Leading 18th-Century Works on Punishment
Books published in the 18th century, widely known in the public sphere in England during that century, and discussing lawful punishment in detail.
Notes
The Rhetoric of the Greatest Happiness of the Greatest Number
Beccaria’s and Bentham’s happiness maximization seems to have been fundamentally exhortative rather than consequentially calculative.
Samuelson, Bentham, & Foundations of Economic Analysis
Bentham and Samuelson sought to provide foundations for economic analysis. They refused to generalize across humans their struggles for social priority.
Bentham’s Rhetorical Sophistication
Jeremy Bentham was a rhetorically sophisticated writer, not a socially obtuse utilitarian.
Jeremy Bentham’s Intellectual Achievement
Jeremy Bentham is one of the most important figures in Western intellectual history.
Rationale of Punishment Doesn’t Translate Dumont
Bentham editors and scholars have inaccurately described The Rationale of Punishment as a translation of Dumont’s Théorie des Peines et des Récompenses.
Bentham on Punishment Through Dumont and Smith
Texts on communication with prisoners in Rationale of Punishment probably came directly from a manuscript folio that Bentham wrote about 1778.
Editing Bentham’s Manuscripts on Punishment
The Rationale of Punishment (1830) better indicates Bentham’s writing on punishment than does Dumont’s Théorie des Peines et des Récompenses (1811).
Source-Critical Analysis: Bentham on Communicating with Prisoners
The Rationale of Punishment, not Dumont’s Théorie des Peines et des Récompenses, contains Bentham’s original text on communicating with prisoners.
Dating Bentham’s Texts in the Rationale of Punishment
Although The Rationale of Punishment was first published in 1830, Jeremy Bentham wrote its texts on communicating with prisoners about 1778.