When Casanova turned his face and covered his ears

A reading of criminal humanism in dialogue with Michel Foucault

Abstract

The famous ordeal of Damiens, occurred in the second half of the 18th century and relegated to oblivion, was resurrected in the second half of the 20th century with the publication of Discipline and Punish, by Michel Foucault, which opens the book with its description, followed by transcription of the regulation of a prison in 1832, where silence, work and prayer replace the dismemberment to which Damiens was subjected, because in modern penal regimes the penalty, instead of gloating over bodies, is aimed at training souls - which today we would call it “resocializationâ€. Why did this happen? For Foucault, the replacement of torture in public squares by prison only expresses a "relocation of the power to punish", aiming at the production of politically "docile" and economically productive bodies, having nothing to do with a "progress of humanism", as he wants the penal doctrine. The article, mobilizing a little publicized bibliography in Brazil, proposes a re-reading of Foucault's critique of the “penal humanism†of authors such as Beccaria and others, supporting the thesis that, alongside utilitarian reasons, the penal reforms of the 18th century also express a new sensitivity against physical punishment.