The Limits of Blame

The Limits of Blame PDF Author: Erin I. Kelly
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674980778
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
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.

The Limits of Blame

The Limits of Blame PDF Author: Erin I. Kelly
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674980778
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 241

Get Book Here

Book Description
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.

Harm and Blame in Punishment

Harm and Blame in Punishment PDF Author: Rachel Horton
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Punishment
Languages : en
Pages : 162

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Book Description


The Limits of Blame

The Limits of Blame PDF Author: Erin I. Kelly
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674989414
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 241

Get Book Here

Book Description
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.

Blame and Punishment

Blame and Punishment PDF Author: Sanford H. Kadish
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books For Young Readers
ISBN:
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 346

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Book Description


Blame

Blame PDF Author: D. Justin Coates
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019986084X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 331

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Book Description
What is it to blame someone, and when are would-be blamers in a position to do so? What function does blame serve in our lives, and is it a valuable way of relating to one another? The essays in this volume explore answers to these and related questions.

Shame, Blame, and Culpability

Shame, Blame, and Culpability PDF Author: Judith Rowbotham
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136275460
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
This ground-breaking collection of research-based chapters addresses the themes of shame, blame and culpability in their historical perspective in the broad area of crime, violence and the modern state, drawing on less familiar territories such as Russia and Greece, not just on material from familiar locations in western Europe. Ranging from the early modern to the late twentieth century, the collection has implications for how we understand punishments imposed by states or the community today. Shame, blame and culpability is divided into three sections, with a crucial case study part complementing two theoretical parts on shame, and on blame and culpability; exploring the continuance of shaming strategies and examining their interaction with and challenge to 'modern' state-sponsored blaming mechanisms, including allocations of culpability. The collection includes chapters on the deviant body, capital punishment and, of particular interest, Russian case studies, which demonstrate the extent to which the Russian, like the Greek, experience need to be seen as part of a wider European whole when examining ideas and themes. The volume challenges ideas that shame strategies were largely eradicated in post-Enlightenment western states and societies; showing their survival into the twentieth century as a challenge to state dominance over identification of what constituted 'crime' and also over punishment practices. Shame, blame and culpability will be a key text for students and academics in the fields of criminology and crime, gender or European history.

The Problem of Blame

The Problem of Blame PDF Author: Kelly McCormick
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108905463
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 237

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Book Description
This book makes a case for the permissibility of reactive blame – the angry, harmful variety. Blame is a thorny philosophical problem, as it is notoriously difficult to specify the conditions under which an agent is deserving of blame, is deserving of blame in the basic sense, and furthermore why this is so. Kelly McCormick argues that sharpening the focus to reactive, angry blame can both show us how best to characterize the problem itself, and suggest a possible solution to it, because even reactive blame is both valuable and deserved in the basic sense. Finally, McCormick shows how, despite the many facets of the dark side of blame, adopting an explicitly victim-centered approach highlights a powerful argument from empathy for retaining reactive blame and its attendant attitudes and practices.

Blame

Blame PDF Author: D. Justin Coates
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199860831
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
One mark of interpersonal relationships is a tendency to blame. But what precise evaluations and responses constitute blame? Is it most centrally a judgment, or is it an emotion, or something else? Does blame express a demand, or embody a protest, or does it simply mark an impaired relationship? What accounts for its force or sting, and how similar is it to punishment? The essays in this volume explore answers to these (and other) questions about the nature of blame, but they also explore the various norms that govern the propriety of blame. The traditional question is whether anyone ever deserves to be blamed, but the essays here provide a fresh perspective by focusing on blame from the blamer's perspective instead. Is our tendency to blame a vice, something we should work to replace with more humane ways of relating, or does it rather lie at the very heart of a commitment to morality? What can we legitimately expect of each other, and in general, what sort of attitude do would-be blamers need to have in order to have the standing to blame? Hypocritical or self-righteous blame seems objectionable, but why? The contributions to this volume aim to give us a fuller picture of the nature and norms of blame, and more generally of the promises and perils of membership in the human moral community.

Blame and Punish

Blame and Punish PDF Author: Bruce Carlson
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781736727614
Category : FAMILY & RELATIONSHIPS
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
Blame and Punish examines the most serious subject our continued human existence has - that of crime, most specifically: murder. A 30-year plan is presented to eliminate murder (and all crime) from our planet so we have a chance for a future. The problem of crime is identified as stemming from children not being raised right. That being the case, parents must be Blamed and Punished along with their children for any crime they commit - regardless of the age of the child when they commit it. If the parents had not put that child on our planet - they could not have committed a crime. Period. That is factual and cannot be argued with. Period, again. Our society and crime are looked at from the beginning of civilization along with examples of crimes, our premise and its solutions, and help on how to raise children right.--Publisher.

War Crimes

War Crimes PDF Author: Matthew Talbert
Publisher:
ISBN: 019067587X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 185

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Book Description
Why do war crimes occur? Are perpetrators of war crimes always blameworthy? In an original and challenging thesis, this book argues that war crimes are often explained by perpetrators' beliefs, goals, and values, and in these cases perpetrators may be blameworthy even if they sincerely believed that they were doing the right thing.