important role in the judicial proceedings that anything that was not within its moral standing was seen as a crime. Crime was viewed as completely unnatural under the ‘natural law’ of God which prevailed during the feudalistic era (Vold 1958). This law assumed that each individual had a natural tendency to do good rather than evil where the violation of this law through the commitment of a crime would be considered a sin and punishable as a sin. Crime was punished very harshly as it was seen as influence from the devil. Under Beccaria and Bentham, all humans were capable of making rational choices, whose punishment was to be rationally applied (White et al 2012). All humans were said to have complete and free will to made decisions, equal …show more content…
This disrupted the social order in that serfs and peasants no longer worked for lords simply for protection with little to no wages. They could now demand to be paid a wage for their labour and with that freedom came the right to own private property which had previously been limited to the higher-class bourgeoisie. With the rise of capitalism just around the corner, wealthy former-peasants used their skills to commercialise their businesses and become rich merchants. The social order would need to change and allow for a governing body capable of sustaining this growth of the newly rich bourgeoisie and a capitalist economy. Subservience under lords had previously been seen to be a natural and permanent agreement where serves served their lords and kings with no wages paid for their labour; Disobedience or challenging of the social order and hierarchy was repressed through the use of the church and societal institutions such as the lack of education in serfs. The rise of wealth from serfs was viewed as a challenged the entrenched authority of this in …show more content…
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- Bentham, J., 1972. An introduction to the principles of morals and legislation (chapters i–v) (pp. 17-51). Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
- Bentham, J., 1972. An introduction to the principles of morals and legislation (chapters i–v) (pp. 17-51). Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
- Carlsmith, K.M. & Darley, J.M. (2002). ‘Why Do We Punish? Deterrence and Just Deserts as Motives for Punishment’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83 (2): 284–99.
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