Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-fscjk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T11:41:54.351Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter 8 - Fichte and Psychopathy: Criminal Justice Turned Upside Down

from Part III - Free Will Skepticism and the Criminal Justice System

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 August 2019

By
Michael Louis Corrado
Edited by
Elizabeth Shaw ,
Derk Pereboom  and
Gregg D. Caruso
Elizabeth Shaw
Affiliation:
University of Aberdeen
Derk Pereboom
Affiliation:
Cornell University, New York
Gregg D. Caruso
Affiliation:
Corning Community College, State University of New York
Get access

Summary

The two instruments the state uses to maintain order are the corrective and the preventive. Those who reject the notion of moral responsibility either prefer to abandon punishment in favor of preventive techniques or seek to justify (nonretributive) punishment. Although I think punishment is essentially retributive and cannot be justified, I also think we must, if possible, avoid yielding to the preventive worldview. We must distinguish the lengths to which we are willing to go with incompetent or irrational individuals who are dangerous from the lengths to which we are willing to go with rational and competent offenders. My view is that borrowing from punishment its harsh methods we maintain the dignity of competent offenders when we subject them to these methods with the aim of leading them to abandon the defective motivational traits that resulted in the crime. I call this approach correction rather than punishment, because it lacks the retributive element that makes punishment punishment. Here I suggest how this view might be defended if we start, as Fichte does, from the assumption that those who violate any law deserve to be made outlaws; in current terminology, to be subjected to preventive detention and preventive techniques generally.

Keywords

punishmentcorrectionpsychopathycrimefree willretributivismpreventionquarantine
Type
Chapter
Information
Free Will Skepticism in Law and Society
Challenging Retributive Justice
 , pp. 161 - 176
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2019

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Brandt, R. (1985). A motivational theory of excuses. Nomos, 165(27). Reprinted in M. L. Corrado, ed., Excuse and Justification in the Criminal Law, Garland Publishing (1994).Google Scholar
Callender, J. (2010). Free Will and Responsibility: A Guide for Practitioners. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Caruso, G. D. (2016). Free will skepticism and criminal behavior: A public health-quarantine model. Southwest Philosophy Review, 32(1), 25–48.Google Scholar
Corrado, M. L. (2013). Why do we resist hard incompatibilism? Thoughts on freedom and punishment. In Nadelhoffer, T., ed., The Future of Punishment. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 79–106.Google Scholar
Corrado, M. L. (2014). A review of Vihvelin’s Causes, Laws, and Free Will. Criminal Justice Ethics, December. Available at: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2858536.Google Scholar
Felthous, A. R. (2011). The “untreatability” of psychopath and hospital commitment in the USA. International Journal of Law and Psychiatry, 34(6), 400–405.Google Scholar
Fichte, J. G. (2000). Foundations of Natural Right. Edited by Neuhouser, F., Translated by Baur, M.. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hart, H. L. A. (1968). Punishment and Responsibility. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Kelly, E. (2009). Criminal justice without retribution. Journal of Philosophy, 106(8), 440–462.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewis, C. S. (1953). The humanitarian theory of punishment. In Lewis, C.S., God in the Dock, ed. by Hooper, W.. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, pp. 287–294.Google Scholar
Mitchell, D. G. V., Richell, R. A., Lumsden, J., Fine, C., Newman, C., and Blair, R. J. R.. (2006). Instrumental learning and relearning in individuals with psychopathy and in patients with lesions involving the amygdala or orbitofrontal cortex. Neuropsychology, 20, 280–289.Google Scholar
Morris, H. (1968). Persons and punishment. The Monist, 52(4), 475–501.Google Scholar
Murphy, J. (1972). Moral death: A Kantian essay on psychopathy. Ethics, 82, 284.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Newman, J. P., Patterson, C. M., Howland, E. W., and Nichols, S. L.. (1990). Passive avoidance in psychopaths: The effects of reward. Personality and Individual Differences, 11(11), 1101–1114.Google Scholar
Pereboom, D. (2001). Living without Free Will. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Pereboom, D. (2013). Skepticism about free will. In Caruso, G. D., ed., Exploring the Illusion of Free Will and Responsibility. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, pp. 19–40.Google Scholar
Pereboom, D. (2014). Free Will, Agency, and Meaning in Life. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Pereboom, D., and Caruso, G. D.. (2018). Hard-incompatibilist existentialism: Neuroscience, punishment, and meaning in life. In Caruso, G. D. and Flanagan, O., eds., Neuroexistentialism: Meaning, Morals, and Purpose in the Age of Neuroscience. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 193–222.Google Scholar
Vilhauer, B. (2009). Free will skepticism and personhood as a desert base. Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 39(3), 489–511.Google Scholar
Vilhauer, B. (2013). Persons, punishment, and free will skepticism. Philosophical Studies, 162(2), 143–163.Google Scholar
Vitale, J. E., MacCoon, D. G., and Newman, J. P.. (2011). Emotion facilitation and passive avoidance learning in psychopathic female offenders. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 38(7), 641–658.Google Scholar
von Liszt, F. (1893). Die deterministischen Gegner der Zweckstrafe’ [Deterministic opponents of purposive punishment]. Die gesamte Strafrechtswissenschaft, 13, 325–370. Translated by Iain L. Fraser.Google Scholar
Wootton, B. (1959). Social science and social pathology. Philosophy, 37(140), 165–175.Google Scholar
Wootton, B. (1963). Crime and the Criminal Law: Reflections of a Magistrate and Social Scientist. The Hamlyn Lectures. Sydney, Australia: The Law Book Company Ltd.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×