Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gxg78 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T04:44:41.541Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Beccaria's Luxury of Comfort and Happiness of the Greatest Number

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 March 2008

CARA CAMCASTLE
CARA CAMCASTLE*
Affiliation:
Simon Fraser [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Section I explores and articulates Beccaria's theory of luxury. Social classes tend to emulate the classes immediately above and below them. When a class increases the luxury that it consumes, this causes a chain reaction of increased demand for luxury by other classes. Satisfying the resulting new demand for luxury and non-luxury goods maximizes the happiness of a greater number of citizens. Following the consequentialist principle of utility theory, Beccaria concludes that luxury is beneficial. His writings are compared to those of Hume, Bentham and others. In section II Beccaria's demonstration that freedom of choice is a universally desired luxury indispensable for well-being in all human societies is contrasted to Rousseau's belief that luxury diminishes liberty and happiness. Beccaria values the distributive more than the aggregative maximization of utility in his analysis of luxury; the article explains why this carries wider implications for utilitarian theory.

Type
Research Article
Information
Utilitas , Volume 20 , Issue 1 , March 2008 , pp. 1 - 20
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Beccaria, Dei delitti e delle pene [1764], con una raccolta di lettere e documenti relativi alla nascita dell'opera e alla sua fortuna nel'Europa del Settecento, ed. Franco Venturi (Torino, 1965), pp. 9–10.

2 Translations of Beccaria's writings and those of other writers discussed in this article, from both the Italian and the French, are my own.

3 Robert, Shackleton, ‘The Greatest Happiness of the Greatest Number: The History of Bentham's Phrase’, Bentham: Moral, Political, and Legal Philosophy Volume I, ed. Postema, Gerald J. (Dartmouth, 2002), p. 1474Google Scholar, and Hruschka, Joachim, ‘The Greatest Happiness Principle and Other Early German Anticipations of Utilitarian Theory’’, Utilitas 3 (1991), p. 170.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 Rosen, F., ‘Individual Sacrifice and the Greatest Happiness; Bentham on Utility and Rights’, Utilitas 10 (July 1998), p. 131.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5 Bentham, Jeremy, MSS, Univ. Coll. No.32, Fragment entitled Introduction, Principes Projets Matière.

6 The Correspondence of Jeremy Bentham, ed. Timothy L. S. Sprigge (London, 1968), vol. 1, p. 367.

7 di Beccaria, Cesare Marchese, Elementi di economia pubblica con varii opuscoli [1769] (Milano, 1822), p. 327.Google Scholar

8 Berry, Christopher J., The Idea of Luxury (Cambridge, 1984), p. 145.Google Scholar

9 Beccaria to André Morellet 26 gennaio 1766, Carteggio parte I: 1758–1768, a cura di Carlo Capra, Renato Pasta e Francesca Pino Pongolini (Milan, 1984), p. 222.

10 Hume, David, The History of England from the Invasion of Julius Caesar to the Revolution in 1688 [1756–61] abridged with introduction by Kilcup, Rodney W. (Chicago, 1975), p. 171.Google Scholar

11 Hume, History of England, pp. 221–2.

12 Beccaria, Elementi, p. 35, 329.

13 Beccaria, Elementi, pp. 328–9.

14 Beccaria, Elementi, p. 44.

15 Beccaria to André Morellet 26 gennaio 1766, Carteggio parte I: 1758–1768, ed. Carlo Capra, Renato Pasta e Francesca Pino Pongolini (Milano, 1984), p. 222.

