Jeremy Bentham, Social Criticism & Levels of Meaning*

*I wish to thank Professors Hugo Bedau, Philip Schofield and William Twining, as well as two anonymous referees, for their many helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper. The responsibility for what follows is, of course, mine alone. I adopt the standard system of referencing the Bentham archive at University College London: ‘UC’ = refers to University College archive, roman numerals refer to the box, and arabic numerals refer to the folio (for example, UC ci.015).