2.3.2. Voltaire
Voltaire (1694-1778) is known for supporting the separation of church and state, his attacks on the established Catholic Church, and his advocacy of freedom of religion and expression. He born when the churches were dominant and ruled the society. Their power was to the extent that they punished any sort of heresies by death. So, there were many crimes - especially religious one - which were punishable by the capital punishment. Having this in mind, he accused his current French criminal system to be inhumane and immoral and assumed it as a religious system which was based on the medieval age. Thus, he sought for a secular criminal law.
As one of his brilliant ideas, he tried to speak about the tolerance and its inverse relation with the crime and punishment. As well, he believed that the punishment shouldn't be considered as the revenge or reproduction of divine justice but the reproduction of the social justice. The punishment is a human matter which should be …show more content…
His opposition against capital punishment is mostly shown in his novel Candide. Also, in his Philosophical Dictionary, in the civil laws section, he said: ''That the punishment of criminals should be useful. A hanged man is good for nothing, a man condemned to public labour still serves the fatherland and is a living lesson''. He emphasized on this opposition as he appreciate Beccaria's work On Crime and Punishment and wrote a commentary on it. In the chapter X of the mentioned commentary, he wrote: ''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
Voltaire (1694-1778) is known for supporting the separation of church and state, his attacks on the established Catholic Church, and his advocacy of freedom of religion and expression. He born when the churches were dominant and ruled the society. Their power was to the extent that they punished any sort of heresies by death. So, there were many crimes - especially religious one - which were punishable by the capital punishment. Having this in mind, he accused his current French criminal system to be inhumane and immoral and assumed it as a religious system which was based on the medieval age. Thus, he sought for a secular criminal law.
As one of his brilliant ideas, he tried to speak about the tolerance and its inverse relation with the crime and punishment. As well, he believed that the punishment shouldn't be considered as the revenge or reproduction of divine justice but the reproduction of the social justice. The punishment is a human matter which should be …show more content…
His opposition against capital punishment is mostly shown in his novel Candide. Also, in his Philosophical Dictionary, in the civil laws section, he said: ''That the punishment of criminals should be useful. A hanged man is good for nothing, a man condemned to public labour still serves the fatherland and is a living lesson''. He emphasized on this opposition as he appreciate Beccaria's work On Crime and Punishment and wrote a commentary on it. In the chapter X of the mentioned commentary, he wrote: ''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