Paulo

Against Capital Punishment In On Crimes and Punishments Beccaria presents one of the first sustained critiques of the use of capital punishment. Briefly, his position is that capital punishment is not necessary to deter, and long term imprisonment is a more powerful deterrent since execution is transient. He starts by describing the connection between the social contract and our right to life. Locke argued that people forfeit their right to life when they initiate a state of war with other people. Beccaria disagrees. Following Hobbes, Beccaria believes that, in the social contract, we negotiate away only the minimal number of rights necessary to bring about peace. On Crimes and Punishment ON CRIMES AND PUNISHMENTS. Editions of Beccaria's text follow two distinct arrangements of the material: that by Beccaria himself, and that by French translator Andre Morellet (1765) who imposed a more systematic order to Beccaria's original text. Beccaria opens his work describing the great need for reform in the criminal justice system, and he observes how few studies there are on the subject of such reform. Throughout his work, Beccaria develops his position by appealing to two key philosophical theories: social contract and utility. Concerning the social contract, Beccaria argues that punishment is justified only to defend the social contract and to ensure that everyone will be motivated to abide by it. Concerning utility (perhaps influenced by Helvetius), Beccaria argues that the method of punishment selected should be that which serves the greatest public good. Life Cesare Beccaria (1738-1794) was born the eldest son in an aristocratic family and educated at a Jesuit school. In his mid twenties Beccaria became close friends with Pietro and Alessandro Verri, two brothers who formed an intellectual circle called "the academy of fists" which focused on reforming the criminal justice system

Cesare Beccaria