‘Altruistic punishment’ (i.e., costly punishment that serves no instrumental goal for the punisher) could serve, as suggested by the pertinent experimental literature, as a powerful enforcer of social norms. This paper discusses foundations, extensions, and, in particular, limits and open questions of this concept-and it does so mostly based on experimental evidence provided by the author. Inter alia, the paper relates the (standard) literature on negative emotions as a trigger of second party punishment to more recent experimental (...) findings on the phenomenon of ‘spontaneous cooperation’ and ‘spontaneous punishment’ and demonstrates its (tight) emotional basis. Furthermore, the paper discusses the potential for free riding on altruistic punishment. While providing valuable insights into the understanding of social order, ‘altruistic punishment’ is thus not the golden keystone of social stability. (shrink)

Retributivism is commonly taken as an alternative to a consequentialist justification of punishment. It has recently been suggested, however, that retributivism can be recast as a consequentialist theory. This suggestion is shown to be untenable. The temptation to advance it is traced to an “intrinsic good” claim prominent in retributive thinking. This claim is examined, and is argued to be of little help in coping with the difficulties besetting the retributive theory, as well as clashing with a “desert” (...) claim equally central to that theory. (shrink)

Contractarianism in some form has been at the center of recent debates in moral and political philosophy. Jean Hampton was one of the most gifted philosophers involved in these debates and provided both important criticisms of prominent contractarian theories plus powerful defenses and applications of the core ideas of contractarianism. In these essays, she brought her distinctive approach, animated by concern for the intrinsic worth of persons, to bear on topics such as guilt, punishment, self-respect, family relations, and (...) the maintenance and justification of the state. Edited by Daniel Farnham, this collection is an essential contribution to understanding the problems and prospectus of contractarianism in moral, legal and political philosophy. (shrink)

Contractarianism in some form has been at the center of recent debates in moral and political philosophy. Jean Hampton was one of the most gifted philosophers involved in these debates and provided both important criticisms of prominent contractarian theories plus powerful defenses and applications of the core ideas of contractarianism. In these essays, she brought her distinctive approach, animated by concern for the intrinsic worth of persons, to bear on topics such as guilt, punishment, self-respect, family relations, and (...) the maintenance and justification of the state. Edited by Daniel Farnham, this collection is an essential contribution to understanding the problems and prospectus of contractarianism in moral, legal and political philosophy. (shrink)

Some retributivists claim that when we punish wrongdoers we achieve a good: justice. The paper argues that the idea of justice, though rhetorically freighted with positive value, contains only a small core of universally-agreed meaning; and its development in a variety of competing conceptions simply recapitulates, without resolving, debates within the theory of punishment. If, to break this deadlock, we stipulate an expressly retributivist conception of justice, then we should concede that punishment which is just (in the stipulated (...) sense) may be morally wrong. (shrink)

Kant's theory of punishment is commonly regarded as purely retributive in nature, and indeed much of his discourse seems to support that interpretation. Still, it leaves one with certain misgivings regarding the internal consistency of his position. Perhaps the problem lies not in Kant's inconsistency nor in the senility sometimes claimed to be apparent in the Metaphysic of Morals, but rather in a superimposed, modern yet monistic view of punishment. Historical considerations tend to show that Kant was discussing (...) not one, but rather two facets of punishment, each independent but nevertheless mutually restrictive. Punishment as a threat was intended to deter crime. It was a tool in the hands of civil society to counteract human drives toward violating another's rights. In its execution, however, the state was limited in its reaction by a retributive theory of justice demanding respect for the individual as an end and not as a means to some further social goal. This interpretation of Kant's theory of punishment maintains consistency from the earliest through the latest of his writings on moral, legal, and political philosophy. It provides a good reason for rejecting current economic analyses of crime and punishment. Most important of all, it credits Kant's theory in its clear recognition of the ideals intrinsic to libertarian government. (shrink)

In this essay, I assess what I call the “Duty View,” subtly articulated and defended by Victor Tadros in Wrongs and Crimes. According to the Duty View, wrongdoers incur enforceable duties, including the duty to be punished in some circumstances, in virtue of their wrongdoing; therefore, punishment can be justified simply on the ground that wrongdoers’ duties are being legitimately enforced. I argue that, while wrongdoers do incur important duties, these are not necessarily fulfilled by providing protection against future (...) offenses, and I offer a comparative evaluation of the Duty View and an alternative approach, which I call the “Desert Plus View.” The Desert Plus View shares some of the key commitments of the Duty View, such as the rejection of the intrinsic goodness of wrongdoers getting what they deserve. More positively, however, according to the Desert Plus View, the fact that people are deserving can, together with certain additional conditions, such as the need for protection of its citizens, provide a reason for the state to give them what they deserve. (shrink)

We report an experiment on two treatments of an ultimatum minigame. In one treatment, responders’ reactions are hidden to proposers. We observe high rejection rates reflecting responders’ intrinsic resistance to unfairness. In the second treatment, proposers are informed, allowing for dynamic effects over eight rounds of play. The higher rejection rates can be attributed to responders’ provision of a public good: Punishment creates a group reputation for being “tough” and effectively “educate” proposers. Since rejection rates with informed proposers (...) drop to the level of the treatment with non-informed proposers, the hypothesis of responder’s enjoyment of overt punishment is not supported. (shrink)

A punitive desert-claim should be understood as a claim about the intrinsic value of punishment, where this value is grounded in an act or feature of the person to be punished. The purpose of my project is to explore the structure and justification of such punitive desert-claims. ;I argue that a true punitive desert-claim takes the form and , and that belief in these principles is justified on the basis of our considered moral judgments. The Principle of Deserved (...) Punishment. A person who deserves punishment deserves it because, and only because, she has performed a culpable wrongdoing. The Principle of the Proportionality of Deserved Punishment. A person receives the punishments she deserves if and only if the punishment she receives is proportional to her culpable wrongdoing. ;My analysis proceeds as follows. In chapter two, I argue in favor of the claim that a culpable wrongdoing is the sole basis for deserved punishment. ;In chapter three, I put forth an account of the structure of a punitive desert-claim and argue that deserved punishment is not justified via the consequences that result from punishment. Having clarified the basis and structure of deserved punishment, I then set out to provide the justification for it. ;In chapter four, I argue that deserved punishment cannot be justified by an appeal to more general moral principles. My argument here rests on the criticism of different types of theory that attempt to justify deserved punishment on the grounds of more general principles. Here I criticize those theories that attempt to justify and on the grounds of: the culpable wrongdoer's choice, the culpable wrongdoer's hypothetical consent, the state's promise to punish, the demands of a justified institution, and distributive justice. ;In the last chapter I argue that and best account for our considered moral judgments about specific cases. From this, I conclude that our belief in both principles is justified. (shrink)

