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Macaulay's Penal Code, Adam Smith And The Jurisprudence Of Resentment, Ian D. Leader-Elliott Professor

Ian D Leader-Elliott Professor

ABSTRACT: The ‘offences affecting the human body’ in Chapter 16 of the Indian Penal Code were shaped by Thomas Macaulay’s distinctive vision of the moral principles that should constrain criminal liability for unlawful homicide and lesser offences of causing harm. Though the general structure of Macaulay’s Draft Penal Code owes much to Bentham, the offences affecting the human body display far closer affinity with the jurisprudence of Adam Smith’s Theory of the Moral Sentiments. The offences proposed in the Draft Code were radically different from the corresponding offences against the person in English statutory and common law. Though Macaulay’s provisions …