The Philosophy of Irregular Punishment

• In Event: Crime, Science and Politics WG Panel 1. Criminal Policy legitimation

Abstract

In recent decades there have been theoretical advances in our understanding of the expressive or communicative nature and function of punishment. However, the implications of this element of punishment for our normative understanding of other state institutions is not yet fully explored. According to the expressive idea, punishment is not just hard treatment by an authority, but it also involves an expression of censure for a wrongdoing. It is natural to consider when else states may express censure that is accompanied by hard treatment, including in the broader exercise of the police and criminal justice system, and how we should understand its legitimacy. Further, if we take seriously the idea that the contents of communication are not reducible to the speaker’s intentions, then non-intentional punishment becomes a significant category. In this paper I explore the contours of this problem and defend in particular the possibility of non-intentional state punishment against recent critique.

Author

• Christopher Nathan, Trilateral Research