On Guilt, Responsibility, and Punishment
On Guilt, Responsibility, and Punishment

Author: Alf Ross

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 1975-01-01

Total Pages: 204

ISBN-13: 9780520027176

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Selected essays originally published as a book in Danish in 1970. Three had been published before then in English, but the others are new. All deal with concepts common to law and morality. "They function in the same way in legal and moral discourse: guilt determines responsibility, and responsibility punishment. But the conditions under which a person incurs guilt differ according to whether the guilt is legal or moral, as do also the manner in which the responsibility takes effect and the penal reaction itself." Cf. Preface, page v.

The Limits of Blame
The Limits of Blame

Author: Erin I. Kelly

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2018-11-12

Total Pages: 241

ISBN-13: 0674980778

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Faith in the power and righteousness of retribution has taken over the American criminal justice system. Approaching punishment and responsibility from a philosophical perspective, Erin Kelly challenges the moralism behind harsh treatment of criminal offenders and calls into question our society’s commitment to mass incarceration. The Limits of Blame takes issue with a criminal justice system that aligns legal criteria of guilt with moral criteria of blameworthiness. Many incarcerated people do not meet the criteria of blameworthiness, even when they are guilty of crimes. Kelly underscores the problems of exaggerating what criminal guilt indicates, particularly when it is tied to the illusion that we know how long and in what ways criminals should suffer. Our practice of assigning blame has gone beyond a pragmatic need for protection and a moral need to repudiate harmful acts publicly. It represents a desire for retribution that normalizes excessive punishment. Appreciating the limits of moral blame critically undermines a commonplace rationale for long and brutal punishment practices. Kelly proposes that we abandon our culture of blame and aim at reducing serious crime rather than imposing retribution. Were we to refocus our perspective to fit the relevant moral circumstances and legal criteria, we could endorse a humane, appropriately limited, and more productive approach to criminal justice.

Punishment and Responsibility
Punishment and Responsibility

Author: H. L. A. Hart

Publisher: OUP Oxford

Published: 2008-03-06

Total Pages: 651

ISBN-13: 0191021776

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This classic collection of essays, first published in 1968, has had an enduring impact on academic and public debates about criminal responsibility and criminal punishment. Forty years on, its arguments are as powerful as ever. H.L.A. Hart offers an alternative to retributive thinking about criminal punishment that nevertheless preserves the central distinction between guilt and innocence. He also provides an account of criminal responsibility that links the distinction between guilt and innocence closely to the ideal of the rule of law, and thereby attempts to by-pass unnerving debates about free will and determinism. Always engaged with live issues of law and public policy, Hart makes difficult philosophical puzzles accessible and immediate to a wide range of readers. For this new edition, otherwise a reproduction of the original, John Gardner adds an introduction engaging critically with Hart's arguments, and explaining the continuing importance of Hart's ideas in spite of the intervening revival of retributive thinking in both academic and policy circles. Unavailable for ten years, the new edition of Punishment and Responsibility makes available again the central text in the field for a new generation of academics, students and professionals engaged in criminal justice and penal policy.

Crime, Guilt, and Punishment
Crime, Guilt, and Punishment

Author: C. L. Ten

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 1987

Total Pages: 175

ISBN-13: 9780198750819

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Considering philosophical theories of punishment in light of both abstract arguments and factual evidence about the effects of punishing offenders, this book links the moral justification of punishment by the state to more general issues concerning the nature of moral disagreements and our obligations to obey the law. Ten applies his discussion to problems in the punishment of a variety of offenders--the dangerously mentally ill, Nazi war criminals, "negligent" drivers, rapists, and others--and considers several related questions about crime and punishment.

Free Will Skepticism in Law and Society
Free Will Skepticism in Law and Society

Author: Elizabeth Shaw

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2019-08-29

Total Pages: 247

ISBN-13: 1108661262

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'Free will skepticism' refers to a family of views that all take seriously the possibility that human beings lack the control in action - i.e. the free will - required for an agent to be truly deserving of blame and praise, punishment and reward. Critics fear that adopting this view would have harmful consequences for our interpersonal relationships, society, morality, meaning, and laws. Optimistic free will skeptics, on the other hand, respond by arguing that life without free will and so-called basic desert moral responsibility would not be harmful in these ways, and might even be beneficial. This collection addresses the practical implications of free will skepticism for law and society. It contains eleven original essays that provide alternatives to retributive punishment, explore what (if any) changes are needed for the criminal justice system, and ask whether we should be optimistic or pessimistic about the real-world implications of free will skepticism.

The Immorality of Punishment
The Immorality of Punishment

Author: Michael J. Zimmerman

Publisher: Broadview Press

Published: 2011-04-20

Total Pages: 197

ISBN-13: 1460401093

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In The Immorality of Punishment Michael Zimmerman argues forcefully that not only our current practice but indeed any practice of legal punishment is deeply morally repugnant, no matter how vile the behaviour that is its target. Despite the fact that it may be difficult to imagine a state functioning at all, let alone well, without having recourse to punishing those who break its laws, Zimmerman makes a timely and compelling case for the view that we must seek and put into practice alternative means of preventing crime and promoting social stability.

Mapping Responsibility
Mapping Responsibility

Author: Herbert Fingarette

Publisher: Open Court Publishing

Published: 2004

Total Pages: 200

ISBN-13: 9780812695649

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Written for philosophers as well as general readers interested in social and moral issues, Mapping Responsibility is a thoughtful exploration of the ambiguous terrain of moral responsibility. As a philosophical idea, responsibility poses vexing questions: What does it mean to be a responsible person -- that is, one who is justly held accountable and possibly punishable for an action? In exploring this and other important questions, author Herbert Fingarette employs an interdisciplinary range of ideas. He uses the theoretical standpoints of moral philosophy, moral psychology, and psychoanalytic psychology and also taps into legal scholarship on criminal justice to discuss retribution, punishment, and the state.

An Essay on Crimes and Punishments
An Essay on Crimes and Punishments

Author: Cesare Beccaria

Publisher: The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd.

Published: 2006

Total Pages: 274

ISBN-13: 1584776382

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Reprint of the fourth edition, which contains an additional text attributed to Voltaire. Originally published anonymously in 1764, Dei Delitti e Delle Pene was the first systematic study of the principles of crime and punishment. Infused with the spirit of the Enlightenment, its advocacy of crime prevention and the abolition of torture and capital punishment marked a significant advance in criminological thought, which had changed little since the Middle Ages. It had a profound influence on the development of criminal law in Europe and the United States.

Rethinking Responsibility
Rethinking Responsibility

Author: K. E. Boxer

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2013-02-07

Total Pages: 191

ISBN-13: 0199695326

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K. E. Boxer explores moral responsibility, and whether it is compatible with causal determinism. She suggests that to answer this question we must focus on responsibility in the sense of liability, and that an incompatibilist view may only be preserved on an understanding of the moral desert of punishment that many find morally problematic.

Rejecting Retributivism
Rejecting Retributivism

Author: Gregg D. Caruso

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2021-04-29

Total Pages: 401

ISBN-13: 1108484700

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Caruso argues against retributivism and develops an alternative for addressing criminal behavior that is ethically defensible and practical.