Beccaria’s On Crimes and Punishments is basically perceived as a precursor to Jeremy Bentham’s theory of utility. However, we see in Bellamy’s account of his writings that Beccaria’s political philosophy is much broader in scope, encompassing other themes than utilitarianism like romanticism and liberalism. Beccaria was born into an aristocratic Milanese family, origins that could not have been more far removed from those of Fyodor Dostoevsky who was the son of a former army surgeon so drunk and brutal that he was murdered by his own serfs. Beccaria’s family fought against bureaucratic tyranny, religious intolerance, and intellectual dogma despite their aristocratic origins. Dostoevsky, narrowly escaping his own execution, was tossed in a Siberian prison for a decade where he contracted epilepsy. Both Beccaria’s On Crimes and Punishments and Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment deal with punishment in relation to the role of the state and the nature of human beings. The contrasting backgrounds of each author make these works the result of contrasting perspectives, but in each of them we see the authors struggle with the relation of the individual to the state and the particular social institutions of prison and punishment.
In Beccaria’s On Crimes and Punishments, we are treated to an expose of the criminal justice system much as we are in Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment. In Beccaria’s work, however, we are treated to a resolution that approximates the theory of utility that would later form the foundation of utilitarianism, i.e., act in such a way as to secure the most happiness for the most numbers of people. However, Beccaria is a social contract theorist and argues that the state has a need for a criminal justice system, laws, and punishments. While individuals may give up a certain measure of personal liberty in exchange for living in society, their interests are better protected and they are more f...