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Jeremy Bentham: The Mathematics of Morality
Season 1 Episode 211
Imagine a wallet falls in a puddle on a rainy night, and no one sees but you. Do you keep it or return it? That moral tug-of-war is exactly where Jeremy Bentham built his philosophy. For Bentham, morality wasn’t divine command—it was measurable, calculable, and human. Pleasure, pain, happiness, and suffering could guide every law, every decision, every life.
In this episode, we explore:
- The birth of Utilitarianism in 18th-century London, where Bentham asked: “What if every law existed to maximize happiness?”
- His Principle of Utility and the revolutionary Hedonic Calculus, a method to weigh the moral impact of actions.
- Bentham as a social engineer: championing human rights, animal rights, abolition of slavery, and reforms in punishment and economics.
- The Panopticon, a prison design that became a metaphor for modern surveillance.
- The emotional weight of utilitarianism illustrated by the Trolley Problem, showing the challenge of balancing reason with empathy.
- How every small action in your life contributes to the “happiness equation” of humanity.
By the end of this episode, you’ll see Bentham not as a cold mathematician of morality, but as a guide for compassionate, intentional living—reminding us that the lever isn’t out on a railway track; it’s in your hands every day.
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Published on 2 days, 17 hours ago