Paper's abstract

Philippe Audegean, Birth and signification of Dei delitti e delle pene bu Beccaria
When Dei delitti e delle pene was published in French, it built up a thick filter of significant interpretations. Here the author intends to see how it came into being in order to shed a different light on its meaning. Beccaria wrote in a context in which the Austrian monarchy was confronting ancient Milanese institutions. His main concern was not to express his indignation against the justice of the Old Regime but to take part to a rebellion against the political hegemony of legal knowledge. Therefore his project is to exclude criminal law from the area of competence of traditional legal knowledge’s. It is then easier to understand why he based criminal law on the principle of the “least possible evils”, principle of punitive parsimony gover-ning a contractualist, negative and utilitarian definition of the penalty.

Key Words : riminal law – criminal philosophy – Lumières – Beccaria – legal knowledge – utilitarianism – social contract – human rights
t. 53, 2010 : p. 11-24