Ulteriori informazioni
Punishment for the Greater Good examines the justification of punishment in the here and now, recognizing that we are uncertain about matters of both fact and value. With over ten million people incarcerated around the world, we don't have time to wait for the perfect moral theory: Kolber shows how to do the best we can with what we already know.
Sommario
- Chapter 1: Punishment Theory Here and Now
- Chapter 2: Axiology Here and Now
- Chapter 3: Shortcut Consequentialism
- Chapter 4: Countering Counterintuition
- Chapter 5: Against Proportionality
- Chapter 6: Retributivism is Too Morally Risky
- Chapter 7: Abolish Incarceration, But Not Today
Info autore
Adam J. Kolber is Professor of Law at Brooklyn Law School where he writes and teaches in criminal law, jurisprudence, and neurolaw. He was a visiting fellow at Princeton University's Center for Human Values and NYU Law School's Center for Research in Crime and Justice. He has clerked for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, practiced law at Davis Polk & Wardwell, and worked as a business ethics consultant at PricewaterhouseCoopers. Professor Kolber graduated Order of the Coif from Stanford Law School and summa cum laude from Princeton University where he won the Class of 1879 Prize in Ethics.
Riassunto
Over ten million people are incarcerated throughout the world, even though punishment theorists have struggled for centuries to morally justify the practice. Theorists usually address criminal justice under abstract, idealized conditions that assume away real-world uncertainty. We don't have time, however, to wait for a perfect moral theory, and the history of philosophy suggests we will never find it.Punishment for the Greater Goodexamines the justification of punishment in the here and now, recognizing that we lack certainty about matters of both fact and value.
Retributivists believe offenders deserve punishment because of their wrongdoing. They treat deserved punishment as intrinsically valuable. Adam Kolber argues that retributivism is too incomplete as a theory to address punishment at present and that the widely popular notion of proportional punishment at its core is both elusive and often undesirable.
Rather than seeking retribution, we should reduce total societal suffering by deterring crime, incapacitating dangerous people, and hopefully rehabilitating them. Though this consequentialist approach has fallen out of favor in recent decades, Kolber argues that it is better suited to addressing punishment in the here and now than the approach commonly taken by retributivists. If consequentialism successfully justifies punishment, then contrary to some carceral abolitionists, at least some incarceration under some conditions is justified today. While we will rarely know how to punish for the greatest good, wecanseek to punish for the greater good.
Testo aggiuntivo
Kolber argues that the theories need to be tested in terms of their effects in the real world. He concludes that consequentialist theories are superior since various experiments, including the abolition of prisons, can be measured in terms of their effects. Recommended.
