Jeremy Bentham

The British utilitarian philosopher who declared, at the end of the eighteenth century, that the supreme good is “the greatest happiness of the greatest number” — the frame Yuval Noah Harari traces through modern welfare politics in Homo Deus. Harari argues that over recent decades Bentham’s vision has been taken far more seriously: the great systems built to strengthen the nation are now expected to serve the happiness and well-being of individual citizens — “We are not here to serve the state — it is here to serve us.” (Kyle’s note in Homo Deus: “So much for ‘ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.’”) Harari sets Bentham against Epicurus, who warned that material achievement alone never satisfies and that happiness is hard work.

Bentham also appears as a flesh-and-blood acquaintance in John Quincy Adams: James Traub’s biography notes that “conversation with Jeremy Bentham was worthwhile” to the famously taciturn Adams, who valued exchange only when he was learning something — distinguishing real disquisition from the empty “prattle” of the drawing room.

Context: Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832) was an English philosopher, jurist, and social reformer, the founder of modern utilitarianism, whose principle of the “greatest happiness of the greatest number” shaped law, economics, and welfare thought.

Where this appears

• Homo Deus — Yuval Noah Harari uses Bentham’s “greatest happiness” utilitarianism to frame the modern state’s turn toward serving individual well-being
• John Quincy Adams — James Traub’s biography names Bentham as worthwhile company for the conversation-averse Adams