Bentham’s Utilitarianism

Bentham defined the goal of the state broadly as that of maximizing happiness by erecting penalties to guide self-interest. Bentham then thought that the free society could only be implemented by a free state. Utilitarianism represented a broadening of the perspective of liberalism. The democratic state was a solution to the problem of establishing alternatives in a compulsory organization. The utilitarian formula for this impasse was to take the self-interest of the rulers, which appears as an absolute antithesis to the self-interest of the mass, and fuse the two by resolving them into a harmony. The utilitarian theory of representation still leaves with unresolved questions. The apparent affirmative social drift in Bentham&s;s outlook was multiplied by the definition of ways of attaining the utilitarian goal; subsistence, abundance, equality, and security were all to be provided by the state. The utilitarian mission in politics was not essentially constructive but a passive one.