If the ground of punishment is a culpable wronging, what is it about a culpable wrongdoing that allows it to morally justify deserved punishment? In particular, we want to know what it is about a culpable wrongdoing that accounts for the intrinsic value of punitive desert or the punitive-desert-related duties that comprise retributivism. I analyze both together in the context of seeking a justification for The Principle of Deserved Punishment, (1). (1) The Principle of Deserved (...) class='Hi'>Punishment. A person deserves punishment because, and only because, she has performed a culpable wrongdoing. One approach is that more general moral principles justify it. On this approach, these moral principles support the claim that deserved punishment is morally justified and the claim that it is justified on the ground of a culpable wrongdoing. In this article, I argue against this approach. Elsewhere I argue for the truth of retributivism (which focuses on deserved punishment) based on its being the best explanation of our considered moral judgments. This latter account allows punitive desert and retributivism to function as more fundamental normative entities than is suggested by theories that attempt to derive it from other moral principles. (shrink)

A companion to ‘Punishment: Consequentialism’, and also ‘Punishment: The Future’, this paper examines various nonconsequentialist attempts to justify punishment, that is, attempts that appeal to claims concerning the innate worth or intrinsic character of punishment, quite apart from any consequential good or benefit punishment may be thought to produce. The paper starts with retributive theories, and turns then to the denunciation and expressive theories, before considering combined communicative–retributive theories.

This essay enquires into the implications for criminal law of Derrida’s analysis in the Death Penalty seminars. The seminars include a reading of Kant’s Metaphysics of Morals, specifically Kant’s reflections on the sovereign right to punish, which is read in conjunction with the reflections of Freud and Reik on the relation between the unconscious and crime, as well as Nietzsche’s reflections on morality, punishment and cruelty. What comes to the fore in Derrida’s analysis is a system of economic exchange (...) operating on an unconscious level, of which criminal law forms an intrinsic part. Derrida’s analysis of the ‘origin’ of crime in the seminars poses serious questions to the assumption of freedom underlying modern criminal law. The link, which he posits between punishment and political theology, likewise challenges the existing theories and forms of punishment. What the seminars call for, in the name of the Kantian Enlightenment, is a radical break with economic circularity as it operates in respect of crime and punishment. (shrink)

This paper offers a defence of the Communicative Theory of Punishment against recent criticisms due to Matt Matravers. According to the Communicative Theory, the intentional imposition of suffering by the judiciary is justified because it is intrinsic to the condemnation and censure that an offender deserves as a result of wrongdoing. Matravers raises a number of worries about this idea – grounded in his thought that suffering isn’t necessary for censure, and as a consequence sometimes the imposition of (...) suffering can be unjust. I respond by arguing that the imposition of suffering is an essential part of a suite of emotional responses that wrongdoing merits. As a result, and contrary to what Matravers suggests, words are not enough for censure and condemnation. (shrink)

In A Treatise on Virtues and Rewards, Dragonetti advances a theory of action based on rewards for virtues. The idea of rewards, especially of awards, relies on the hypothesis that intrinsic motivations drive the actions of good or virtuous citizens. We apply this theory to virtuous entrepreneurs who voluntarily adopt ethical principles as promoted by a recent Italian law. These firms receive an ethical rating by the Italian Competition Authority and can access a set of economic and non-economic benefits. (...) We survey a sample of 152 private companies with an ER and examine their views on the economic and social motivations and benefits as well as the perceived usefulness of the ER for improving ethical behaviour. An exploratory factor analysis detects four categories of motivation and two categories of benefits, which we use in regression models to test Dragonetti’s theory. Overall, respondents see the ER as an effective tool, except in terms of improving economic performance. We also find that entrepreneurs with lower economic and higher responsiveness motivations attain higher ERs. However, in the respondents’ opinions, the ER is not producing any concrete benefits since we find no relationship between the ER and economic or competitive rewards. These findings have implications for the ICA as well as for private companies. (shrink)

The reform of offenders is often said to be one of the morally legitimate aims of punishment. After briefly surveying the history of reformist thinking I examine the ‘quasi-reform’ theories, as I call them, of H. Morris, J. Hampton and A. Duff. I explain how they conceive of reform, and what role they take it to have in the criminal justice system. I then focus critically on one feature of their conception of reform, namely, the claim that a reformed (...) offender will obey the relevant laws for moral reasons. I argue on consequentialist grounds that this requirement is objectionable. Consequentialism has always accepted reform as one legitimate goal of punishment, but it will not accept the narrowly moral conception of it that we find in the quasi-reform theorists. I situate my criticism within criminal law theory, but I also consider the claim in moral theory that acting from moral motives has intrinsic value. (shrink)

Numerous retributivists hold that deserved punishment has intrinsic value. A number of puzzles regarding that claim are identified and discussed. An alternative, more Kantian account of intrinsic value is then identified and the ways in which legal punishment might be understood to cohere with it are explored. That account focuses on the various ways in which legal punishment might be persons-respecting. It is then argued that this Kantian account enables us to solve or evade the (...) puzzles generated by the other intrinsic value account. (shrink)

