Abstract

In this dissertation I defend the claim that self-determination is a goal of correctional counseling. My defense is composed of three parts. First, I argue that any sort of punishment is justified only if it is intended to morally educate the person who is punished. This is important because only a moral education account of the justification of punishment makes sense of the idea that punishment is a good for the person punished by explaining how punishment can facilitate self-improvement. Second, I defend state paternalism insofar as it punishes on the basis of a developmental conception of self-determination. While a paternalistic act always infringes on the autonomy of the subject in some way, it is justified whenever it also promotes her autonomy in other ways. Drawing on the work of Mitchell Aboulafla and Lawrence Kohlberg, I argue that a fully self-determined person has internalized moral values. In the third and final part of my dissertation, I show that persons involved in correctional counseling, whatever their theoretical orientation may be, do aim to facilitate the sort of self-determination I describe, and that this goal is in no respect culture-specific or relativistic