Beccaria, Cesare: Classical School

Intellectual Foundations

Beccaria was the first reformer systematically to apply to law the intellectual principles and political ideals of the Enlightenment. His work on the law applied two concepts developed by other Enlightenment thinkers: first, a social contract political theory, according to which political authority is legitimate because it was consented to by individuals within a society who joined together for mutual benefit; and, second, a utilitarian theory of ethics, according to which the rightness or wrongness of actions depends on the extent to which those actions lead to individuals’ happiness or unhappiness. Similar to other Enlightenment thinkers, Beccaria expressed a fundamental faith in the power of rationality. To a large extent, his reforms are based on the thought that human beings are rational creatures who can collaborate in peace to their own mutual benefit.

When he applied them together, Beccaria's utilitarianism, his social contractarianism, and his optimism about human rationality led him to argue that, because society exists for the sake of its members’ mutual benefit, social institutions should be arranged rationally to serve that end. In this process, efforts should be made first to respect and protect individuals’ rights to enjoy those benefits and, second, to support and enforce individuals’ obligations to cooperate peaceably with each other to fulfill each other's needs for security and prosperity.

Beccaria used this understanding of society to critique legal institution, traditions, and practices he believed failed to respect the rights of individuals, that enforced obligations and imposed punishments in an unfair manner, and that were mired in irrational violence. He also rejected the administration of justice he judged to be systematically corrupted by authorities who lacked legitimacy under the lights of social contract theory, who acted immorally according to the judgments of utilitarianism, and whose behavior failed to live up to Beccaria's ideals for rational human cooperation.

Beccaria's Social Critique and Rejection of Legal Tradition

Beccaria's use of these Enlightenment methods and ideas conformed to a shift in the common understanding of what legitimates social arrangements that occurred during the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Following the Reformation and Enlightenment, this new understanding of society embraced the use of instrumental reason to create a more “civilized” way of life that rejected the violence that marked earlier eras. What emerged, and what Beccaria's legal reforms promoted, was the ideal of a rational society arranged so that all its members could enjoy greater freedom, more security, and more prosperity than was possible in earlier times.

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