Tolerance In Modern Legal System

Division of scholarism makes scholars slaves of their own fields.Nowadays jurisprudence has been cut up into pieces for specific research on all the branches of law system.Now research on Beccaria's On Crimes and Punishments is just conserved itself on much cited but not read.Most researches on Beccaria centralize their interests on the revelation for modern science of criminal law,and hardly exceed this range.But we are to make a study of this classic text by a wholly new way,which is actually an effort to work for wholeness.We are meant to declare one truth known by everyone that we would not resolve any concrete matter unless we pay great attention to the wholeness.We always say that On Crimes and Punishments lays a foundation of modern science of criminal law,and regard Beccaria as the founder of classic school of penology.This opinion is not wrong as we view from a modernist's standpoint.But if we would like to have a peep at the real Beccaria and search out the original meaning of On Crimes and Punishments,it is best that we ask history for help.Only when we get the original intention of On Crimes and Punishments,can we put Beccaria's idea and suggestion on a right place.Beccaria's classic study On Crimes and Punishments is fullfilled with the idea of tolerance which is deservedly the most important theme in this study.However,the changing of times and customs buries the idea of tolerance underneath the dust of history,which sets great barrier on our way to have a full comprehension of this text.If we are to have a full comprehension of Beccaria's idea of tolerance,it's better that we get back to the background of the eighteenth century.The reconstruction of this background relies on intertexting between institutions and ideas,so that the task of this paper is to pectinate the institutions and ideas of the enlightenment times.As this period is one of the most important revolutive times in history,we are not to illuminate it just by itself,but to get interpretation by comparing it with other essential times.This paper is to be divided into four parts:The first part of the paper sets argument on this problem:we should not artficially search for the coincidence between Beccaria's study On Crimes and Punishments and the modern science of criminal law,which means that if we are to look through the classic study on the prejudice originating from the system of modern science of criminal law,we are destined to fall into some arbitrary decision.So to have a pricise understanding of Beccaria's On Crimes and Punishments,we have our attention centred on meticulous reading of the text and reconstructing the history of institutions and ideas of the eighteenth century.Beccaria's style of writing tells us that the strength of this text is not from meticulous reasoning but from bold eloquence,and the idea filled with On Crimes and Punishments is tolerance.This part have a brife review on the quality of the idea of tolerance,thus raises a question:weather the idea of tolerance is from acientry times or is invented in modern times? This question brings us into the discussion of the second part.The second part have a carefull trace for the history of the idea of tolerance befor modern times.On the one hand,this paper goes through political history of acient Greece,Alexander the great and his Greek kingdoms,and the acient Rome,so as to have a brife review of the history of political tolerance.On the other hand,through the comparision between acient Greece and the rise of Christianity,we find a clew of the tradition of philosophical persecution.Befor modern times,political tolerance and philosophical persecution quarrel with eath other frequently,which lays a historical premiss for new proposition begeted by modern times.The third part deals with the quality of the new propositoin begeted in modern times. After the political tolerance and philosophical persecution made a compromise,they give birth to a totally new thing which we named philosophical tolerance.This part carefully depicts a picture of the idea revolution and the role which Beccaria plays.Beccaria's unique contribution to the enlightenment is neither that he plans the whole moral and political order for a new world,nor that he set a philosophical foundation for the new idea,but that he attacks the old world in a very unique way.After the dipiction of the idea revolution,we make a comparsion between political tolerance and philosophical tolerance,which make the defination of philosophical tolerance more accurate.The fourth part discusses the institutional suggestions of Beccaria's On Crimes and Punishments.In this part,we are intent to discuss the insititutional suggestions which orignated form the idea of philosophical tolerance.We are to go through Beccaria's institutional suggestions in his On Crimes and Punishments carefully,so as to make the idea of philosophical tolerance more concrete and give a univitive interpretion to all the institutional suggestions that Beccaria had given.Firstly,the modern prejudice shuold be overcomed and the institutional suggestions of Beccaria be set free from the systerm of modern science of criminal law.Secondly,through a depiction and analysis of Italian political history since the collapse of Rome Empire,we are meant to explain that attaching great importance to law is closely related to the Italian political background in eighteenth century.Thirdly,through a comparsion between Beccaria and Montesquieu,we find that ruled by law is totally a new thing which is not only essential to handle Italian political problems in the age of enlightenment,but also reveals for the first time the nature of modern law systerm. Fourthly,a comparision between acient and modern law helps us to get a better understanding of the modern law systerm.Last but not the least,through Beccaria's suggestion on prevention of crimes,we are trying to show the spiritual condition of modern socilaty ruled by law which is infiltrating into evey aspects of our lives.