Enlightenment and Utility: Bentham in French, Bentham in France: 110 (Ideas in Context, Series Number 110)
Cambridge University Press, 5/12/2015
EAN 9781107098671, ISBN10: 110709867X
Hardcover, 249 pages, 23.1 x 15.2 x 2.5 cm
Language: English
Originally published in English
Jeremy Bentham, the founder of classical utilitarianism, was a seminal figure in the history of modern political thought. This lively monograph presents the numerous French connections of an emblematic British thinker. Perhaps more than any other intellectual of his time, Bentham engaged with contemporary events and people in France, even writing in French in the 1780s. Placing Bentham's thought in the context of the French-language Enlightenment through to the post-Revolutionary era, Emmanuelle de Champs makes the case for a historical study of 'Global Bentham'. Examining previously unpublished sources, she traces the circulation of Bentham's letters, friends, manuscripts, and books in the French-speaking world. This study in transnational intellectual history reveals how utilitarianism, as a doctrine, was both the product of, and a contribution to, French-language political thought at a key time in European history. The debates surrounding utilitarianism in France cast new light on the making of modern Liberalism.
Acknowledgements
A note on translations
Introduction
Part I. An Englishman in the Republic of Letters
1. Languages of Enlightenment
2. Satire and polemics
3. Defining utilitarianism
private connections and correspondence
Part II. 'Projet d'un corps de loix complet' and the Reform of Jurisprudence in Europe
4. The Genesis of Projet
5. Projet in Enlightenment legal thought
6. The politics of legal reform
Part III. Reflections for the Revolution in France
7. Frenchmen and Francophiles
Lord Lansdowne's network
8. British expertise for French legislators
9. Utility, rights and revolution
missed encounters?
Part IV. Utile Dulcis? Bentham in Paris, 1802
10. Dumont's editorship
from the Bibliothèque Britannique to Traités de législation civile et pénale
11. A mixed reception
12. Autumn 1802
Bentham in Paris
Part V. Liberty, Utility and Rights (1815–1832)
13. 'For one disciple in this country, I have fifty at least in France'
14. Utilitarian arguments in French politics
15. A Utilitarian moment? French liberals and utilitarianism
Epilogue
Bentham in the July Revolution
Conclusion
Bibliography.