ABSTRACT
This chapter shows that Jeremy Bentham did not hold that the primary function of law is social discipline and 'social control'. The centrality of the notion of sovereignty and especially of command in his jurisprudence cannot be denied, nor can the prominence of the model of the criminal law in his analysis of the formal, logical structure of law. The chapter argues that these are best understood against a quite different conceptual and normative background than is commonly assumed. It argues that Bentham's conception of law is far less manipulative and 'managerial' than is standardly assumed. The chapter discusses a second assumption on which Bentham's assignment of overriding importance to expectation utilities rests. The complex history of the development of Bentham's theories of law and adjudication is the history of a series of increasingly sophisticated attempts to solve this central problem of utilitarian political and legal theory. Bentham naturally associates justice with law, and the administration of it.
