Abstract
The article offers a detailed analysis of the different arguments against torture of suspects as they were raised by an Italian Enlightenment philosopher Cesare Beccaria in his treatise On crimes an punishments (1764). The treatise had a massive influence on the contemporary intellectual elite, as well as on concrete legislators in various European countries.
The passage, in which Beccaria opposes torture, belongs among the most quoted ones within the entire treatise. The article first briefly recapitulates the evolution of torture in the known history.
The main part of the text is then focused on the analysis of Beccaria's different arguments against torture. The unacceptability of torture is first closely related to the presumption of innocence - a person who is yet to be considered innocent cannot according to Beccaria be justly caused any physical harm.
Most importantly, torture is then presented as an unreliable instrument that doesn't give an accurate account of factual truth, but merely an account of the suspect's physical strength. Torture is subject to critique also beacause it creates unjustifiable inequality between citizens.
Finally, the practice of torture is considered dangerous also because it gives citizens an inappropriate message about the desirable values. In its final section the article then deals with the question, whether the prohibition of torture with all its procedural consequences should be absolute (such was Beccaria's view), or whether there may occur exceptional cases when it is appropriate - it refers both to relevant texts of legal and moral philosophy and the judicature of the European Court of Human Rights.