The early 19th century British intellectual and political movement that took up Bentham's utilitarian framework and applied it to political reform, supporting expanded suffrage, free trade, secular education, and the systematic rationalization of public institutions. James Mill, John Stuart Mill, George Grote, and others were the leading figures of philosophical radicalism, which had significant influence on the Reform Act of 1832 and the broader trajectory of 19th century British liberalism.
Tradition
Philosophical Radicalism
The early 19th century British intellectual movement that took up Bentham's utilitarian framework and applied it to political reform.
Thinkers
Thinker
Frédéric Bastiat
1801–1850
Frédéric Bastiat was a French classical liberal economist whose witty pamphlets against protectionism and state intervention became foundational texts of the libertarian tradition
ThinkerHenry George
1839–1897
Henry George was the American economist and reformer behind the Single Tax movement, whose bestselling Progress and Poverty argued that taxing land values could capture the unearned wealth of social progress
ThinkerJeremy Bentham
1748–1832
Jeremy Bentham was the English founder of utilitarianism, a legal reformer who tried to reduce every moral and political question to a single calculation of pleasure and pain
ThinkerJames Mill
1773–1836
James Mill was a Scottish utilitarian philosopher who organized Bentham's ideas into the Philosophical Radicals movement and designed the formidable education of his son John Stuart Mill
Related through shared thinkers