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Bentham founded a philosophy called utilitarianism: A political system that tries to benefit the greatest number of people. Bentham said that people are basically selfish at heart. Without rules to guide them, everyone will look out for themselves at the expense of others. At the same time, Bentham agreed that too many rules would unfairly limit individual freedom.

So he came up with a simple test to decide if a law was necessary and fair: Did it provide the greatest good for the greatest number of people? In other words, if a law helped only a few people and hurt many others, it was unfair. Laws that applied to a lot of people but didn't really help anyone were just useless.

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