Unlike that of most liberal thinkers, Kant's theory of punishment is unabashedly retributive. For classical liberals punishment is justified only by the harms it can prevent, not by any allegedly intrinsic good served by making the guilty suffer. Here Hobbes' blunt insistence that the aim of punishment ‘is not a revenge, but terror’ is prototypical in substance, if not in style. Hobbes, Locke, Mill, Bentham and Beccaria, for all their differences, agree that punishment must look (...) to future good rather than to avenging past wrongs. This attitude on the part of classic liberalism toward retribution is not surprising, given its association with the kind of theocratic politics liberalism arose to combat. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Mill on Capital Punishment-Retributive Overtones?Michael ClarkI.In his famous parliamentary speech of 18681 Mill defends the retention of capital punishment for the worst murderers on the Benthamite grounds of frugality and exemplarity.2 Punishment being an intrinsic "mischief," it should be no more severe than it needs to be to achieve its desired effect, principally that of deterring others from crime. That effect can be achieved more (...) economically if the suffering appears greater than it really is. Execution, Mill thinks, is less cruel than the alternative of life imprisonment with hard labour,3 for the offender would have died anyway sooner or later, probably in greater pain. It is also the most impressive way of punishing murder, since it closely resembles the offence. The more a penalty impresses itself upon people's minds the more likely it is to deter. And, as Bentham said, "exemplarity tends to increase the apparent, frugality to reduce the real [suffering]."4But the language Mill uses has seemed to import non-utilitarian, quasi-retributive elements into his thought. Thus Tom Sorrell says, "He brings in the appropriateness of execution to certain offences. The argument from appropriateness, if it is not retributivist, is at least consistent with retributivism, and has whatever intuitive appeal attaches to punishing purely on account of guilt."5 Is this perhaps another of those non-utilitarian elements in Mill's philosophy that many commentators have, rightly or wrongly, claimed to detect, like the supposed tension between the Principle of Utility and Mill's regard for the value of liberty? I shall argue, however, that it is a mistake to interpret Mill's remarks in a retributive way. [End Page 327]The critical passage is:[I]t appears to me that to deprive the criminal of the life of which he has proved himself unworthy—olemnly to blot him out from the fellowship of the living—is themost appropriate, as it is certainly the most impressive, mode in which society can attach to so great a crime the penal consequences which for the security of life it is indispensable to annex it.6The italicised phrases are those responsible for the retributive impression, particularly "the most appropriate." Is Mill here falling back on the idea that the criminal should receive a penalty which fits the crime because he has made himself worthy of it?Originally, Mill had opposed capital punishment, and, though he did allow that there might possibly be "atrocious crimes" against which it was the only effective deterrent, he doubted whether there were any such cases. "I have therefore always been favourable to the entire abolition of capital punishment, though I confess I do not attach much importance to it in the case of the worst criminals of all," he wrote in an 1841 letter to Robert Barclay Fox (CW XIII: 474). It is evident that he is making the usual assumption that the death penalty is more severe than life imprisonment. As a utilitarian, he could countenance the death penalty only if it were "the only effective deterrent" against aggravated murder.By the time of the Parliamentary Speech he had changed his mind about the relative severity of execution and life imprisonment. Execution was swift and generally less painful than the death the murderer would otherwise eventually face. The alternative was to immure "him in a living tomb, there to linger out what may be a long life in the hardest and most monotonous toil... cut off from all earthly hope" (CW XXVIII: 268). Life imprisonment seemed milder only because the suffering was at no time "of terrifying intensity."Indeed Bentham had made the same point about the exemplarity of capital punishment, which was "of all punishment, of the greatest apparent magnitude, the most impressive and the most exemplary" while being "less rigorous than it appears to be," and he noted that it was "often more gentle than natural death."72.Mill, of course, inherited his theory of punishment from Bentham, whom he regarded as leaving the theory nearly complete,8 and the consequentialist stance is clear from his early writings:The only right by which society is warranted in inflicting pain upon any... (shrink)

Contrasts utilitarian, Kantian, and deep retributive views about the relations between wrongdoing and suffering because of one's wrongdoing. Kant maintains that, although wrongdoers are intrinsically liable to suffer self‐reproach and moral disapproval of others, wrongdoing does not entail “deserving to suffer” in a sense providing intrinsic practical reasons to inflict suffering. Arguably, even Kant's most infamous remarks on punishment fail to prove otherwise. Contrary to common impressions, Kant is best understood as holding a mixed theory in which the (...) retributive policies that Kant endorses lack deep retributive justification. Some implications for the justice of current practices of punishment are explored. (shrink)

ABSTRACTAt the heart of the criminal reform proposed in Cesare Beccaria’s 1764 Dei delitti e delle pene are the principles of penal parsimony derived from a precise interpretation of the social contract. Punishment, being no more than a necessary evil devoid of any intrinsic virtue, must serve no more than a preventative function to the smallest possible extent; its application strictly bound by the principle of legality. Beccaria’s criminal philosophy, therefore, attempts to drastically reduce the power of the (...) penal institution. After recounting its principal aspects, this article seeks to propose a new interpretation of Beccaria’s theory from the perspective of its historical context. The Italian Enlightenment philosopher did not so much express indignation against the barbarism of the Milanese penal system, but rather instigate a rebellion against the political dominance of its patriciate, whose power had long been validated by its juridical functions. In this respect, Beccaria sought to combat the political hegemony of the jurists, concluding his treatise by excluding juridical thought from, and thus removing the intellectual foundations of, the practice of criminal law. (shrink)

The purely retributive moral justification of punishment has a gap at its centre. It fails to explain why the offender should not be protected from punishment by the intuitively powerful moral idea that afflicting another person (other than to avoid a greater harm) is always wrong. Attempts to close the gap have taken several different forms, and only one is discussed in this paper. This is the attempt to push aside the ‘protecting’ intuition, using some more powerful intuition (...) specially invoked by the situations to which criminal justice is addressed. In one aspect of his complex defence of pure retributivism, Michael S. Moore attempts to show that the emotions of well-adjusted persons provide evidence of moral facts which justify the affliction of culpable wrongdoers in retribution for their wrongdoing. In particular, he appeals to the evidential significance of emotions aroused by especially heinous crimes, including the punishment-seeking guilt of the offender who truly confronts the reality of his immoral act. The paper argues that Moore fails to vindicate this appeal to moral realism, and thus to show that intrinsic personal moral desert (as distinct from ‘desert’ in a more restricted sense, relative to morally justified institutions) is a necessary and sufficient basis for punishment. Other theories of the role of emotions in morality are as defensible as Moore’s, while the compelling emotions to which he appeals to clinch his argument can be convincingly situated within a non-retributivist framework, especially when the distinction between the intuitions of the lawless world, and those of the world of law, is recognised. -/- . (shrink)

