Anthony Ellis attempts to offer a deterrence theory of punishment that overcomes a number of common criticisms of deterrence theories in general. While his discussion does suggest many interesting responses that proponents of deterrence theories might use, the theory he defends is problematic for several reasons.

This new second edition of Punishment includes a revised and expanded defence of the groundbreaking unified theory of punishment that brings together elements of retribution, deterrence and rehabilitation into a new coherent framework. Thom Brooks expands the chapter length case studies from capital punishment, juvenile offending, domestic violence and sex crimes to include new chapters on social media offences and corporate liability addressing some of today's most pressing issues in criminal justice.

As the recent edition of the Wittgenstein’s Whewell’s Court Lectures shows, Wittgenstein mentioned Hume several times in the series of lectures on belief. Towards the end of the Thirties, in fact, he came across Hume’s Abstract of the Treatise, a pamphlet that Piero Sraffa and John Maynard Keynes had ‘discovered’ at the end of 1933, re-edited in 1937 and finally published in March 1938 – Sraffa, with whom Wittgenstein had an intense intercourse in 1938-1941, donated him a copy. A lexical (...) analysis of excerpts of Wittgenstein’s ET 1940 lectures strongly suggests that he read the Abstract in March-May 1940, and shows that some of the issues he discussed in his lectures at that time revolve around the peculiar definition that Hume gave in that text of the feeling of belief. (shrink)

Paul Thom argues that opera is a set of practices framed by the concepts of work, interpretation, performance, and art. His argument is that operatic works have the potential to be art, but so do operatic productions, independently of their value as interpretations of the works they stage.

This article describes a study on capacity limitations that affect the construction of spatial mental models. A process model is presented, according to which the construction of a mental model in Ehrlich and Johnson-Laird's (1982) spatial descriptions task places a workload of six information chunks for continuous and semi-continuous descriptions, and seven chunks for discontinuous descriptions. Participants (48 undergraduate students) performed the spatial descriptions task and the figural intersections test (FIT), which yields a capacity score. The pattern of errors and (...) sentence reading times in the spatial descriptions task confirmed that participants were using mental models. The FIT score was positively correlated with accuracy in the spatial descriptions task. Prediction analysis of cross-classification tables showed that, for successful performance in continuous and semi-continuous descriptions, a FIT score of 6 was necessary, and a score of 7 in discontinuous descriptions. These results are in agreement with theoretical predictions. The issue of integrating mental models theory with analyses of capacity limitations in performance is discussed. (shrink)

Punishment is a topic of increasing importance for citizens and policy makers. Why should we punish criminals? Which theory of punishment is most compelling? Is the death penalty ever justified? These questions and many others are addressed in this highly engaging guide. Punishment is a critical introduction to the philosophy of punishment offering a new and refreshing approach that will benefit readers of all backgrounds and interests. This is the first critical guide to examine all leading contemporary theories of punishment, (...) including the communicative theory of punishment, restorative justice, and the unified theory of punishment. There are also several case studies examined in detail including capital punishment, juvenile offending, and domestic abuse. -/- Punishment highlights the problems and prospects of different approaches in order to argue for a more pluralistic and compelling perspective that is novel and groundbreaking. -/- Introduction; Retributivism; Deterrence; Rehabilitation; Restorative Justice; Rawls, Hart, and "mixed" theories; Expressivism; The Unified Theory; Capital Punishment; Juvenile Offending; Domestic Abuse; Sexual Crimes; Conclusion; Index. (shrink)

Thom Brooks reviews two books by Theodor Adorno.

Widely hailed as one of the most significant works in modern political philosophy, John Rawls's _Political Liberalism_ defended a powerful vision of society that respects reasonable ways of life, both religious and secular. These core values have never been more critical as anxiety grows over political and religious difference and new restrictions are placed on peaceful protest and individual expression. This anthology of original essays suggests new, groundbreaking applications of Rawls's work in multiple disciplines and contexts. Thom Brooks, Martha (...) Nussbaum, Onora O'Neill, Paul Weithman, Jeremy Waldron, and Frank Michelman explore political liberalism's relevance to the challenges of multiculturalism, the relationship between the state and religion, the struggle for political legitimacy, and the capabilities approach. Extending Rawls's progressive thought to the fields of law, economics, and public reason, this book helps advance the project of a free society that thrives despite disagreements over religious and moral views. (shrink)

