The said truth is that it is the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right and wrong.
Jeremy BenthamIt is with government as with medicine, its only business is the choice of evils. Every law is an evil, for every law is an infraction of liberty.
Jeremy BenthamWhat else is it that should trace the insuperable line? Is it the faculty of reason or perhaps the faculty of discourse? But a full-grown horse or dog is beyond comparison a more rational, as well as more conversable animal, than an infant of a day or a week or even a month old. But suppose they were otherwise, what would it avail? The question is not, Can they reason?, nor Can they talk? but, Can they suffer? Why should the law refuse its protection to any sensitive being? The time will come when humanity will extend its mantle over everything which breathes.
Jeremy Bentham