Kant believed all and only the guilty should be punished. Other retributivists believed that only guilt should bring punishment down on a person. In neither way is the retributive theory sufficiently distinguished from utilitarianism for, on contingent grounds, the utilitarian may agree with either of these theses. The advantage of PRJ is that it brings out the difference between retributivism and utilitarianism more sharply while at the same time it manages to be a less stern and unyielding view than (...) traditional retributivism. The retributivist need not deny the core of good sense in utilitarianism, and he certainly need not deny the connection between morality and happiness. His view is that punishment does not have to produce good consequences in order to be justified. It suffices that it be deserved and that it not produce a set of clearly bad consequences. If it is true that punishment generally does have bad consequences which more than outweigh its good consequences then retributivists and utilitarians should join hands in their condemnation of punishment. The heart of the difference between the retributivist and the utilitarian is that the latter counts punishment itself as an evil but believes that, generally speaking, it is an evil which is instrumental in the production of enough good to out-weigh its intrinsic demerit. The retributivist does not regard punishment as an evil. The pain of punishment is not by itself a reason for not punishing (so long as it is not excessive). Insofar as utilitarianism is the view that no considerations but those of utility should justify punishment, it is only one side of that counterfeit coin the other side of which is Kant's dictum: “...Woe to him who creeps through the serpent-windings of Utilitarianism to discover some advantage that may discharge him from the Justice of Punishment, or even from the due measure of it....” It is irrational for Kant to rule out concern for utility but it is also irrational for the utilitarian to rule out concern for retribution.I have tried to show in this paper that the two main aspects of a plausible theory of retribution - PRJ and that the punishment should fit the crime - can be vindicated in terms of acceptable beliefs one of which is incompatible with utilitarianism (PRJ), and one of which does not derive the respect we accord it from any connection with utilitarianism. I emphasize, however, what I previously stated, that the retributivist does not have to believe that retributive justice must prevail at all costs. What is asked for is the recognition that one purpose of punishment (and not the one purpose) can justifiably have nothing to do with utility. The sensible retributivist will concede, and gladly, that there are more things in heaven and earth than retribution. (shrink)

A person deserves a punishment if and only if he did a culpable wrongdoing and in virtue of this it is other-things-being intrinsically good that he receive punishment and if he were to receive that punishment then it would be through a non-deviant causal chain that includes the culpable wrongdoing. The wrongdoing may be institutional or pre-institutional depending on whether the moral right that the wrongdoer trespasses upon is dependent on a political institution’s goal. Desert in general, (...) and punitive desert in particular, has a ground for which the agent is blameworthy or praiseworthy and it does not itself general a duty on anyone’s behalf. Both features make desert a different type of moral entity than a moral right. In addition, the two stand in a different relation to autonomy: rights protect a sphere in which autonomy may be exercises whereas desert, including punitive desert, provides a guide to the exercise of autonomy. They thus have different connections to one of the most important value-creating features of a person. This difference between desert and moral rights indicates the need for a separate analysis of each in the context of punishment. (shrink)

Some philosophers think that the challenge of justifying punishment can be met by a theory that emphasizes the expressive character of punishment. A particular type of theories of this sort - call it Expressive Retributivism [ER] - combines retributivist and expressivist considerations. These theories are retributivist since they justify punishment as an intrinsically appropriate response to wrongdoing, as something wrongdoers deserve, but the expressivist element in these theories seeks to correct for the traditional obscurity of retributivism. Retributivists (...) often rely on appeals to controversial intuitions involving obscure concepts. While retributive intuitions can be compelling, some worry that the justificatory challenge cannot be met merely by appealing to them. ER tries to enhance the clarity and justificatory power of these intuitions and the concepts they invoke by appealing to an expressive conception of punishment. I argue that these theories fail to justify punishment and that there is reason to think that they cannot, in principle, justify punishment. (shrink)

Hinduism and Zoroastrianism have strong historical bonds and share similar value-systems. As an instance, both of these religions are pro-life. Abortion has been explicitly mentioned in Zoroastrian Holy Scriptures including Avesta, Shayast-Nashayast and Arda Viraf Nameh. According to Zoroastrian moral teachings, abortion is evil for two reasons: killing an innocent and intrinsically good person, and the contamination caused by the dead body. In Hinduism, the key concepts involving moral deliberations on abortion are Ahimsa, Karma and reincarnation. Accordingly, abortion deliberately disrupts (...) the process of reincarnation, and killing an innocent human being is not only in contrast with the concept of Ahimsa, but also places a serious karmic burden on its agent. The most noteworthy similarity between Zoroastrianism and Hinduism is their pro-life approach. The concept of Asha in Zoroastrianism is like the concept of Dharma in Hinduism, referring to a superior law of the universe and the bright path of life for the believers. In terms of differences, Zoroastrianism is a religion boasting a God, a prophet, and a Holy book, while Hinduism lacks all these features. Instead of reincarnation and rebirth, Zoroastrianism, like Abrahamic religions, believes in the afterlife. Also, in contrast with the concept of Karma, in Zoroastrianism, Ahura Mazda can either punish or forgive sins. (shrink)

Many contemporary authors argue that the Hindu doctrines of karma and/or rebirth entail that both human and nonhuman entities in nature are interconnected, and hence have intrinsic value. These doctrines do not entail that entities in nature are interconnected, however. Even if they did, the interconnectedness of entities cannot establish their intrinsic value. If the interconnectedness of entities did establish their intrinsic value, the account would attribute equal intrinsic value to all things, both natural and non-natural, (...) and hence, fail to meet the “non-vacuity requirement.” The doctrines of karma and/or rebirth do entail that nonhuman entities in nature have intrinsic value, but not because they are interconnected. First, the doctrines entail that distinctions among embodied beings are trivial. If human beings have intrinsic value—as is typically assumed—and if the differences between a human embodiment and an animal or plant embodiment are trivial, then these differences seem less able to explain differences in the intrinsic value of humans, animals, and plants. Second, the best explanation of the connection between the treatment of nonhuman entities and the merit or demerit that arises as a result is that all living beings are intrinsically valuable. Other explanations are circular, or fail to explain the severe punishments that result from harming nonhuman entities. (shrink)

Some goods and services seem to be fundamentally public, such as legislation, criminal punishment, and fighting wars. By contrast, other functions, such as garbage collection, do not. This volume brings together prominent scholars from a range of academic fields - including law, economics, philosophy, and sociology - to address the core question of what makes a certain good or service fundamentally public and why. Sometimes, governments and other public entities are superior because they are more likely to get at (...) the right decisions or follow fair procedures. In other instances, the provision of goods and services by public entities is intrinsically valuable. By analyzing the these answers, the authors also explore the nature of the state and its authority. This handbook explores influential arguments for and against privatization and also develops a number of key studies explaining, justifying, or challenging the legitimacy and the desirability of public provision of particular goods and services. (shrink)