The punishment of criminals is a topic of long-standing philosophical interest since the ancient Greeks. This interest has focused on several considerations, including the justification of punishment, who should be permitted to punish, and how we might best set punishments for crimes. This entry focuses on the most important contributions in this field. The focus will be on specific theoretical approaches to punishment including both traditional theories of punishment (retributivism, deterrence, rehabilitation) and more contemporary alternatives (expressivism, restorative justice, hybrid theories, (...) unified theories) with an additional section on capital punishment, perhaps the particular form of punishment that has received the most sustained philosophical attention. These theories of punishment address two important questions: first, who should be permitted to punish and, secondly, who should be permitted to be punished. These questions then concern the justification of punishment and its distribution. While the majority today often identifies their theories as retributivist, there is a great diversity of theories defended. This entry will highlight the leading work for each view. (shrink)

This paper presents GlamMap, a visualization tool for large, multi-variate georeferenced humanities data sets. Our approach visualizes the data as glyphs on a zoomable geographic map, and performs clustering and data aggregation at each zoom level to avoid clutter and to prevent overlap of symbols. GlamMap was developed for the Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums (GLAM) domain in cooperation with researchers in philosophy. We demonstrate the usefulness of our approach by a case study on history of logic, which involves navigation (...) and exploration of 7100 bibliographic records, and scalability on a data set of sixty million book records. (shrink)

Review of Benjamin Yost's Against Capital Punishment by Thom Brooks.

The essay deals with the mechanism of interpretation for legal metaphorical expressions. Firstly, it points out the perspective the cognitive approach induced about legal metaphors; then it suggests that this perspective gains in plausibility when a new bilateral model of language understanding is endorsed. A possible sketch of the meaning-making procedure for legal metaphors, compatible with this new model, is then proposed, and illustrated with some examples built on concepts belonging to the Italian Civil Code. The insights the bilateral model (...) of understanding provides are compared with the practice followed by legal communities for dealing with the metaphorical expressions they coin and use. (shrink)

In 1929 Ludwig Wittgenstein met Raffaello Piccoli, the Serena Professor of Italian, with whom he arranged several meetings in the following terms. For a long time their intellectual friendship was suggested only by the occurrences of Piccoli’s name in Wittgenstein’s Cambridge Pocket Diaries, then a paper about Piccoli including hypothesis on his meetings with Wittgenstein was published (Marjanović 2005), and more recently, the diaries of a student of both Piccoli and Wittgenstein in 1929 – 1930 were discovered. The new material, (...) on the background of data now available about Piccoli’s life and works, throws new light onto his relationship with Wittgenstein, and hypothesis on the topics of their conversations are also advanced. Piccoli’s perspective on the difference between ethics, religion and philosophy on the one hand and science on the other was in tune with Wittgenstein’s view and similar was also their aversion towards scientism; furthermore, Piccoli had read many of the authors for which Wittgenstein showed an interest in 1930 – 1931 – Freud, Spengler, Frazer, Augustine, and also James. (shrink)

A new edition of the first systematic reading of Hegel's political philosophy Elements of the Philosophy of Right is widely acknowledged to be one of the most important works in the history of political philosophy. This is the first book on the subject to take Hegel's system of speculative philosophy seriously as an important component of any robust understanding of this text. Key Features •Sets out the difference between 'systematic' and 'non-systematic' readings of Philosophy of Right •Outlines the unique structure (...) of Hegel's philosophical arguments •Explores key areas of Hegel's political philosophy: his theories of property, punishment, morality, law, monarchy, war, democracy and history This significantly expanded second edition includes: a more detailed explanation of Hegel's philosophical system, two new chapters on his theories of democracy and history and an appendix detailing the implications this work has for future interpretations of Hegel's philosophy. (shrink)

In both Great Britain and the United States there has been a growing debate about the modern acceptability of jury nullification. Properly understood, juries do not have any constitutional right to ignore the law, but they do have the power to do so nevertheless. Juries that nullify may be motivated by a variety of concerns: too harsh sentences, improper government action, racism, etc. In this article, I shall attempt to defend jury nullification on a number of grounds. First, I discuss (...) the use of general verdicts and reject their replacement in criminal trials by special verdicts. Second, I examine verdicts based upon mistakes and racial prejudice, turning my attention to perverse verdicts and the question of whether or not juries are guilty of legislating when nullifying the law. Finally, I look at the problem of the awarding of excessive damages by juries. My goal will be to provide a sound theoretical defence of the practice of jury nullification. (shrink)

