Bentham is a pivotal figure in the history of Anglo- American jurisprudence. He gave both utilitarianism and legal positivism their first detailed exposition and defence in English, and negotiated a sophisticated marriage of the two doctrines. But Fitzjames Stephen’s disparaging comment contains more than a grain of truth. Bentham’s most important jurisprudential work has lain buried under a great rubble. In this rubble we find the ruins of much of the practice and ideology of the Common Law system he so mercilessly and effectively attacked, but also a mountain of inaccessible and largely unpublished manuscripts, the remains of a very long and curiously undisciplined writing career. Spent shells are buried here, to be sure, but live ones with great explosive potential remain. Among the potentially most explosive are his early reflections on the foundations of law and adjudication. They introduce us to a jurisprudential debate of historic dimensions and fundamental philosophical significance. Bentham’s writings, and the tradition of debate to which they contribute, raise questions concerning not only the nature and tasks of law, but also the role of normative moral- political theory in the construction and defence of conceptions of the nature of law.