AN ECONOMIC APPROACH TO THE STUDY OF LAW IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY: GAETANO FILANGIERI AND LA SCIENZA DELLA LEGISLAZIONE

Abstract

This work presents the elements of economic analysis of law that occur in the thought of Gaetano Filangieri. In the pages of La Scienza della Legislazione the Neapolitan writer develops a utilitarian and economic investigation that pays attention to the judgments individuals make over social phenomena at the margin point. A proof of this development can be found in the explanation of the principle of decreasing marginal utility, argued in Head XXXI of Book III, which represents one of the most effective demonstrations that can be found before the end of nineteenth-century literature. The most remarkable fact is that, of all the five parts that compose the Filangierian work, the most rich in economic arguments is dedicated to ‘‘Criminal Laws.’’ This article will point out this and other innovative results of the Filangerian analysis, and will also offer a reconstruction of the economic theory on crime and punishment presented in La Scienza della Legislazione. Filangieri’s criminal doctrine represents a significant example of the Enlightenment antecedents of ‘‘law and economics,’’ as well as the better known contributions made by Beccaria and Bentham