Episode 51: The Utilitarians

In the fourth episode on the intellectual climate that preceded the two World Wars, we discuss Utilitarianism. Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) is widely regarded as the founder of Utilitarianism as a social and philosophical program. Bentham was the defacto leader of a group of British intellectuals called the Philosophical Radicals. The Radicals believed that British society needed to be drastically reformed from top to bottom in accordance with the Principle of Utility. All laws, all governments, all institutions of education and media, agriculture, industry, and so on, must conform to a single principle: that the best state of affairs is the greatest happiness of the greatest number.