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Subject Area: Political Theory
Subject Area: Law

Law—an affair of pain and pleasure. - Jeremy Bentham, The Works of Jeremy Bentham, vol. 10 (Memoirs Part I and Correspondence) [1843]

Edition used:

The Works of Jeremy Bentham, published under the Superintendence of his Executor, John Bowring (Edinburgh: William Tait, 1838-1843). 11 vols. Vol. 10.

Part of: The Works of Jeremy Bentham, 11 vols.

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Law—an affair of pain and pleasure.

“If law did not concern pains and pleasures, it would be a very idle business—a business in no way superior in dignity, and much inferior in amusement, to dominoes or push-pin.

“It does, however, concern pain and pleasure. Pain and pleasure await each motion of its will. This, however, lawyers are wonderfully disposed to forget: it never seems to have entered into the heads of some, and it is this inattention that is the source of all their absurdities. Hence their quaint reasoning and ridiculous conundrums.