Jeremy Bentham’s scientific contributions

... This tension compelled Adam Smith (1776Smith ( /1991, for example, to champion not only the idea of free markets in The Wealth of Nations but also the idea of "moral sentiments," which was penned in The Theory of Moral Sentiments and which stipulated that "the private interests of men are desirable only when these interests [enhance] the interests of the whole society" (Smith, 1759(Smith, /2000. Jeremy Bentham, James Mill, and David Ricardo espoused similar sentiments in their utilitarian forms of liberalism that sought to maximize the greatest happiness of the greatest numbers through freedom and self-restraint (Bentham, 1789(Bentham, /1948. And it is this line of thinking that allowed John Stuart Mill (1859Mill ( /1982) to make a case for "social interests," which are "different from self-interests." ...

Reference:

Democracy Otherwise: Learning From the South