Criminal Blame, Exclusion and Moral Dialogue

In her recent book The Limits of Blame, Erin Kelly argues that we should rethink the nature of punishment because delivering blame is, contrary to the widely held view, not among the justifiable aims of a criminal justice system. In this paper, firstly, I discuss her case against criminal blame. Kelly argues that the emphasis on blame in the criminal justice system and in public discourse is one of the main causes of the stigma and exclusion faced by those convicted for a crime. This claim might appear puzzling and, while she provides other convincing arguments against criminal blame, Kelly does not extensively defend this particular argument. To offer support for this view, I reflect on the often overlooked distinction between moral blame and criminal blame to show how the latter, unlike the former, is exclusionary and stigmatising. Secondly, I address the claim put forth by Kelly that blame should play no role in the criminal justice system at all. In light of her argument about the optional nature of moral blame, I explore the possibility that the state should leave open to victims the option to blame criminal wrongdoers in restorative justice conferences. I argue that in such contexts blame would not have the same exclusionary features of criminal blame in traditional settings and that it could serve some valuable aims articulated by communicative theories of punishment, such as the restoration of moral relationships.

Culture and Ethics

The necessity for global ethics to guide international and intercultural research is by no means new phenomenon. In 1996, James Bretzke wrote about a then-growing appeal for global ethics, which led to a habitude of scholarly employment of hermeneutical and communicative theories that were thought to represent workable models for Christian ethics. The notion of morality has been subjected to descriptive references by socio-anthropologists when they report on the moral comportment of the societies they study. A descriptive explanation should suffice as a micro definition for the purpose of associating the notions of ethics and morality with the conduct of individuals on the basis of membership affiliation. A normative definition that is applicable to all humans would depict a macro or universal account. Gert and Gert specified that a condition of rationality is almost always a requirement for moral agency.

International Criminal Justice and Expressivist Theory

The origins of expressivism lie in sociology (e.g. Emile Durkheim) and communicative theories of criminal law (e.g. Joel Feinberg, Antony Duff). These ideas have been developed in contemporary criminal law doctrine (e.g. Günther Jakobs, Andrew von Hirsch, Tatjana Hörnle, Claus Roxin), transitional justice (e.g. Mark Osiel, Pablo de Greiff), and international criminal law. The chapter develops a contemporary theory of expressivism. It argues that expressivism is rooted in a communicative cycle between norms as messages, crimes as messages, and judicial responses. This triad provides an explanation for the functioning of expressivism. It can be divided into norm expression and diverse types of agent-related expression. Their application involves different tensions: empirics versus faith, power-related critiques, instrumentalism, and mediation of messages.

Introduction

The introduction situates Against Capital Punishment within larger philosophical debates about punishment. It begins by reminding readers why punishment needs to be justified at all, emphasizing punishment’s normative significance in liberal polities, where any coercive state action must survive rigorous scrutiny. Moving to capital punishment, it explains why it is most philosophically profitable to focus on the retributive slice of the debate and exclude communicative, restitutive, and consequentialist competitors: restitutive and communicative theories are fundamentally incompatible with execution, and deterrence theories stand or fall with social scientific research, which fails to establish execution’s preventative effect. The introduction also lays out the dialectical strategy of the book, which is to present the strongest possible case for the retentionist program, then develop an abolitionism that defeats this view.

Justifying Punishment

Chapter 5 is the first of the three chapters of Playing Fair that make the case for fair play as the basis for a compelling justification of legal punishment. As it was with the discussion of political obligation, so it is necessary to begin this part of the book by clarifying key terms and confronting fundamental challenges to the enterprise of justifying punishment itself. The chapter thus begins with the questions of what is punishment and what are its proper aims. The latter question is usually answered by reference to retributivism and/or deterrence, and I try to place fair-play theory in this context by linking it to communicative theories of punishment while distinguishing it from Jean Hampton’s expressive version of retributivism. The chapter concludes with responses to those who would, for various reasons, abolish punishment altogether.

Language-Action Perspective (LAP)

The Language-action perspective (LAP) provides an alternative foundation for analyzing and designing effective information systems. The fundamental principle of the LAP approach is people perform actions through communication; therefore, the role of information systems is to support such communications among people to achieve business goals. Basing on linguistic and communicative theories, the LAP approach provides guidance for researchers to gain understanding on how people use communication to coordinate their activities to achieve common goal. Web services, a leading technology to develop information systems, aims to support communication among services to achieve business goals. The close match between fundamental principles of Web services and the LAP approach suggests that researchers can use the LAP approach as a theoretical guidance to analyze and resolve Web service problems. This chapter provides a comprehensive starting point for researchers, practitioners, and students to gain understanding of the LAP approach.