Of the Limits of the Penal Branch of Jurisprudence

Of the Limits of the Penal Branch of Jurisprudence, written in 1780-2, is the continuation of An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, and thus part of the introduction to the projected penal code on which Bentham worked in the late 1770s and early 1780s. The work emerged from Bentham’s attempt to distinguish between civil and penal law, which led him into an exposition of the nature and scope of an individual law and an analysis of such key legal terms as power, duty, right, property, contract, and conveyance. Bentham addresses the relationship between different ‘aspects’ of the legislator’s will, such as command, prohibition, and permission, and in so doing develops a ‘logic of the will’ which anticipates modern deontic logic. He explains that the disposition of the people to obey constitutes the basis of political and legal power, and distinguishes between law addressed to the sovereign and law addressed to the people. Dealing with some of the most fundamental problems in jurisprudence and the theory of human action, Of the Limits of the Penal Branch of Jurisprudence is a work of outstanding originality and seminal importance in the field of legal philosophy.