First published in 1998. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Global justice is an exciting area of refreshing, innovative new ideas for a changing world facing significant challenges. Not only does work in this area often force us to rethink about ethics and political philosophy more generally, but its insights contain seeds of hope for addressing some of the greatest global problems facing humanity today. The Oxford Handbook of Global Justice has been selective in bringing together some of the most pressing topics and issues in global justice as understood by (...) the leading voices from both established and rising stars across twenty-five new chapters. This Handbook explores severe poverty, climate change, egalitarianism, global citizenship, human rights, immigration, territorial rights, and much more. (shrink)

This article argues that even if we grant that murderers may deserve death in principle, retributivists should still oppose capital punishment. The reason? Our inability to know with certainty whether or not individuals possess the necessary level of desert. In large part due to advances in science, we can only be sure that no matter how well the trial is administered or how many appeals are allowed or how many years we let elapse, we will continue to execute innocent persons (...) for as long as we legalize capital punishment. Thus, on grounds of desert, this article argues that retributivists should oppose capital punishment. (shrink)

The future of philosophy is moving towards “global philosophy.” The idea of global philosophy is the view that different philosophical approaches may engage more substantially with each other to solve philosophical problems. Most solutions attempt to use only those available resources located within one philosophical tradition. A more promising approach might be to expand the range of available resources to better assist our ability to offer more compelling solutions. This search for new horizons in order to improve our clarity about (...) philosophical issues is at the heart of global philosophy. The idea of global philosophy encourages us to look beyond our traditions to improve our philosophical problem-solving by our own lights. Global philosophy is a new approach whose time is coming. This essay offers the first account of this approach and an assessment of its future promise. (shrink)

Exploring the use of nudges and informed consent in medical ethics.

The first full-length study of Robert Kilwardby's commentary on Aristotle's Prior Analytics, based on a study of the medieval manuscripts.

This book recounts the remarkable history of efforts by significant medieval thinkers to accommodate the ontology of the Trinity within the framework of Aristotelian logic and ontology. These efforts were remarkable because they pushed creatively beyond the boundaries of existing thought while trying to strike a balance between the Church's traditional teachings and theoretical rigor in a context of institutional politics. In some cases, good theology, good philosophy, and good politics turned out to be three different things. The principal thinkers (...) discussed are Augustine, Boethius, Abélard, Gilbert of Poitiers, Bonaventure, Aquinas, Scotus, and Ockham. The aspects of Trinitarian doctrine dealt with are primarily internal ontological questions about the Trinity. The approach draws on history of theology and philosophy, as well as on the modern formal disciplines of set-theoretic semantics and formal ontology. Augustine inaugurated the project of constructing models of the Trinity in language drawn from Platonic and Aristotelian philosophy, especially the conceptual framework of Aristotle's Categories. He used the Aristotelian notions of substance and relation to set up a model whose aim was not so much to demystify the Trinity as to demonstrate the logical consistency of maintaining that there is one and only one God at the same time as maintaining that there are three distinct persons, each of whom is God. Standing against this tradition are various heretical accounts of the Trinity. The book also analyzes these traditions, using the same techniques. All these accounts of the Trinity are evaluated relative to the three constraints under which they were formed, bearing in mind that the constraints on philosophical theorizing are not limited to internal consistency but also take note of explanatory power. Besides analyzing and evaluating individual accounts of the Trinity, the book provides a novel framework within which different theories can be compared. (shrink)

"Appointment Denied is the true story behind the Bertrand Russell/City College controversy, where academic freedom, religious fervor, and political expediency combined to form a volatile mixture that posed a palpable threat to higher education in America."--BOOK JACKET.

