Jonathan Jacobs

Leo Zaibert

Anthony E Bottoms

This book proposes an explicit recognition of criminology as a moral science: a philosophically textured appreciation of the presence and role of values in people's reasoning and motivation, set within an empirically rigorous social-scientific account. This endeavour requires input from both criminologists and philosophers, and careful dialogue between them. Criminology as a Moral Science provides such a dialogue, not least about the so-called 'fact-value distinction', but also about substantive topics such as guilt and shame. The book also provides philosophically-informed accounts of morality in practice in several criminological contexts: these include whistleblowing practices within a police service; the dilemmas of mothers about who and what to tell about a partner's imprisonment; and how persistent offenders begin to try to 'turn their lives around' to desist from crime. The issues raised go to the heart of some currently pressing topics within criminology, notably the development of 'evidence-based practice', which requires some kind of stable bridge to be built between research evidence ('facts') and proposals for policy ('evaluative recommendations').

Criminology as a Moral Science

Rejecting traditional alternatives, Leo Zaibert offers an original and refreshing approach to the age-old problem of the justification of punishment.

Rethinking Punishment

Punishment is a phenomenon which occurs in many contexts. Discussions of punishment assume punishment is criminal punishment carried out by the State. This book contains an account of punishment which overcomes the difficulties of competing accounts and treats punishment comprehensibly to better understand how it differs from similar phenomena, discussing its justification fruitfully.

Punishment and Retribution

An associate professor of philosophy probes the issue of blame and culpability in crime by taking a hypothetical case of a woman who kills her husband and asking how much responsibility for the crime she would carry under five different scenarios. Original.

A Theory of Intentionality and Blame

Five Ways Patricia Can Kill Her Husband

Discussions of punishment typically assume that punishment is criminal punishment carried out by the State. Punishment is, however, a richer phenomenon and it occurs in many contexts. This book contains a general account of punishment which overcomes the difficulties of competing accounts. Recognizing punishment's manifoldness is valuable not merely in contributing to conceptual clarity, but in that this recognition sheds light on the complicated problem of punishment's justification. Insofar as they narrowly presuppose that punishment is criminal punishment, most apparent solutions to the tension between consequentialism and retributivism are rather unenlightening if we attempt to apply them in other contexts. Moreover, this presupposition has given rise to an unwieldy variety of accounts of retributivism which are less helpful in contexts other than criminal punishment. Treating punishment comprehensibly helps us to better understand how it differs from similar phenomena, and to carry on the discussion of its justification fruitfully.

Leo Zaibert

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