Educated at Westminster School and Queen's College, Oxford, Bentham studied law and received his Master's degree in 1766. He was admitted to the bar in 1769. Bentham believed strongly in social and legal reform and even designed a prison building that would later influence the builders of Pentonville prison. In 1776, he published Fragment on Government and in 1780, Introduction to Principles of Morals and Legislation, appeared. He corresponded with Adam Smith on interest rate issues, some of which is documented in In Defence of Usury (1787). Together with John Stuart Mill, he co-founded the Westminster Review, a journal of philosophical discussion, in 1823. As a philosophical radical, Bentham is credited with introducing utilitarianism. His other works include Discourse on Civil and Penal Legislation (1802), Punishments and Rewards (1811), Parliamentary Reform Catechism (1817) and A Treatise on Judicial Evidence (1817). |
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