, and then on his panopticon prison scheme. Despite developing a host of original and ground-breaking ideas, contained in a mass of manuscripts, he published little during these years, and remained, at the close of this period, a relatively obscure individual. Nevertheless, these volumes reveal how the foundations were laid for the remarkable rise of Benthamite utilitarianism in the early nineteenth century. Bentham’s life in the mid-1790s was dominated by the panopticon, both as a prison and as a network of workhouses for the indigent. The letters in this volume document in excruciating detail Bentham’s attempt to build a panopticon prison in London, and the opposition he faced from local aristocratic landowners. His brother Samuel was appointed as Inspector-General of Naval Works and in September 1796 married Mary Sophia Fordyce.