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Law, Ideology and Punishment

Retrieval and Critique of the Liberal Ideal of Criminal Justice

  • Book
  • © 1991

Overview

Authors:
  1. Alan W. Norrie

    1. School of Law, University of Warwick, Coventry, UK

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Part of the book series: Law and Philosophy Library (LAPS, volume 12)

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Table of contents (9 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xxi
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  2. Law, Ideology and Punishment

    • Alan W. Norrie
    Pages 1-14

  3. The Birth of Juridical Individualism: Hobbes and the Philosophy of Punishment

    • Alan W. Norrie
    Pages 15-38

  4. Purifying Juridical Individualism: Kantian Retributivism

    • Alan W. Norrie
    Pages 39-63

  5. Rationalising Juridical Individualism and the Rise of ‘The Irrational’: Hegel

    • Alan W. Norrie
    Pages 65-88

  6. Abstract Right and the Socialisation of Wrong: Retributivism’s English Decline and Fall

    • Alan W. Norrie
    Pages 89-112

  7. Juridical Individualism and State Power: Utilitarianism in the Twentieth Century

    • Alan W. Norrie
    Pages 113-138

  8. Juridical Individualism, Individual Freedom And Criminal Justice

    • Alan W. Norrie
    Pages 139-165

  9. Juridical Individualism, State Power And Legal Reasoning

    • Alan W. Norrie
    Pages 167-188

  10. The Limits of Legal Ideology

    • Alan W. Norrie
    Pages 189-203

  11. Back Matter

    Pages 205-223
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Keywords

About this book

This book is about 'Kantianism' in both a narrow and a broad sense. In the former, it is about the tracing of the development of the retributive philosophy of punishment into and beyond its classical phase in the work of a number of philosophers, one of the most prominent of whom is Kant. In the latter, it is an exploration of the many instantiations of the 'Kantian' ideas of individual guilt, responsibility and justice within the substantive criminal law . On their face, such discussions may owe more or less explicitly to Kant, but, in their basic intellectual structure, they share a recognisably common commitment to certain ideas emerging from the liberal Enlightenment and embodied within a theory of criminal justice and punishment which is in this broader sense 'Kantian'. The work has its roots in the emergence in the 1970s and early 1980s in the United States and Britain of the 'justice model' of penal reform, a development that was as interesting in terms of the sociology of philosophical knowledge as it was in its own right. Only a few years earlier, I had been taught in undergraduate criminology (which appeared at the time to be the only discipline to have anything interesting to say about crime and punishment) that 'classical criminology' (that is, Beccaria and the other Enlightenment reformers, who had been colonised as a 'school' within criminology) had died a major death in the 19th century, from which there was no hope of resuscitation.

Reviews

`Norrie's account of juridical individualism ... in the particular context of theorising about punishment strikes a clear chord with contemporary jurisprudence ... [and] makes a substantial and original contribution to significant areas of legal theoretical research ...
I would judge his contribution to our understanding of the philosophy of punishment to be among the most important to emerge in the last twenty years.
A most perceptive treatment of a socially and legally relevant issue.
I am particularly impressed by the skilful textual analysis ... and ... ability to relate classical political philosophy to contemporary issues ... It is critical scholarship at the best, incisive and relevant. It makes us sit up and re-assess conventional dogma, and anything that does that deserves praise and wide exposure.'
Michael Freeman, University College, London

` One of the most important contributions to the philosophy of of punishment in the last twenty years. '
Nicola Lacey, New College, Oxford

` His interpretations ... are always marked by penetration and acuity ..., are always interesting because they are carried out with great analytical skill and precision ... an author gifted with great critical skill ... a real and commendable achievement. ' (translation)
Professor Dr Rainer Raczyk, Heidelberg (Goltdammer's Archiv Strafrecht 1991)

` a scholarly and interesting work ... His is a good, careful and serious book. It is worthy both for its scholarship and for its integrity in putting forward carefully worked out views which, in this postmodern age, are perhaps not fashionable. It has broadened the scope of the modern debate because it has respected that [liberal] tradition.'
Zenon Bankowski, University of Edinburgh (Modern Law Review 1992, 55)

` This is a provocative and challenging book, which deserves careful attention from anyone who takes seriously the question of whether, and how, our system of criminal justice can be justified ... One of the signal merits of this book ... is that it forces us to confront the uncomfortable possibility that we cannot hope to make rational normative sense of our existing legal institutions. '
Professor Antony Duff, University of Stirling (Criminal Law Review 1992)

Authors and Affiliations

  • School of Law, University of Warwick, Coventry, UK

    Alan W. Norrie

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