Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals and Criminology

The writings of Friedrich Nietzsche have much to offer criminology. To date, however, his work has been largely neglected in this scholarship. Taking this lacuna seriously, this article reads Nietzsche’s second essay of On the Genealogy of Morals and explicates its importance to criminology. Specifically, focus is cast upon Nietzsche’s exposition of crime and particularly punishment, pertaining to the production of a calculating and calculable being upon whom pain and suffering can be inflicted and the ways that concerns over excesses of punishment come to be framed as problematic. Via this reading, it is claimed that On the Genealogy of Morals can serve, among others, as an important critique to many of the presuppositions that ground the classical school of criminology, epitomized in the work of Cesare Beccaria and Jeremy Bentham. The article concludes by locating the importance of Nietzsche to penology specifically and criminology more broadly.

Introduction

This introductory chapter explores the two large collections of documents acquired from the archives of the Pelli-Fabbroni family in 1968–1969: the draft of an unfinished dissertation Against the Death Penalty and its first edition, produced by Philippe Audegean, with a substantial introduction to the text and its contents, in Italian and in French. It discusses Giuseppe Bencivenni Pelli's (1729–1808) career within the Austrian Habsburg administration in the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, his most prominent post, and the one that gave him the greatest satisfaction: the director of the Uffizi Gallery. This chapter discusses Pelli's first systematic attack on the death penalty in history. It also highlights the enormous diary that he compiled, Efemeridi, over almost half a century, from 1759. The chapter then takes a look at another member of the minor nobility, but of Milan, who worked for the Austrian administration in Lombardy, Cesare Beccaria Bonesana (1738–94). It investigates Bonesana's publication of On Crimes and Punishments in July 1764. Before the discovery of Pelli's work, it was assumed that Beccaria's work contained the first serious attack on the death penalty. Pelli targeted the death penalty exclusively, whereas Beccaria's work was an attack on the whole system of criminal law operating in his time.

Texts

This chapter presents select excerpts from Cesare Beccaria Bonesana's On Crimes and Punishments. It examines whether the death penalty really is useful and just in a government that is well administered. The chapter argues that the death penalty is for most people a spectacle, and for some an object of compassion blended with disdain. These are the two sentiments that take hold of the minds of spectators, rather than the salutary terror that the law claims to inspire. The chapter then takes a look at Beccaria, Gallarati Scotti and Risi's opinion Against the Death Penalty. It discusses the drafting of the new penal code — The Criminal Law Committee. Ultimately, it infers that the death penalty is inappropriate because it is irreversible; we bear in mind the inevitable imperfection of human judgements. Even if the death were a just penalty, even if it were the most efficacious of all punishments, in order for it to be justly applied to a particular criminal, it would be necessary that he be proven to be guilty in such a way that the possibility of the contrary is excluded.

Texts

This chapter analyzes the texts and fragments of Giuseppe Pelli's dissertation on the death penalty. It discusses various meanings given to the word punishment which have created a great deal of misunderstanding. The chapter defines the term with precision and at the same time takes issue with the definitions proposed by Hugo Grotius and others. Punishment taken in a general sense may be divided into conventional and civil. Conventional punishment arises from the pact and is that which everyone signs up to spontaneously, while civil punishment is understood as that imposed by positive law, 'conventional' as that to which one submits of one's own volition. It also demonstrates three ends of punishment: reform, satisfaction and example, with regard to the death penalty. Ultimately, the chapter presents the lengthy discussions of the two Cocceji, father and son, on the punishment of Talion and the distinct writing of Giuseppe Pelli and Cesare Beccaria about the death penalty.

A retrospective analysis of the humanization of criminal procedure and practice of the death penalty in the context of the teachings of Cesare Beccaria

The authors analyze two fundamental directions of the teaching of the great italian lawyer C. Beccaria in the context of humanizing the process of proving the guilt of a criminal in relation to the use of unacceptable methods of criminal justice. At the same time, an assessment of the practice and necessity of applying the death penalty as the most severe punishment is given in a similar way. It is concluded that these areas of teaching of C. Beccaria formed the foundation of the classical school of criminal law and are represented in modern criminal legislation.

Ján Kollár’s Thoughts on Capital Punishment

This article analyses and assesses the arguments opposing capital punishment put forward by Ján Kollár (1793–1852), a representative of Central European Evangelical/Lutheran Enlightenment rationalism, using the definition of criminal practice in Europe at the turn of the nineteenth century as the basis. Consequently, the author pays attention to the movement for reform in criminal law and practices, initiated in Europe in the second half of the eighteenth century by Cesare Beccaria, including his argumentation against capital punishment. In this context, the author presents and investigates 13 arguments against capital punishment defined by Kollár in his 1815 diary. The author came to the conclusion that Kollár, in his arguments against capital punishment, followed, to a certain extent, the views of Beccaria and eighteenth -century adherents of the French Enlightenment; however, Kollár’s actual argumentation is rationalistically based on ethical values of humanity and justice with significant space also dedicated to utilitarian aspects of rejecting capital punishment adopted from reformists of criminal law.

DOS DELITOS E DA PEDAGOGIA DAS PENAS: ELUCIDAÇÃO DE UMA RELAÇÃO QUE CESARE BECCARIA ASSUME MAS NÃO EXPLICAON THE OFFENCES AND THE PEDAGOGY OF CRIMINAL SENTENCES: ELUCIDATION OF A RELATIONSHIP THAT CESARE BECCARIA ASSUMES BUT DOES NOT EXPLAIN

É inegável a existência de um diálogo entre Cesare Beccaria e a pedagogia do seu século. Essa relação surge, desde logo, afirmada quando o aperfeiçoamento da educação é invocado em Dos delitos e das penas como o meio mais seguro para prevenir o crime. Da pedagogia de Beccaria pouco é, porém, dito. Por se tratar de um tema demasiado vasto, o filósofo remete os seus leitores para os escritos que um “grande homem, que ilumina a humanidade que o persegue”, dedicou ao tema. Sobre a identidade desse grande teórico da educação nada mais se afirma; e sobre as ideias que defende sobre educação Beccaria apenas diz estarem de acordo com as máximas que, veremos, estão em voga no século XVIII. Se o silêncio do autor Dos delitos e das penas torna difícil saber o que ele pensaria sobre pedagogia, talvez as suas teses sobre as penas possam lançar alguma luz sobre o tema. Nesse sentido, pretende-se mostrar que é possível falar, em Beccaria, de uma pedagogia da pena partindo do princípio de que a administração da justiça criminal supõe uma adequação das penas à natureza dos delitos praticados mas também à natureza de quem os pratica. Tal abordagem sugere que a humanização das penas, e a paradigmática negação da pena de morte atribuída a Beccaria, serão melhor compreendidas tendo em conta aquele princípio. A pedagogia da pena revela as condições de possibilidade para essa compreensão.