An Enlightened utilitarianism

"Let one not allow oneself to be moved at all by the air of cruelty that one might think one finds in this.  A man is nothing by comparison with the human species; a criminal is even less than nothing."

"Qu'on ne se laisse point émouvoir par l'air de cruauté qu'on pourroit croire trouver ici.  Un homme n'est rien, comparé à l'espèce humaine; un criminel est encore moins que rien."

     Pierre Louis Moreau de Maupertuis, proposing experimentation on the brains of living convicts (for "the good of society" (77), the larger purpose, say, of uncovering the "bonds" that account for the "marvelous union of body and soul"), Lettre sur le progrès des sciences (1752), 83-84 ("Utilités du supplice des criminels").  I was put onto this by William J. Hoye, "Muss man wählen zwischen Frieden oder Wahrheit?  Begründungen der Toleranz bei Ulrich Beck und Thomas von Aquin," Theologie und Philosophie 84 (2009):  376 (374-393).  Moreau de Maupertuis:  one should proceed "sans scrupule", having begun with cadavers and moved up to animals.  Hoye (who thinks Moreau de Maupertuis was serious about this):  "That this, too, was [a] part of the historic Enlightenment is [all too] easily forgotten."