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RESEARCH PRODUCT

The Role of Nature in the Secularization of Criminal Law in Europe (17th–19th Centuries)

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Some authors have argued that enlightenment authors endorsed a social contract that was not compatible with the existence of laws of nature or a moral foundation for criminal law, while nineteenth-century liberal criminal lawyers founded criminal law upon a natural law theory, based on divine commands. This chapter demonstrates on the contrary that enlightenment authors did not necessarily make a sharp distinction between morality and criminal law, nor did 19th-century criminal lawyers adopted a conception of criminal law that was too heavily dependent on morality, as it was defended by medieval and early-modern-age scholars. The traditional dichotomy between enlightened thinkers and traditional criminal lawyers does not apply well to nineteenth-century Spain and France.