- Lived:
- 1748–1832 · London, England
- Tradition:
- Classical utilitarianism; the Enlightenment turned into a reform machine
- The Big Idea:
- The only test of any law, institution, or action is whether it increases pleasure and decreases pain — for everyone affected, counted equally.
- In their words:
- "The question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?"
- If you remember one thing:
- He spent sixty years asking one question of everything — does it add to happiness or to misery? — and his skeleton, dressed in his own clothes, still sits in a London university making the point.