Deryck Beyleveld has forged a theory of ethical rationalism that has made an important impact on legal and moral philosophy—that this collection of essays makes clear. He has not only refined and improved the original account developed by Alan Gewirth, but provides us with ethical rationalism’s most prolific defender today. One area of particular insight is Beyleveld’s many applications of ethical rationalism to practice and, most especially, to medical law and ethics which has been especially influential. This work has set (...) the bar for all proponents and critics alike. -/- We focus narrowly on a specific concern that we have with ethical rationalism: its primacy of rationality over other characteristics, such as our emotions. This is not to deny the importance of reason in our thinking about law and ethical concerns. But we have concerns with any view that holds that reason is the only key to how any tensions should be resolved. Such a position claims for reason a privileged status it does not have or merit. One problem for us is that, in our view, ethical rationalism does not appear to adequately consider the importance of emotions and so it does not provide a satisfactory account of law and morality as a result. We examine this concern in the first part of our chapter. -/- This chapter’s second part raises concerns with the application of ethical rationalism as a model for understanding sexual offences. We highlight both the need to foreground emotion in order to understand the current law, as well as the dangers from a normative perspective of appearing to marginalise the role of emotion in sexual offences. Not only would a prioritisation of rationality fail to reflect the role emotion can play in current rape law, but we would argue, is particularly problematic in this area of law in terms of promoting justice. In summary, Beyleveld’s ethical rationalism exercises an important impact on legal theory and legal practices. Nonetheless, we raise some reservations about its connection to these impacts that lead us to support revisions to this approach. (shrink)

The purpose of this essay is to critically appraise J. Angelo Corlett's recent interpretation of Kant's theory of punishment as well as his rejection of Hegel's penology. In taking Kant to be a retributivist at a primary level and a proponent of deterrence at a secondary level, I believe Corlett has inappropriately wed together Kant's distinction between moral and positive law. Moreover, his support of Kant on these grounds is misguided as it is instead Hegel who holds such a distinction. (...) Finally, I attempt to refute the almost timeless retributivist rejection of deterrence-based theories of punishment on the grounds that the latter somehow would condone in some cases the punishment of innocent persons. These individuals almost always demand that no innocent person be punished as a rule of the highest order. (shrink)

Deterrence is a theory which claims that punishment is justified through preventing future crimes, and is one of the oldest and most powerful theories about punishment. This volume brings together the leading work on deterrence from the dominant international figures in the field. Deterrence is examined from various critical perspectives, including its diversity, relation with desert, the relation of deterrence with incapacitation and prevention, the role deterrence has played in debates over the death penalty, and deterrence and corporate crime.

World leaders from the United States, the United Kingdom, and beyond have declared that multiculturalism has failed. They agree that multicultural pluralism promotes division and undermines the solidarity required by any community for long-term cohesion. They are wrong, but the problem of securing cohesion is real. Hegel’s Philosophy of Right offers crucial insights into how the alienation endemic in modernity can be overcome through reconciliation and stakeholding. This analysis shows how multicultural pluralism can be achieved and promoted without sacrificing solidarity.

How should we determine which nations have a responsibility to remedy suffering elsewhere? The problem is pressing because, following David Miller, ‘[it] is morally intolerable if (remediable) suffering and deprivation are allowed to continue . . . where they exist we are morally bound to hold somebody (some person or collective agent) responsible for relieving them’. Miller offers a connection theory of remedial responsibilities in response to this problem, a theory he has been developing over the last decade. This theory (...) is meant to serve as a guide on how we can best determine which nations are remedially responsible for alleviating suffering and deprivation elsewhere. Miller’s theory entails our following a procedure in order to determine remedial responsibility for nations. The problem is that there is an important flaw in this procedure, a flaw that previous critiques have overlooked. This essay will explain this flaw and how Miller’s theory might be reformulated into a two-tiered procedure that would take better account of this problem. Keywords: Global justice; nationalism; Miller; identity; distributive justice; severe poverty (Published: 16 September 2011) Citation: Ethics & Global Politics, Vol. 4 , No. 3, 2011, pp. 195-202. DOI: 10.3402/egp.v4i3.7140. (shrink)

Plato justifies the concentration and exercise of power for persons endowed with expertise in political governance. This article argues that this justification takes two distinctly different sets of arguments. The first is what I shall call his 'ideal political philosophy' described primarily in the Republic as rule by philosopher-kings wielding absolute authority over their subjects. Their authority stems solely from their comprehension of justice, from which they make political judgements on behalf of their city-state. I call the second set of (...) arguments Plato's 'practical political philosophy' underlying his later thought, where absolute rule by philosopher-kings is undermined by the impure character of all political knowledge. Whereas the complete comprehension of justice sanctions the absolute political power of those with this expertise, partial knowledge of justice disallows for such a large investment of power. Plato's practical political philosophy argues for a mixed theory of governance fusing the institutions of monarchy with democracy in the best practical city-state. Thus, Plato comes to realize the insurmountable difficulties of his ideal political thought, preferring a more practical political philosophy instead. (shrink)