Rights, Representation, and Reform: Nonsense Upon Stilts and Other Writings on the French Revolution

Front Cover
Oxford University Press, 2002 - History - 486 pages
Bentham's writings for the French Revolution were dominated by the themes of rights, representation, and reform. In 'Nonsense upon Stilts' (hitherto known as 'Anarchical Fallacies'), the most devastating attack on the theory of natural rights ever written, he argued that natural rights provided an unsuitable basis for stable legal and political arrangements. In discussing the nature of representation he produced the earliest utilitarian justification of political equality and representative democracy, even recommending women's suffrage.

From inside the book

Contents

SYMBOLS AND ABBREVIATIONS
xv
NECESSITY OF AN OMNIPOTENT
xix
Lettre dun Anglois à M le C de M sur lobjet soumis
xxii
78
l
888
lix
97
18
Publication préliminaire
23
Plan de marche pour la conduite des affaires
44
Art 8
353
Art 9
356
Art 10
358
Art 11
361
Art 12
364
Art 13
366
Art 14
369
Art 15
371

Véracité avec Fidelité
51
CONSIDÉRATIONS DUN ANGLOIS SUR
63
Acquiescence
145
COMPOSITION DES ÉTATSGÉNÉRAUX
157
OBSERVATIONS SUR RÉSULTAT
167
OBSERVATIONS ON THE DRAUGHTS
177
Observations on the Report of the Committee in which
179
SHORT VIEWS OF ECONOMY FOR THE
193
Limits to Economy
200
Appropriation
208
RetrenchmentPensions on RetreatDonations
219
National Assembly and King
229
OBSERVATIONS
237
Préface
246
Introduction and Heads
265
EMANCIPATE YOUR COLONIES ADDRESSED
289
JUNE 1829
314
Art 4
338
Art 5
341
Art 6
343
Art 7
349
Art 16
372
Art 17
374
DECLARATION OF THE RIGHTS AND DUTIES OF THE MAN AND THE CITIZEN A 1795
376
Art 2
378
Art 4
379
Art 5
380
Art 2
381
Art 4
383
Art 5
384
Art 7
385
Art 8
387
OBSERVATIONS ON THE DECLARATION OF RIGHTS AS PROPOSED BY CITIZEN SIEYÈS
389
Art 2
390
ON THE USE AND ABUSE OF THE WORD RIGHT
398
DIVISION OF POWER
405
63
412
OF THE INFLUENCE OF
419
PARLIAMENTARY REFORM
428
COLLATION
435
INDEX OF NAMES
479
Copyright

Common terms and phrases

About the author (2002)

Jeremy Bentham was born in London, on February 15, 1748, the son of an attorney. He was admitted to Queen's College, Oxford, at age 12 and graduated in 1763. He had his master's degree by 1766 and passed the bar exam in 1769. An English reformer and political philosopher, Bentham spent his life supporting countless social and political reform measures and trying as well to create a science of human behavior. He advocated a utopian welfare state and designed model cities, prisons, schools, and so on, to achieve that goal. He defined his goal as the objective study and measurement of passions and feelings, pleasures and pains, will and action. The principle of "the greatest happiness of the greatest number," set forth in his Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, governed all of his schemes for the improvement of society, and the philosophy he devised, called utilitarianism, set a model for all subsequent reforms based on scientific principles. Bentham also spoke about complete equality between the sexes, law reform, separation of church and state, the abolition of slavery, and animal rights. Bentham died on June 6, 1832, at the age of 84 at his residence in Queen Square Place in Westminster, London. He had continued to write up to a month before his death, and had made careful preparations for the dissection of his body after death and its preservation as an auto-icon.