Although the advent of the Kingdom of God in Jesus contains as an intrinsic quality the opportunity for repentance as often as required, the Church of the first five-hundred years shows serious difficulties with the opportunity of conversion after a relapse in sinning after baptism. The Church allowed only one chance of repentance. Requirement for the reconciliation were a public confession and the acceptance of severe penances, especially after committing the mortal sin of apostasy, fornication or murder. As severe (...) as this paenitentia canonica appears, its entire conception especially in the eastern part of the Church, the Oriental Church, is a remedial one: sin represents an ailment of the soul, the one, who received the confession, is called upon to meet the confessing person as a spiritual physician or soul-friend. Penance does not mean punishment, but healing like a salutary remedy. Nevertheless, the lack of privacy led to the unwanted practice of postponing repentance and even baptism on the deathbed. An alternative procedure of repentance arose from the sixth century onwards in the Irish Church as well as the Continental Church under the influence of Irish missionaries and the South-West-British and later the English Church. In treatises about repentance, called penitentials, ecclesiastical authorities of the sixth to the eight centuries wrote down regulations, how to deal with the different capital sins and minor trespasses committed by monks, clerics and laypeople. Church-representatives like Finnian, Columbanus, the anonymous author of the Ambrosianum, Cummean and Theodore developed a new conception of repentance that protected privacy and guaranteed a discrete, an affordable as well as a predictable penance, the paenitentia privata. They not only connected to the therapeutic aspect of repentance in the Oriental Church by adopting basic ideas of Basil of Caesarea and John Cassian, they also established an astonishing network in using their mutual interrelations. Here the earlier penitentials served as source for the later ones. But it is remarkable that the authors in no way appeared as simple copyists, but also as creative revisers, who took regard of the pastoral necessities of the entrusted flock. They appeared as engaged in the goal to improve their ecclesiastical as well as their civil life-circumstances to make it possible that the penitents of the different ecclesiastical estates could perform their conversion and become reconciled in a dignified way. The aim of the authors was to enable the confessors to do the healing dialogue qualitatively in a high standard; quantity was not their goal. The penitents should feel themselves healed, not punished. (shrink)

-/- Amongst contemporary theorists, the most widespread interpretation of Hegel's theory of punishment is that it is a retributivist theory of annulment, where punishments cancel the performance of crimes. The theory is retributivist insofar as the criminal punished must be demonstrated to be deserving of a punishment that is commensurable in value only to the nature of his crime, rather than to any consequentialist considerations. As Antony Duff says: -/- [retributivism] justifies punishment in terms not of its (...) contingently beneficial effects but of its intrinsic justice as a response to crime; the justificatory relationship holds between present punishment and past crime, not between present punishment and future effects. -/- Punishment is given only to persons responsible for committing crime. In addition, the degree of punishment is set in proportion to the relative badness of the precipitating crime. Thus, retributivism can be understood as an individualistic theory because the only relevant factors pertain solely to the individual criminal himself. -/- The general attraction of Hegel's version of retributivism is that the punishments his theory is thought to endorse are commensurable in value with precipitating crimes, in contrast to the strict equivalence required by Kant's theory of punishment. As a result, Hegel's theory is praised both for being more acceptable to modern readers than Kant's so-called ‘pure retributivism’, as well as for being an ‘emphatically anti-utilitarian’ theory. Despite widespread agreement on these general features, it is hotly contested how exactly we are to understand the way in which punishment cancels crimes, and Hegel's difficult style has only served to make the controversy deeper. For example, Ted Honderich says: ‘A punishment is an annulment, a cancellation or a return to a previous state of affairs … All this, of course, is obscure. It is by Hegel’. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to bring to the attention of the international nursing community the discrepancy between a pervasive ‘caring’ nursing discourse and a most unethical nursing practice in the United States. In this article, we present a duality: the conflict in American prisons between nursing ethics and the killing machinery. The US penal system is a setting in which trained healthcare personnel practice the extermination of life. We look upon the sanitization ofdeathworkas an application of healthcare professionals’ (...) skills and knowledge and their appropriation by the state to serve its ends. A review of the states’ death penalty statutes shows that healthcare workers are involved in the capital punishment process and shielded by American laws (and to a certain extent by professional boards through their inaction). We also argue that the law's language often masks that involvement; and explain how states further that duplicity behind legal formalisms. In considering the important role healthcare providers, namely nurses and physicians, play in administering death to the condemned, we assert that nurses and physicians are part of the states’ penal machinery in America. Nurses and physicians (as carriers of scientific knowledge, and also as agents of care) are intrinsic to the American killing enterprise. Healthcare professionals who take part in execution protocols are state functionaries who approach the condemned body as angels of death: they constitute an extension of the state which exercises its sovereign power over captive prisoners. (shrink)

The relationship between religiosity and ethical behavior at work has remained elusive. In fact, inconsistent results in observed magnitudes and direction led Hood et al. (The psychology of religion: An empirical approach, 1996 ) to describe the relationship between religiosity and ethics as “something of a roller coaster ride.” Weaver and Agle (Acad Manage Rev 27(1):77–97, 2002 ) utilizing social structural versions of symbolic interactionism theory reasoned that we should not expect religion to affect ethical outcomes for all religious individuals; (...) rather, such a relationship likely depends on specific religious attitudes including religious motivation orientation (intrinsic RMO vs. extrinsic RMO), perceived sacred qualities of work (job sanctification), and views of God (VOG, loving vs. punishing). We examined the effects of these three religious attitudes on participants’ judgments of 29 ethically questionable vignettes. Consistent with symbolic interactionism theory, intrinsic RMO and having a loving view of God were both negatively related to endorsing ethically questionable vignettes, whereas extrinsic RMO was positively related to endorsing the vignettes. Unexpectedly, job sanctification was positively related to endorsing the vignettes. However, both intrinsic and extrinsic RMO moderated this relationship such that sanctifying one’s job was related to ethical judgments only for those who were: (a) low in intrinsic RMO or (b) high in extrinsic RMO. We reasoned based on symbolic interactionism theory that intrinsically motivated participants, in contrast to extrinsically motivated participants, may have utilized their religious beliefs as a guiding framework in making ethical judgments. (shrink)

Retributivist approaches to the philosophy of punishment are usually based on certain claims related to moral desert. I focus on one such principle:Censuring Principle : There is a moral reason to censure guilty wrongdoers aversively.Principles like CP are often supported by the construction of examples similar to Kant’s ‘desert island’. These are meant to show that there is a reason for state officials to punish deserving wrongdoers, even if none of the familiar goals of punishment, such as deterrence, (...) will be achieved. When suitable variants of such examples are presented, however, it is evident that there cannot be much reason to punish such wrongdoers, even if there is some. The same problem besets claims that there is intrinsic value in the suffering of wrongdoers, or that wrongdoers deserve to suffer. All such claims are relatively weak normatively. (shrink)

