Based on a broad-ranging study of the dissemination and reception of utilitarian ideas in the areas of constitutional politics, law education, law reform, moral theory and political economy, Crimmins illustrates the complexities of the place of utilitarianism in the intellectual ferment of the times, in both its secular and religious forms, intersection with other doctrines, and practical outcomes. The pragmatic character of American political thought revealed―culminating in the postbellum rise of Pragmatism―stands in marked contrast to the conventional interpretations of intellectual history in this period.
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