ree because they have certain rights protected by state authority, laws, and punishments. However, Beccaria critiques the justice system of his own time in favor of a higher ideal, one where the law will be clear and rational humans possessing freewill will chose to adopt them because no interpretation of them is necessary. This will lead to reduced crime according to Beccaria, when “The more people understand the sacred code of the laws and get used to handling it, the fewer will be the crimes, for there is no doubt that ignorance and uncertainty of punishment opens the way to the eloquence of the emotions” (17).
Beccaria’s theory can basically be divided into three central principles. The first is that all human beings have freewill, rational manner, and manipulability. By freewill, Beccaria refers to the fact that human beings can make choices of their own. By rational manner he implies that all human beings look out for their own interests and that this is merely rational behavior. Manipulability refers to the fact that if all human beings are motivated by self-interest, then human action is not only predictable and can be generalized, but it can also be controlled or manipulated. The problem in society comes from the rational manner of human beings. Often self-interests come into conflict with social interests. Looking out for your own interest might lead a person to commit crimes. It is the state’s duty to prevent and punish such actions. The problem becomes for Beccaria, like all social contract theorists, where to draw the line on laws and punishments and how to find the right ones for controlling human beings who have freewill and are motivated by self-interest. This is where Beccaria’s utility component of his theory most applies. Beccaria felt that laws had to be created by a dispassionate student of human nature and not as a tool of a self-serving or passionate state. Laws need to be made wh
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