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The review on the monograph by Igor V. Kolosov “History of Legal Consequentialism: Effectiveness of Law” analyzes and evaluates the content of the monograph. The review emphasizes and investigates contribution of the monograph to the modern development of historical and theoretical ideas about effectiveness of legal regulation and law enforcement, as well as the main practical conclusions of the monograph. In the modern period, when confrontation of various kinds of interests is evident, profit and result are the main guidelines in practical activities almost everywhere. Due to this, common legal and human values, including the need to ensure equality and justice, as well as issues of general legal and human values are more relevant and significant than ever. This makes us refer to classical thought, requires adaptation of ideas formed throughout the history of legal thought to modern realities to improve the existing legal order.

Legal utilitarianism is attractive for practice because this field of legal thought and philosophy of law sets out a particular direction of legal policy and statutory regulation (focus on the utility principle in decision-making) that can, under certain reservations, be used to improve people's lives. Most scholars conclude that the first utilitarian was J. Bentham. However, scientific studies prevalently do not involve the analysis of earlier legal doctrines in relation to the use of utility principle. Thus, the relevance and scientific novelty of analysis of the origin of legal utilitarianism is associated with the need to develop a theoretical component of this doctrine that is of current interest for the legal policy and to enlarge the underdeveloped - in our opinion - theoretical framework of legal utilitarianism genesis. The purpose is to identify the first theory in the history of legal thought, which can be classified as legal utilitarianism, and, if such theory is the J. Bentham's utilitarianism, to determine the reasons why earlier theories based on the utility principle cannot be classified as legal utilitarianism. The theoretical basis of the article is materials such as original sources by various thinkers whose works are based on the utility principle and scientific papers of European and the US researchers. For the purpose of the article, the following methodological tools were used: metaphysical (dialectic method), general (analysis and synthesis, deduction and induction, analogy, comparison) and specific (historical and legal-historical) scientific methods. The main outcome of the research is identification of distinct features of pre-Bentham legal thought based on the utility principle and identification of pre-requisites and basis (provisions which had formed the basis) for J. Bentham's utilitarianism, as well as the answer to the question: Was J. Bentham the first legal utilitarian?.