ividual rights and dignity.
Jeremy Bentham, best known as the advocate of Utilitarianism, took a somewhat different approach to identifying the role of government. Bentham (1) stated that "by utility it is meant that property in any object, whereby it tends to produce benefit, advantage, pleasure, good, or happinessàor to prevent the happening of mischief, pain, evil or unhappiness to the party whose interest is considered: if that party is the community in general, than the happiness of the community." The concept of "community" was certainly understood by this philosopher to represent the "peopleÆ and/or the "state."
Bentham (1) saw the community as a "fictitious body, composed of the individual persons who are considered as constituting it as it were its members. The interest of the community then isàthe sum of the interests of the several members who compose it." These interests included safety and security, law and order, and other mechanisms designed to either maximize the greatest amount of happiness for the largest number of individuals or to reduce the unhappiness of the group.
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