GIOJA, Melchiorre.
Del merito e delle ricompense, trattato storico e filosofico ...
Filadelfia, [n. p.], 1830 (vol. I); Lugano, Giuseppe Ruggia, 1830 (vol. II).
Two vols, 4to, pp. [iv], 252; 324; scattered spotting throughout, some show through from bookplates to versos of title-pages, but a good copy, uncut and unopened in the original printed blue wrappers; Ricasoli Firidolfi bookplates; preserved in a cloth box.
Second edition (first published in 1818, a third followed in 1832) of this important work by the political theorist, economist, and champion of Italian unity, Gioja (1767–1829). ‘He contended in his best known work, Del merito e delle ricompense ..., which was inspired by Beccaria’s Dei delitti e delle pene (1764), that the activities of individuals cannot lead to the common welfare unless they be free and unless their consciousness of responsibility coincide with the dictates of self-interest. His system of social ethics, built on the utilitarianism of Bentham, thus exalted personal responsibility and maintained economic utility to be the decisive criterion in moral and social questions’ (Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences).
See De Vivo, Catalogue of the library of Piero Sraffa 2010 for the first edition, and Einaudi 2565 for the third.
