Jeremy Bentham: The Panopticon, The Pleasure Principle, and the Auto-Icon
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Show Notes
Join us on this episode of pplpod as we examine the life of Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832), the eccentric child prodigy and philosopher regarded as the founder of modern utilitarianism,. We explore his "fundamental axiom"—that the "greatest happiness of the greatest number" is the ultimate measure of right and wrong—and his famous rejection of natural rights as "nonsense upon stilts".
In this episode, we cover:
• The Felicific Calculus: How Bentham proposed measuring the intensity and duration of pleasure and pain to guide moral and legal decision-making.
• Radical Social Reform: His forward-thinking advocacy for women’s suffrage, the right to divorce, and—in essays unpublished during his lifetime—the decriminalization of homosexuality,,.
• Animal Rights: Why Bentham argued that the insuperable line for legal protection should not be the ability to reason, but the question: "Can they suffer?".
• The Panopticon: Bentham's decades-long obsession with a circular prison model designed to allow a single watchman to observe all inmates without being seen,,.
• The Auto-Icon: His bizarre final request to be dissected and permanently preserved as a "self-image" (auto-icon), which remains on public display at University College London to this day,,.