Moore argued that his principle of organic unities, according to which the value of a whole is to be distinguished from the value of the sum of its parts, is consistent with a retributivist view of punishment: both crime and punishment are intrinsic evils but the combination of the crime with the punishment of its perpetrator is less bad in itself than the crime unpunished. Moore’s principle excludes any form of retributivism that regards the punishment (...) of a guilty person as an intrinsic good. Jonathan Dancy offers a different account of such unities on which, pace Moore, value does not necessarily stay the same from one context to another. This alternative account is defended, but still seems to create difficulties for various forms of retributivism. Key Words: Bentham • Dancy • Moore • organic unities • retribution. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Coherence of a Mind: John Locke and the Law of Nature*Alex Tucknessit is almost thirty years since John Dunn’s book, The Political Thought of John Locke, argued that a more coherent understanding of Locke was possible if his religious beliefs were taken to play a crucial role in his political theory.1 Since that time many scholars have expanded our historical knowledge of the role of religion in Locke’s (...) political thought.2 This article will not use a historical methodology, but will rather take the claim that religion is crucial to Locke’s thought as a starting point. When one combines this assumption with a careful reading of the Two Treatises of Government (Two Treatises), The Reasonableness of Christianity as Delivered in Scripture (The Reasonableness), and the Essay Concerning Human Understanding (Essay), significant progress in resolving many of the long-standing difficulties in Locke’s theory of natural law is possible.The difficulties are indeed serious. Prior to Locke there was a long standing theological debate about whether the laws of nature were binding because they were the command of God (voluntarism) or binding because of their intrinsic compatibility with reason (“rationalism” or “intellectualism”). There has been much dispute about whether Locke was consistently a voluntarist or not.3 Second, Locke argues in the Essay that the principles of morality are [End Page 73] capable of proof just like principles of geometry, yet Locke never produced a proof of the law of nature. In the Second Treatise the laws of nature are more asserted than defended, as if they were self-evident, yet in The Reasonableness Locke says that it is exceedingly difficult to discover the moral law through reason alone and says that no one has ever discovered the complete law of nature through unaided reason. It appears that Locke “… went on believing the arguments of the Second Treatise were plainly true even after he knew he could not properly ground them in natural law….”4Third, Straussians have been quick to point out that Locke adopted a hedonistic theory of human motivation and of good and evil, a position which seems to sit poorly with a Christian theory of natural law. Locke claimed that men5 were motivated to obey the law of nature by their perception of future pleasure or pain and that divine sanctions in the next life were necessary for the law of nature to be a proper law, yet later in life Locke admitted his inability to prove the existence of an afterlife.6 Fourth, the account of moral knowledge in the Essay seems to sit poorly with Locke’s account of natural law in the Two Treatises; his commitment in the latter to empiricism is questionable and the law of nature is presented with little argument as if it were obvious. Laslett has argued that the difficulties are so severe that Locke the philosopher of knowledge and Locke the political thinker should be kept very separate.7 This article will respond to each of these difficulties in order to show that Locke’s theory of natural law is more coherent than his critics have allowed.1. the ground of natural law: rationalism and voluntarismThe early Essays on the Law of Nature of Locke link morality to conformity with the rule of a superior; it is the will of God which provides the essential binding force of the law of nature. (ELN 183–185)8 In the Essay Concerning Human [End Page 74] Understanding, this theme continues. “I grant the existence of God, is so many ways manifest, and the Obedience we owe him, so congruous to the Light of Reason, that a great part of Mankind give Testimony to the Law of Nature”: But nonetheless many affirm these principles not “admitting the true ground of Morality; which can only be the Will and Law of a God, who sees Men in the dark, has in his Hand Rewards and Punishments, and Power enough to call to account the Proudest Offender” (Essay 1.3.6).There are, however, passages which seem to point to a more rationalist account of morality. When Locke writes in the Two Treatises that... (shrink)

Analytic philosophers have disputed the nature of “artistic value” for over six decades, bringing much needed clarity and rigor to a subject discussed with fashionable obscurity in other disciplines. This essay frames debates between analytic philosophers on artistic value and suggests new directions for future research. In particular, the problem of “intrinsic value” is considered, that is, whether a work’s value derives from its experienced properties, as a work of art, or from cultural trends outside the work’s properties. It (...) is argued that neurobiological research helps resolve perceived differences between a work’s intrinsic and extrinsic values. A work can be both rewarding and punishing on its own, “intrinsic” merit—as a percipient, real thing in the world evoking predictable kinds of emotion—and with respect to ever shifting, “extrinsic” cultural norms. (shrink)

Amongst contemporary theorists, the most widespread interpretation of Hegel's theory of punishment is that it is a retributivist theory of annulment, where punishments cancel the performance of crimes. The theory is retributivist insofar as the criminal punished must be demonstrated to be deserving of a punishment that is commensurable in value only to the nature of his crime, rather than to any consequentialist considerations. As Antony Duff says: [retributivism] justifies punishment in terms not of its contingently beneficial (...) effects but of its intrinsic justice as a response to crime; the justificatory relationship holds between present punishment and past crime, not between present punishment and future effects. Punishment is given only to persons responsible for committing crime. In addition, the degree of punishment is set in proportion to the relative badness of the precipitating crime. Thus, retributivism can be understood as an individualistic theory because the only relevant factors pertain solely to the individual criminal himself. The general attraction of Hegel's version of retributivism is that the punishments his theory is thought to endorse are commensurable in value with precipitating crimes, in contrast to the strict equivalence required by Kant's theory of punishment. As a result, Hegel's theory is praised both for being more acceptable to modern readers than Kant's so-called ‘pure retributivism’, as well as for being an ‘emphatically anti-utilitarian’ theory. Despite widespread agreement on these general features, it is hotly contested how exactly we are to understand the way in which punishment cancels crimes, and Hegel's difficult style has only served to make the controversy deeper. For example, Ted Honderich says: ‘A punishment is an annulment, a cancellation or a return to a previous state of affairs … All this, of course, is obscure. It is by Hegel’. (shrink)

