Where to start with Bentham?

Hi,
So recently I started reading H.L.A Hart's the concept of Law, and being as this is based around both Austin's positivism theory and Jeremy Bentham's morality based law view, which I profess to know little else about, I feel it necessary to read up on both authors. For Austin it is pretty simple, the province of jurisprudence determined being the obvious choice for reading up on, but for Bentham I'm a bit overwhelmed by his work and was wondering where best to start on it, bearing in mind I'm focused on the legal side it. Any advice would be welcomed, both on Bentham and Jurisprudence in general.

Hi,
So recently I started reading H.L.A Hart's the concept of Law, and being as this is based around both Austin's positivism theory and Jeremy Bentham's morality based law view, which I profess to know little else about, I feel it necessary to read up on both authors. For Austin it is pretty simple, the province of jurisprudence determined being the obvious choice for reading up on, but for Bentham I'm a bit overwhelmed by his work and was wondering where best to start on it, bearing in mind I'm focused on the legal side it. Any advice would be welcomed, both on Bentham and Jurisprudence in general.

Hey Dave,
Reading Bentham's 'Introduction to Morals and Legislations' may be a good start. He outlines his ethical theories etc. Also looking at some Ethics textbooks will help you, if you look under chapters entitled 'Utilitarianism'.
Good luck.

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always helpful here is:
https://plato.stanford.edu/search/searcher.py?query=bentham

Hi Dave,

I've recently been reading Philosophy of Law: A Very Short Introduction. An absolutely fascinating book, jurisprudence is incredibly vagarious and not lucid whatsoever especially natural law theory. Bentham was certainly well ahead of his time especially with his views on morality-base law and utilitarianism and strike me as being incredibly prescient! There are some other amazing theories in the book as professed by Locke, Hobbes and many others. It's great to hear someone so passionate about Jurisprudence