Despite our moral misgivings, retributive canons of justice-the return of evil to evildoers-remain entrenched in law, literature, and popular moral precept. In this wide-ranging examination of retribution, Marvin Henberg argues that the persistence and pervasiveness of this concept is best understood from a perspective of evolutionary naturalism. After tracing its origins in human biology and psychology, he shows how retribution has been treated historically in such diverse cultural expressions as law codes, scriptures, drama, poetry, philosophy, and novels. Henberg considers retributive (...) thought in light of contemporary moral theory and current social and political concerns and advances his own theory of the morality of legal punishment."Retribution is no single doctrine or unified set of doctrines, but rather a sprawling variety of doctrines, many of them at odds with one another," observes Henberg. He suggests that understanding retributive thought as the quest for solace in the face of suffering helps to explain its variable nature. Since there is no single defensible moral criterion for identifying exact retaliation, culture is more important than nature in selecting among retributive practices. Typically, some forms of retribution are culturally approved, while others are disapproved. In place of the mistaken tendency to think of legal punishment as morally justified, Henberg maintains that legal punishment should be thought of as morally permitted. Author note: Marvin Henberg is Professor and Chair of the Department of Philosophy and Director of the University Honors Program at the University of Idaho. (shrink)

Play requires security from sober concems, and only recently have non-native North Americans feIt secure enough in wildemess lands to view them as potential playgrounds. Employing a pretend quality of play illusion, many kinds of play are derivatives from normally sober activities. I argue that the most genuine sorts of wildemess play derive from the activities of the original geographical explorers. It is thus possible to distinguish types of play for which wildemess is especially suited from types that merely happen (...) in the wildemess-i.e., for which wildemess is an accidental playground. Play values are important enough to receive serious consideration in the administration of wildemess lands, and Iconclude that our public policy ought to favor wildemess activities that most closely imitate the activities of the original geographical explorers. (shrink)

Half-truths lie notoriously at the heart of publicly indulged instances of rationalization and excuse-making. Politicians and administrators, for example, explain away failed policies or even overt malfeasance by snatching at some particle of truth, some ostensibly saving grace. A halftruth articulated – the nominal truth – covers what I shall henceforth refer to as a sleeping truth – a truth that can lie in both senses of the word. We let a sleeping truth lie undisturbed, without proper examination or scrutiny, (...) and sometimes we let it lie in the matter of helping underwrite a deception: the policy or malfeasance was not, after all, that bad. Even when we discern the sleeping truth, we let the halftruth stand, because the one proffering it is like us – fallibly human, pressed for time perhaps or an unfortunate victim of circumstance. Sometimes the effort of calling a spade a spade may be forgone simply because there is not enough morally at stake. (shrink)

Play requires security from sober concems, and only recently have non-native North Americans feIt secure enough in wildemess lands to view them as potential playgrounds. Employing a pretend quality of play illusion, many kinds of play are derivatives from normally sober activities. I argue that the most genuine sorts of wildemess play derive from the activities of the original geographical explorers. It is thus possible to distinguish types of play for which wildemess is especially suited from types that merely happen (...) in the wildemess-i.e., for which wildemess is an accidental playground. Play values are important enough to receive serious consideration in the administration of wildemess lands, and Iconclude that our public policy ought to favor wildemess activities that most closely imitate the activities of the original geographical explorers. (shrink)

Continuing control over the political and developmental policies of Amazonia has become perhaps the last best hope of the Brazilian military establishment, which has seen its principal raisons d'etre—the threats traditionally thought to be posed by foreign enemies and internal subversion—disappear in recent years. Alfred Stepan has clarified the unusually high level of "military prerogatives" exercised in the post-1985 Brazilian political system, which relate to a wider theoretical consideration of political and biological diversity and are linked both directly and analogously, (...) particularly in the Amazon region. In this regard, the direction of development policy in the greater Amazon region suggests the relevance of this military "policy prerogative" to the future of civil-military relations in Brazil, and the survival of one of the world's last great wildernesses. (shrink)