What did Jeremy Bentham contribute to enlightenment?
Bentham contributed the philosophy of Utilitarianism. This is the theory that government should act for the greatest good for the greatest number. And that the moral value of an action should be determined by its benefit towards the utility (or contribution to happiness )of the greatest number of people. In order to establish an action’s moral worth he devised the “felicific calculus”. In terms of his legacy, he advocated separation of church and state, the right to divorce, free trade, slavery and the decriminalisation of homosexual acts. In many ways Western capitalism is the product of Bentham and those who refined his ideas – John Stuart Mill and James Mill.
