L'ordinamento lessicale dei beni giuridici personali nella parte speciale del codice penale

Drawing on the "capability approach" (together with some theory of justice remarks by J.Rawls) a 'lexicographical ordering' of the main personal interests protected in several criminal codes of the world is undertaken. A distinctive feature of the essay is that it reports on the results of a survey which applies the methods of the empirical research, aimed at gaining knowledge by means of direct and indirect observation or experience, to criminal law regulations, as though they were empirical data. All interests are framed within single "capabilities", taken as variables of the research. The relationships among these variables and the incidence of each of them are assessed and discussed,and some criminal policy hypothesis based on such outcomes are put forward.