Bentham's

In the Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, Bentham strove ‘to cut a new road through the wilds of jurisprudence’. Laws should be socially useful; and, while he believed that human beings inevitably pursue pleasure and avoid pain, ‘the greatest happiness of the greatest number is the foundation of morals and legislation’. In the Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789), Bentham strove ‘to cut a new road through the wilds of jurisprudence’. Laws should be socially useful and not merely reflect the status quo; and, that while he believed that human beings inevitably pursue pleasure and avoid pain, Bentham thought it to be a ‘sacred truth’ that ‘the greatest happiness of the greatest number is the foundation of morals and legislation’.