Crime and Punishment in the Eyes of Cesare Beccaria An Analysis of an Enlightenment Penal Law Reform The Ph.D. dissertation is centred around a relatively concise, but extremely influential book: Cesare Beccaria's treatise On Crimes and Punishments (Dei delitti e delle pene). This work, first published in 1764, sums up in a clear, yet intellectually penetrating way all the main Enlightenment principles of a complex penal law reform. In its time, the book was not only of great philosophical importance and it not only changed the way western societies perceived crime and punishment, but it also served as a concrete guideline for various penal law reformers. It is therefore by no means an overstatement to say that it caused a true paradigm shift in both legal and moral philosophy. The main aim of the thesis is to give a legal-philosophical account of Beccaria's thoughts on crime and punishment, to examine their historical as well as moral background and show the actual impact they had on the legislation of many different, mainly European states. The first chapters of the dissertation are focused on Beccaria's life, his intellectual background and his formative influences (particularly the French, English and Scottish Enlightenment, the social contract theory, utilitarianism, Montesquieu's thoughts on penal...