L’âge des Lumières e il sogno di una giustizia contro “l’inutile prodigalità di supplicii, che non ha mai resi migliori gli uomini

The law is useful to man to ensure his well-being and this postulates a new idea of man: a fully free subject, capable of controlling himself, of projecting himself towards the future, of distinguishing between an immediate but ephemeral advantage and a deferred but solid benefit. This is the man to whom Beccaria turns to in “Dei delitti e delle pene”: a man (according to Locke’s thought) capable of rationally predicting and evaluating the consequences of his actions. The purpose of the law is the happiness of individuals, so that it must be able to inflict the least possible suffering in pursuit of the maximum benefit for the community; so νομός begins Διχη, the last real bulwark against the “useless prodigality of torture, which has never made men better”, as Beccaria said. If useless prodigality of torture has never made men better, this is even more true when is a minor who has involved in criminally relevant facts.