Il marginalismo giuridico di Gaetano Filangieri

This work aims at presenting the elements of marginalist analysis which occur in the thought of Gaetano Filangieri. In the pages of La Scienza della Legislazione the Neapolitan writer shows the tendency to develop a utilitarian investigation which pays attention to the judgements individuals make over social phenomena at the margin point. A proof of this tendency can be found in the explanation of the principle of decreasing marginal utility, argued in Head XXXI of Book III, which represents one of the most effective demonstrations that can be found before the end of XIX century literature. The most remarkably original fact is that, of all the five parts which compose the Filangierian work, the most rich one in marginalist arguments is dedicated to “Criminal Laws”. This article will point out this and other innovative results of the Filangerian analysis and will also offer a reconstruction of the economic theory on crime and punishment presented in La Scienza della Legislazione. Filangieri’s criminal doctrine represents in fact a significant example on its own of the Enlightenment antecedents of “Law and Economics”, as well as the better known contributions made by Beccaria e Bentham