Through a theoretical examination of the preventive turn in criminal law and justice which has gained momentum in Anglo-American criminal justice systems since the late-twentieth century, The Preventive Turn in Criminal Law demonstrates how recent transformations in criminal law and justiceare intrinsically related to and embedded in the way liberal society and liberal law have been imagined, developed, and conditioned by its social, political, and historical context. Henrique Carvalho identifies a tension between the idea of punishment as an expression (...) of individual justice, andprevention as a manifestation of the need for security and the promotion of welfare. Tracing this tension back to an intrinsic ambivalence within the modern conception of individual liberty, which is both repressed and preserved by liberal conceptions of responsibility and punishment, Carvalhoproves that as long as this ambivalence remains unexamined, liberal law has the potential to both promote and undermine individual justice.Engaging with the dominant contemporary literature on criminal law, prevention, risk, security, and criminalisation, this volume deploys a theoretical perspective developed through a critical analysis of both classical and contemporary works of social and political theory. The book reveals that thepervasiveness of prevention in 21st century criminal justice systems represents not only the consequence of new and unprecedented features of contemporary politics and society, but also the manifestation of essential aspects of the liberal legal and political tradition. (shrink)

This paper aims to show that the notion of moral progress makes sense in Hume’s philosophy. And even though Hume suggests that this question is not central, in showing why it is not the case, I will conclude that, in concentrating on the question of the progress of civilisation, Hume was expressing a view on moral progress. To support this claim, I will begin by defending the claim that the notion of moral progress itself is consistent within Hume’s philosophical principles. (...) In brief, I will suggest that according to Hume, there are at least four ways in which an agent's morality can be modified: by a change of belief, by a will to change his own moral characteristics, by the government setting up rewards and punishment and by the progress of civilisation. The key to the problem will be to distinguish between the natural principles which direct human nature and the social nature of human beings, the first one being immutable, and the second being malleable. Drawing this distinction will allow us to reconcile the highly problematic notions of uniformity and diversity within human nature. Then, in correlation with the distinction between moral maxims and moral behaviour, I will suggest that both are subjects to improvement, even though the room left for the latter is greater. After having argued that the notion of moral progress makes sense, I will try to understand the role it plays in the Humean conception of the progress of civilisation. This will lead me to conclude that its conditions and its different states of development are for Hume intrinsically related to the progress of the civilisation in general. Furthermore, moral progress is secondary and relative to the general improvement of society. The morals of the people has no active role in its progress, contrary to politics, economics, sciences and arts which are the main causes of the gradual progress of improvement. Therefore, against Montesquieu, Hume considers the progress of “manners” and “customs” (i.e. moral behaviour or the moral worth of behaviour) as a consequence of the progress of civilisation, and not as its cause. Hume’s principal aim is to underline the process of civilisation, and to show the means by which it spreads though all the spheres of society. (shrink)

What is a crime? A common answer is that crimes are harms. One particular argument is that morality forms the connection between crimes and harms: crimes are not any kind of harm, but specifically a kind of immorality. This position is consistent with natural law jurisprudence which claims that law and morality are inseparably linked. It is also consistent with standard defences of retribution whereby punishment is justified where deserved and to the degree deserved. Retributivist desert is present for (...) individuals that possess some degree of moral responsibility for causing or attempting to cause evil. For example, the murderer deserves severe punishment because he is morally responsible for another person’s death and this act is sufficiently evil to warrant severe punishment. -/- The idea that crimes are harms to morals — and so their immorality informs their criminality and the corresponding severity of punishment — has also found favour with so-called ‘expressivist’ theories of punishment defended by Joel Feinberg, Antony Duff and others. These theories argue that punishment has an expressivist function of communication public disapproval to criminal offenders for their moral wrongdoings where punishment is proportionate to immorality. -/- The justification of crimes as harms to morals is part of a venerable tradition that has come to be increasingly seen as discredited. Most academics working in law (and even more practising lawyers) reject natural law jurisprudence and support some version of the separability thesis of legal positivism where law and morality are held to be separable, but not intrinsically and necessarily linked. Yet, curiously, retributivist theories, including expressivism, have been on the ascendency with a growing number of legal philosophers defending the idea of crimes as harms to morals and, therefore, moving in a contrary direction to most others working in law and academic law. -/- I believe this general position is deeply problematic and should be rejected. This chapter focuses specifically on expressivist theories as the increasingly more popular variant of retributivism in academic circles today. The next section provides an overview of expressivism. The following sections argue that it is not compelling both as a view about the criminal law, but also as a theory about punishment. I close the chapter with ideas about criminal harms might be better understood. I argue that crimes might be a kind of harm, but not the kinds of harm endorsed by retributivists and, more specifically, expressivists. (shrink)

Presently philosophers, social theorists, educationists and legal scholars are busy with issues of contemporary importance such as affirmative actions, animal’s rights, capital punishment, cloning, euthanasia, immigration, pornography, privacy in civil society, values in nature, human rights, cultural values and world hunger etc. Since ancient time ethics is one of the most important part of philosophical speculations and human development. The development of morality comes under three stages viz. intrinsic morality, customary morality and reflective morality. Intrinsic morality has (...) traditionally been thought to lie at the heart of ethics and this is the first stage of morality where the objective is to be moral is to lead one’s life according its basic needs. Customary morality is the second stage of morality, where customs of a particular group and tribe rule the life of the man living in this group and morals based on the customs and traditions of society. Members of the group are motivated to sacrifice their lives to save the culture and norms of the particular group or tribe. In the last reflective morality, man started thinking himself and started to do reflection on their life and contributed to the development of the nation or society where he/she lives. Here he/she is independent to think and follow the best for his life. Reflective morals are those that are based on what you believe to be right and not others. The ideas related to the development of art, values, human rights and quality education etc., all are because of man’s reflection. Reflective morality is the best stage of development of morality in human society. In this paper an attempt is made to draw an outline of development of morality in human life and its application of morality in public and personal life. (shrink)

On many currently popular ontologies of material objects, we share our place with numerous shorter-lived things that came into existence after we did or will go out of existence before we will. Subpeople are intrinsically indistinguishable from possible people, and as several authors pointed out, this raises grave ethical concerns: it threatens to make any sacrifice for long-term goals impermissible, as well as to undermine our standard practices of punishment, reward, grief, and utility calculation. The aim in this paper (...) is to offer a unified set of solutions to these problems. The paper’s starting point is the "self-making view," according to which our de se beliefs help determine our own spatiotemporal boundaries. This paper argues that the self-making view also plays a key role in the best treatment of the moral problems of subpeople. (shrink)

An actor's mental states—whether she acted knowingly and with bad intentions—typically play an important role in evaluating the extent to which an action is wrong and in determining appropriate levels of punishment. In four experiments, we find that this role for knowledge and intent is significantly weaker when evaluating transgressions of conventional rules as opposed to moral rules. We also find that this attenuated role for knowledge and intent is partly due to the fact that conventional rules are judged (...) to be more arbitrary than moral rules; whereas moral transgressions are associated with actions that are intrinsically wrong, conventional transgressions are associated with actions that are only contingently wrong. Finally, we find that it is the perpetrator's belief about the arbitrary or non-arbitrary basis of the rule—not the reality—that drives this differential effect of knowledge and intent across types of transgressions. (shrink)

