Lythe, Peter;
(2022)
Utility, Truth, and God: Religion in the Thought of Jeremy Bentham.
Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).
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Abstract
The present thesis is the first comprehensive study of the writings of Jeremy Bentham on religion. It aims to develop a deeper understanding of the importance of Bentham’s hitherto under-explored religious views to his utilitarian philosophy, and to afford a clearer insight into how these views were related to the historical and intellectual developments of the age in which he lived. The thesis challenges various scholarly claims about the philosophical basis and implications of his rejection of religion. It is argued that Bentham’s critique of religion, which is examined in the light of his fundamental commitment both to the principle of utility and to the value of truth, was directed at four main targets: organised religion, primarily in its ‘Church-of-Englandist’ form; natural religion; the supposedly revealed ‘religion of Paul’—that is, Christianity as subverted by the doctrines of St Paul; and the supposedly revealed ‘religion of Jesus’—that is, Christianity as founded upon the Gospel accounts of the acts and teachings of Jesus. From his close scrutiny of the evidence, Bentham found that while the ecclesiastical establishment fostered and exploited religious belief in the pursuit of ‘sinister interest’, religion itself—both natural and revealed—kept morality shrouded in confusion, superstition, mischievous error, and fear, and made truth-claims that could not withstand the rigours of empirical and logical analysis. Bentham concluded that religion led to the corruption of the human understanding and the inhibition of human progress—twin evils whose only remedy was the dissemination of knowledge. He wanted people to abandon religion, not as a result of legislative fiat or any other coercive means, but because they had been persuaded that the answers to the questions of what is good and what is true rested upon the more substantial grounds of a secular utilitarianism.
| Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Qualification: | Ph.D |
| Title: | Utility, Truth, and God: Religion in the Thought of Jeremy Bentham |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © The Author 2022. Original content in this thesis is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) Licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Any third-party copyright material present remains the property of its respective owner(s) and is licensed under its existing terms. Access may initially be restricted at the author’s request. |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of Laws |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10161448 |
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