16 Helvétius, Claude-Adrien, De l'esprit [1758], ed. Besse, Guy (Paris, 1968), p. 84.Google Scholar

17 Beccaria, Elementi, p. 94.

18 François Quesnay et la physiocratie, ed. Louis Salleron, ‘Fermiers’ (Paris, 1958), p. 447.

19 François Quesnay et la physiocratie, p. 455.

20 Bandeau, Nicolas, Principes de la science morale et politique sur le luxe et des loix somptuaires, ed. Dubois, A. (Paris, 1912), pp. 14, 27.Google Scholar

21 Beccaria, Elementi, p. 85.

22 Beccaria, Elementi, p. 45.

23 Beccaria, Elementi, p. 88.

24 Beccaria, Elementi, p. 85.

25 Beccaria, Elementi, p. 326.

26 Beccaria, , ‘Atti della inchiesta su Como sul lavoro delle sete. Relazione di Beccaria inviato a Como, atti relativi, documenti, e statistiche. 17 dicembre 1787’, Opere, ed. Romagnoli, S. (Florence, 1958), vol. 2, p. 484.Google Scholar

27 Beccaria, Dei delitti e delle pene, p. 81.

28 Beccaria, Dei delitti e delle pene, pp. 81–2.

29 Beccaria, Elementi, p. 317 (italics mine).

30 Bandeau, Principes, p. 31.

31 Beccaria, Dei delitti e delle pene, p. 82.

32 Beccaria, Dei delitti e delle pene, p. 13.

33 Beccaria, Dei delitti e delle pene, pp. 67–8.

34 Beccaria, Dei delitti e delle pene, pp. 67–8.

35 Beccaria, Dei delitti e delle pene, p. 19.

36 Facchinei, Ferdinando, ‘Note ed osservazioni sul libro intitolato Dei delitti e delle pene’, in Dei delitti e delle pene [1764], con una raccolta di lettere e documenti relativi alla nascita dell'opera e alla sua fortuna nel'Europa del Settecento, ed. Venturi, Franco (Torino, 1965), p. 173.Google Scholar

37 Franco Venturi, Utopia and Reform in the Enlightenment (Cambridge, 1971), p. 105.

38 Venturi, Franco, Italy and the Enlightenment: Studies in a Cosmopolitan Century, ed. Woolf, Stuart (New York, 1972), p. 157.Google Scholar

39 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, ‘Project de Constitution pour la Corse’, Oeuvres politiques, ed. Roussel, Jean (Paris, 1989), p. 374.Google Scholar

40 Rousseau, , ‘Discours sur l'origine et les fondements de l'inégalité parmi les hommes [1754]’, Oeuvres complètes, ed. Fabre, Jean (Paris, 1971), p. 206.Google Scholar

41 Rousseau, , ‘Discours sur les sciences et les arts [1750]’, Oeuvres complètes, ed. Fabre, Jean (Paris, 1971), p. 56, 59, 62.Google Scholar

42 Beccaria, Elementi, pp. 320–1.

43 Beccaria, Elementi, pp. 321–3.

44 Beccaria, Dei delitti e delle pene, p. 11, 17, 50.

45 Beccaria, Dei delitti e delle pene, p. 10 and 17.

46 Beccaria, Elementi, p. 79.

47 Rosen, F., ‘Individual Sacrifice and the Greatest Happiness: Bentham on Utility and Rights’, Utilitas 10 (1998), p. 139.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

48 Petrella, F., ‘Benthamism and the Demise of Classical Economic Ordnungspolitik’, History of Political Economy 9 (1977), pp. 215–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

49 Kelly, P. J., ‘Utilitarianism and Distributive Justice: The Civil Law and the Foundations of Bentham's Economic Thought’, Utilitas 1 (1989)CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Utilitarianism and Distributive Justice: Jeremy Bentham and the Civil Law (Oxford, 1990).

50 Beccaria, Elementi, p. 323.

51 Beccaria, Elementi, p. 89.

52 Beccaria, Dei delitti e delle pene, pp. 54–5.

53 Beccaria, Dei delitti e delle pene, p. 52.

54 Beccaria, Dei delitti e delle pene, p. 50.

55 Beccaria, Dei delitti e delle pene, p. 17, 50.

56 Beccaria, Elementi, p. 327.

57 Beccaria, Dei delitti e delle pene, p. 323.

58 Beccaria, Dei delitti e delle pene, p. 323.

59 I am grateful for the comments on an earlier version of this article by Professor Shannon Stimson, Department of Political Science, University of California at Berkeley, and Professor George Feaver, Department of Political Science, University of British Columbia, Vancouver.