Principles of Morals and

26/Jeremy Bentham
as will be seen more particularly hereafter, is but a modification of an-
tipathy. The only right ground of action, that can possibly subsist, is,
after all, the consideration of utility which, if it is a right principle of
actions and of approbation any one case, is so in every other. Other
principles in abundance, that is, other motives, may be the reasons why
such and such an act has been done: that is, the reasons or causes of its
being done: but it is this alone that can be the reason why it might or
ought to have been done. Antipathy or resentment requires always to be
regulated, to prevent it doing mischief: to be regulated what? always by
the principle of utility. The principle of utility neither requires nor ad-
mits of any another regulator than itself.

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Chapter III: Of the Four Sanctions or Sources of
Pain and Pleasure
I. It has been shown that the happiness of the individuals, of whom a
community is composed, that is their pleasures and their security, is the
end and the sole end which the legislator ought to have in view: the sole
standard, in conformity to which each individual ought, as far as de-
pends upon the legislator, to be made to fashion his behaviour. But
whether it be this or any thing else that is to be done, there is nothing by
which a man can ultimately be made to do it, but either pain or pleasure.
Having taken a general view of these two grand objects (viz., pleasure,
and what comes to the same thing, immunity from pain) in the character
of final causes; it will be necessary to take a view of pleasure and pain
itself, in the character of efficient causes or means.
II. There are four distinguishable sources from which pleasure and
pain are in use to flow: considered separately they may be termed the
physical, the political, the moral and the religious: and inasmuch as the
pleasures and pains belonging to each of them are capable of giving a
binding force to any law or rule of conduct, they may all of them termed
sanctions.
III. If it be in the present life, and from the ordinary coursed of
nature, not purposely modified by the interposition of these will of any
human being, nor by any extraordinary interposition of any superior
invisible being, that the pleasure or the pain takes place or is expected,
it may be said to issue from or to belong to the physical sanction.
IV. If at the hands of a particular person or set of persons in the
community, who under names correspondent to that of judge, are cho-
sen for the particular purpose of dispensing it, according to the will of

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28/Jeremy Bentham
the sovereign or supreme ruling power in the state, it may be said to
issue from the political sanction.
V. If at the hands of such chance persons in the community, as the
party in question may happen in the course of his life to have concerns
with, according to each man’s spontaneous disposition, and not accord-
ing to any settled or concerted rule, it may be said to issue from the
moral or popular sanction.
VI. If from the immediate hand of a superior invisible being, either
in the present life, or in a future, it may be said to issue from the reli-
gious sanction.
VII. Pleasures or pains which may be expected to issue from the
physical, political, or moral sanctions, must all of them be expected to
be experienced, if ever, in the present life: those which may be expected
to issue from the religious sanction, may be expected to be experienced
either in the present life or in a future.
VIII. Those which can be experienced in the present life, can of
course be no others than such as human nature in the course of the
present life is susceptible of: and from each of these sources may flow
all the pleasures or pains of which, in the course of the present life,
human nature is susceptible. With regard to these then (with which alone
we have in this place any concern) those of them which belong to any
one of those sanctions, differ not ultimately in kind from those which
belong to any one of the other three: the only difference there is among
them lies in the circumstances that accompany their production. A suf-
fering which befalls a man in the natural and spontaneous course of
things, shall be styled, for instance, a calamity; in which case, if it be
supposed to befall him through any imprudence of his, it may be styled
a punishment issuing from the physical sanction. Now this same suffer-
ing, if inflicted by the law, will be what is commonly called a punish-
ment; if incurred for want of any friendly assistance, which the miscon-
duct, or supposed misconduct, of the sufferer has occasioned to be
withholden, a punishment issuing from the moral sanction; if through
the immediate interposition of a particular providence, a punishment
issuing from the religious sanction.
IX. A man’s goods, or his person, are consumed by fire. If this
happened to him by what is called an accident, it was a calamity: if by
reason of his own imprudence (for instance, from his neglecting to put
his candle out) it may be styled a punishment of the physical sanction: if
it happened to him by the sentence of the political magistrate, a punish-

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Principles of Morals and Legislation/29
ment belonging to the political sanction; that is, what is commonly called
a punishment: if for want of any assistance which his neighbour with-
held from him out of some dislike to his moral character, a punishment
of the moral sanction: if by an immediate act of God’s displeasure,
manifested on account of some sin committed by him, or through any
distraction of mind, occasioned by the dread of such displeasure, a pun-
ishment of the religious sanction.
X. As to such of the pleasures and pains belonging to the religious
sanction, as regard a future life, of what kind these may be we cannot
know. These lie not open to our observation. During the present life they
are matter only of expectation: and, whether that expectation be derived
from natural or revealed religion, the particular kind of pleasure or pain,
if it be different from all those which he open to our observation, is what
we can have no idea of. The best ideas we can obtain of such pains and
pleasures are altogether unliquidated in point of quality. In what other
respects our ideas of them may be liquidated will be considered in an-
other place.
XI. Of these four sanctions the physical is altogether, we may ob-
serve, the ground-work of the political and the moral: so is it also of the
religious, in as far as the latter bears relation to the present life. It is
included in each of those other three. This may operate in any case, (that
is, any of the pains or pleasures belonging to it may operate) indepen-
dently of them: none of them can operate but by means of this. In a
word, the powers of nature may operate of themselves; but neither the
magistrate, nor men at large, can operate, nor is God in the case in
question supposed to operate, but through the powers of nature.
XII. For these four objects, which in their nature have so much in
common, it seemed of use to find a common name. It seemed of use, in
the first place, for the convenience of giving a name to certain pleasures
and pains, for which a name equally characteristic could hardly other-
wise have been found: in the second place, for the sake of holding up the
efficacy of certain moral forces, the influence of which is apt not to be
sufficiently attended to. Does the political sanction exert an influence
over the conduct of mankind? The moral, the religious sanctions do so
too. In every inch of his career are the operations of the political magis-
trate liable to be aided or impeded by these two foreign powers: who,
one or other of them, or both, are sure to be either his rivals or his allies.
Does it happen to him to leave them out in his calculations? he will be
sure almost to find himself mistaken in the result. Of all this we shall

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