Constitutional Limits and the Public Sphere: A Critical Study of Bentham's Constitutionalism

Description

The place of utility as a critical theory of human existence has been largely discredited and its potential undermined in the course of modern debates in ethical,political and legal theory. The central intuition that guides the argument of this book is that both the technical and reductionist methodology associated with utilitarianism do not do justice to the theory which identifies the maximisation of pleasure as the most fundamental self-interest of man. Enlarging upon this intuition, the book is mainly concerned with critical constitutionalism. Based on a close reading of Bentham's unpublished and recently published texts, the argument in the first part shows that a critical analysis of constitutionally limited government formed a central theme of Bentham's utilitarian enterprise. The theme of the author's reconstruction is that, for Bentham, constitutional limits signified socially dynamic relationships within the public sphere and between this sphere and a centralised coercive authority. Because this relationship is socially dynamic, the ever-changing communal-based conception of harm constantly transforms the relationship between law and the community which it governs. This feature reappears in many layers of Bentham's thought, such as his theory of sovereignty, the duty to obey the law, and the motivational basis for forming and transforming a conception of harm within the public sphere. Even the most revisionist of Bentham scholars fail to capture this central unifying theme in Bentham's writings. The second part of the book further develops this reconstruction. It argues that an underdeveloped insight of critical importance characterised Bentham's utilitarianism. This insight helps to elucidate the transient and dynamic connection of ethics to politics. In critically reviewing five contemporary accounts of this connection, utility is shown to have closer affinities with communitarianism. However as a critical theory, utility has more in common with the Habermasian notion of communication and inter-subjectivity than with Humean conventionalism. The utilitarian critic is in a position to transcend not only the simple hedonism with which utilitarianism has always been associated, but also the historically-ridden perspectives which potentially dogmatise the range of human possibilities under a received conception of harm.

Get the book

Amazon.com

Search the book

eBay.com

Search the book

Other editions

• 

  Constitutional Limits and the Public Sphere: A Critical Study of...

  • 2000-10-21
  • 336 pages
  • Paperback
  • Hart Publishing

Similar books

• 

  Property Law: Rules, Policies, and Practices

  By Joseph William Singer, Bethany R. Berger, Nestor M. Davidson

  See also Country Community Timberlake Village v. HMW Special Utility District of Harris, 438 S.W.3d 661 (Tex. Ct. App. 2014) (holding that a neighboring ...

• 

  Entertainment Law and Business

  By William D. Henslee, Elizabeth Henslee

  After Justin Timberlake exposed Janet Jackson's pierced nipple on national television for 9/16ths of a second, the FCC received over 540,000 complaints.

• 

  The Common Law in Colonial America: Volume III: The Chesapeake and New England, 1660-1750

  By William E. Nelson

  Volume III: The Chesapeake and New England, 1660-1750 William E. Nelson ... Decision of Law, Surry County Ct. 1673/74, in Eliza Timberlake Davis ed., ...

• 

  The Indiana State Constitution

  By William P. McLauchlan

  E. Edwards v. California, 314 U.S. 160 (1941), 66 Edwards v. Housing Authority of City of ... Timberlake, 148 Ind. 38,46 N.E.339 (1897), 69,70 Graves v.

• 

  Child Support Guidelines: Interpretation and Application

  By Laura W. Morgan

  Fitzgerald, 4.08[B][2], 5.05[D] Fitzgerald v. ... Mastrapa-Font, 7.03[A][3] Fontaine, In re, 5.05[D] Fontenette v. ... Frost, 5.05[A] Formato v.

• 

  Maritime Fraud and Piracy

  By Paul Todd

  The sole remedy is avoidance, however; damages cannot be claimed under s. ... 17, it places a great deal of power in the hands of insurance companies to ...

• 

  Principles of the Carriage of Goods by Sea

  By Paul Todd

  Normally, a mate«s receipt would later be given up for a bill of lading, ... they necessarily prejudice the rights of those who deal in the goods ...

• 

  Maryland Employment Law

  By Stanley Mazaroff, Todd Horn

  27 257 U.S. 184, 42 S. Ct. 72, 66 L. Ed. 189 (1921). ... 38 Argensinger, “Right to Strike”: Labor Organization and the New Deal in Baltimore, 78 MD . HIST .

• 

  Contract Law in New Zealand

  By Stephen Todd, Jeremy Finn

  704 Contract and Commercial Law Act 2017, s. 80. 705 Leith v. Gould [1986] 1 NZLR 760. It is not clear how a New Zealand court would deal with a case such ...

• 

  Tort Law in New Zealand

  By Stephen Todd

  ... to meet the reasonable expectations of claimants about how the corporation should deal with them, by, inter alia, ... 7 Treaty of Waitangi Act 1975, s.