Letteratura, educazione ‘morale’ dell’attenzione e residualità della risposta punitiva all’illecito

The author deems that literature and especially literary works of high aesthetic quality are relevant to law as their reading can foster, among legal practitioners as well as the general public confronted with legal matters through mass medias, those cognitive and moral virtues of empathy, attention, humanity and patience which are required to understand the complex issues law must deal with. That is particularly appropriate in the field of criminal law, where such virtues make up the cornerstone of the ability to consider and actually apply t(on the part of policymakers and the judiciary as well) the subsidiarity i.e. ultima ratio principle, namely the recourse to criminal law for protection against offences only when other social or legal means are proved to be ineffective.