THE DEATH PENALTY ACCORDING TO VOLTAIRE AND BECCARIA

My teenage daughter Maria posed an interesting declarative statement last evening while I was working on my capital punishment paper. 

She categorically stated that she was "totally against the death penalty". I'm not a fan of categorical statements, so I asked on what basis she formed that opinion. Her (paraphrased) view was that public "vengeance" does not constitute justice. She is clearly not a proponent of Lex Talionis as relates to capital punishment, and I applaud that she has formed her own opinion on the matter. I'm really delighted that my kids give (and defend) their viewpoints, especially because they use facts. In that spirit, and in light of Independence Day, I offer some excerpts from the writings of two philosophers who were known to the Founding Fathers, Voltaire and Becarria.

Marquis Cesare Becarria, On Crimes and Punishment, (1764) The Federalist Papers Project, http://thefederalistpapers.org/ebooks/essay-on-crimes-and-punishment-by-cesare-beccaria.html.
                           

              Chapter II – Of the Right to Punish – Every punishment which does not arise from absolute necessity is tyrannical. 

Chapter IV – Of the Interpretation of Laws – There is nothing more dangerous than the common axiom: the spirit of the laws is to be considered. To adopt it is to give way to the torrent of opinions. Hence we see the fate of a delinquent changed many times in passing through the different courts of judicature, and his life and liberty victims to the false ideas or ill humour of the judge; who mistakes the vague result of his own confused reasoning, for the just interpretation of the laws. When the rule of right, which ought to direct the actions of the philosopher as well as the ignorant is a matter of controversy, not of fact, the people are slaves to the magistrates.

Chapter XXVIII – Of the Punishment of Death – The useless profusion of punishments, which has never made men better, induces me to inquire, whether the punishment of death, be really just or useful in a well-governed state? What right, I ask, have men to cut the throats of their fellow-creatures? Certainly not that on which the sovereignty and laws are founded. The laws, as I have said before, are only the sum of the smallest portions of the private liberty of each individual, and represent the general will, which is the aggregate of that of each individual. Did any one ever give to others the right of taking away his life? Is it possible, that in the smallest portions of the liberty of each, sacrificed to the good of the public, can be obtained the greatest of all good, life? If it were so, how shall it be reconciled to the maxim which tells us, that a man has no right to kill himself? Which he certainly must have, if he could give it away to another. But the punishment of death is not authorised by any right; for I have demonstrated that no such right exists. It is therefore a war of a whole nation against a citizen, whose destruction they consider as necessary or useful to the general good.

      I.         François-Marie Arouet (Voltaire), Commentary to On Crimes and Punishment, (1764) The Federalist Papers Project, http://thefederalistpapers.org/ebooks/essay-on-crimes-and-punishment-by-cesare-beccaria.html.                                                  

C             Chapter X – On the Punishment of Death – It hath long since been observed, that a man after he is hanged is good for nothing, and that punishments invented for the good of society, ought to be useful to society. It is evident, that a score of stout robbers, condemned for life to some public work, would serve the state in their punishment, and that hanging them is a benefit to nobody but the executioner.