The first controversy on utilitarianism in Colombia (1825-1836): disputes among elites for the control of the philosophical essentials of law

Abstract

Some authors have argued that the utilitarianism released in Colombia in the early nineteenth century, allowed the development of democratic ideals and it became in a modern alternative for the philosophical-juridical essentials inherited from the colony. In this article that thesis is reviewed and it argues that, while the debate over utilitarianism in Colombia can be seen essentially as a controversy about the philosophical essentials of morality and law, In regard to the period from 1825 to 1836, it also can be interpreted as an elitist strategy designed to neutralize the political aspirations of some opponents sectors, and to postpone the socialeconomic and political demands of subaltern classes, by means of a rhetoric civil law of modern profile as Bentham´s, in which the mayor utility for the majority expressed only the interests of the elite sectors, strengthened in political power