Abstract
This text addresses the biography of modern utilitarianism, in a legal and criminal sense, focusing on three important moments of its development: illustrated utilitarianism (Bentham and Beccaria), the reformed utilitarianism (Ferrajoli), and the crisis of the utilitarianism ideal in this sense - this last one exposed by the minimalist and abolitionist branches of critical criminology. The theoretical instrument used is the one of historiography of ideas, so that the foundations of punishment - in the case of this investigation: negative general prevention and prevention of arbitrary penalties - conform to a typology of responses designed to elucidate the perennial question “why punish?”, without losing sight of the constancy of this debate (until now unresolved). In the end, a possible answer is suggested based on the considerations of marginal realism (Zaffaroni) in order to identify the limits of utilitarianism, but also to outline some conditions that enable the maintenance of its assumptions in criminal law.
Keywords
Penal utilitarianism; intellectual history; critical criminology; abolitionism; marginal realism