Punishment is punishment even if it is not (perceived by the punisher to be) deserved. But punishment which is not (perceived by the punisher to be) fitting is not punishment. This paper explores the differences between desert and fittingness, and argues that incorporating fittingness into thedefinition of punishment is not problematic, whereas incorporating desert in such definition is, in contrast, infamously problematic. The main difference between these two notions turns on the interesting differences between two (...) types of normativity. Fittingness is exclusively concerned with aesthetic normativity, whereas desert is more directly concerned with moral normativity. When something is fitting, then it is, to an extent, intrinsically good, and, to an extent, it is also beautiful. The notion of fittingness has largely been ignored in discussions of punishment, yet it helps us better to understand the phenomenon of punishment, and in particular the thorny relationship between this phenomenon and desert. Key Words: beauty • desert • fittingness • normativity • punishment • retributivism. (shrink)

A developing neurobiological/psychological theory of positive motivation gives a key causal role to reward events in the brain which can be directly activated by electrical stimulation (ESB). In its strongest form, this Reward Event Theory (RET) claims that all positive motivation, primary and learned, is functionally dependent on these reward events. Some of the empirical evidence is reviewed which either supports or challenges RET. The paper examines the implications of RET for the concepts of 'motivation', 'desire' and 'reward' or 'pleasure'. (...) It is argued (1) that a 'causal base' as opposed to a functional' concept of motivation has theoretical advantages; (2) that a causal distinction between the focus' and the 'anchor' of desire suggests an ineliminable 'opacity' of desire; and (3) that some affective concept, such as 'pleasure', should play a key role in psychological explanation, distinct from that of motivational (or cognitive) concepts. A concept of 'reward' or 'pleasure' as intrinsically positive affect is defended, and contrasted with the more 'operational' definitions of 'reward' in some of the hypotheses of Roy Wise. (shrink)

Across species, animals have an intrinsic drive to approach appetitive stimuli and to withdraw from aversive stimuli. In affective science, influential theories of emotion link positive affect with strengthened behavioural approach and negative affect with avoidance. Based on these theories, we predicted that individuals’ positive and negative affect levels should particularly influence their behaviour when innate Pavlovian approach/avoidance tendencies conflict with learned instrumental behaviours. Here, across two experiments – exploratory Experiment 1 (N = 91) and a preregistered confirmatory Experiment (...) 2 (N = 335) – we assessed how induced positive and negative affect influenced Pavlovian-instrumental interactions in a reward/punishment Go/No-Go task. Contrary to our hypotheses, we found no evidence for a main effect of positive/negative affect on either approach/avoidance behaviour or Pavlovian-instrumental interactions. However, we did find evidence that the effects of induced affect on behaviour were moderated by individual differences in self-reported behavioural inhibition and gender. Exploratory computational modelling analyses explained these demographic moderating effects as arising from positive correlations between demographic factors and individual differences in the strength of Pavlovian-instrumental interactions. These findings serve to sharpen our understanding of the effects of positive and negative affect on instrumental behaviour. (shrink)

Notwithstanding the demands of retributive desert, strict criminal liability is sometimes defensible when the strict liability pertains, not to whether conduct is to be criminalized at all, but to the seriousness of the actor’s crime. Suppose an actor commits an intentional assault or rape, and accidentally brings about a death. Punishing the actor more seriously because the death resulted is sometimes justifiable, even absent proof of his independent culpability as to the death. But what punishment is proportionate for such (...) an actor? Should he be punished as harshly as an intentional or knowing killer? This article offers a framework for analysing these difficult questions. After rejecting a broad forfeiture justification for strict liability in grading, it articulates a more promising set of arguments, premised on the actor’s ‘change of normative position’ by choosing to commit a crime. Three principles of culpability sometimes justify strict liability in grading: holistic culpability, attention to the degree of unjustifiability of the risk, and rough comparability in culpability. Strict liability in grading can be appropriate when the risk of committing the more serious crime (i) is a risk intrinsic to the less serious crime or (ii) is minimally foreseeable. The article also addresses the relevance of moral luck, ie the principle that the fortuitous occurrence of a result or circumstance increases the actor’s just deserts. Even if moral luck is recognized, it cannot fully justify strict liability in grading. (shrink)

Socrates has an implicit argument for his afterlife story that concludes the Gorgias, with two key premises. One is at 527a–c, where he summarizes the ethical position he has been arguing for through most of the dialogue, regarding the intrinsic goodness of justice, the intrinsic badness of injustice, and the desirability of rehabilitative punishments. The second occurs at 507e–508a, where Socrates asserts that the universe is held together by justice. This argument explains why Socrates regards his story as (...) a logos, not merely a muthos. It also helps us understand the nature of the rewards and punishments in his story. (shrink)

Retributivists believe that punishment can be deserved, and that deserved punishment is intrinsically good or important. They also believe that certain crimes deserve certain quantities of punishment. On the plausible assumption that the overall amount of any given punishment is a function of its severity and duration, we might think that retributivists would be indifferent as to whether a punishment were long and light or short and sharp, provided the offender gets the overall amount of (...) punishment he deserves. In this paper I argue against this, showing that retributivists should actually prefer shorter and more severe punishments to longer, gentler options. I show this by focusing on, and developing a series of interpretations of, the retributivist claim that not punishing the guilty is bad, focusing on the relationship between that badness and time. I then show that each interpretation leads to a preference for shorter over longer punishment. (shrink)

This article presents a philosophical account of the nature of crime. It argues that the criminal law contains both fault-based crimes and strict liability offences, and that these two represent different paradigms of liability. It goes on to argue that the gist of fault-based crimes lies in their being public wrongs, not (as is often thought) because they wrong the public, but because the public is responsible for punishing them, i.e. because they merit state punishment. What makes wrongs deserving (...) of punishment is that they are seriously blameworthy, inasmuch as they evince a disrespect for the values violated. But they only merit state punishment when they violate important values, not simply due to the well-known pragmatic considerations against the use of the criminal law, but to the intrinsic expressive force of criminal conviction. Finally, the analysis of fault-based crimes points to a role for strict liability in regulating actions that are not seriously blameworthy but do increase the risk of values being damaged. (shrink)