Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-7cvxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T16:35:20.647Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Part III - Free Will Skepticism and the Criminal Justice System

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 August 2019

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.

Type
Chapter
Information
Free Will Skepticism in Law and Society
Challenging Retributive Justice
, pp. 159 - 236
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

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.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Caruso, G. D. (2016). Free will skepticism and criminal behavior: A public health-quarantine model. Southwest Philosophy Review, 32(1), 2548.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. 79106.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), 400405.CrossRefGoogle 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), 440462.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. 287294.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, 280289.Google Scholar
Morris, H. (1968). Persons and punishment. The Monist, 52(4), 475501.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Murphy, J. (1972). Moral death: A Kantian essay on psychopathy. Ethics, 82, 284.Google 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), 11011114.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pereboom, D. (2001). Living without Free Will. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle 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. 1940.Google Scholar
Pereboom, D. (2014). Free Will, Agency, and Meaning in Life. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle 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. 193222.Google Scholar
Vilhauer, B. (2009). Free will skepticism and personhood as a desert base. Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 39(3), 489511.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vilhauer, B. (2013). Persons, punishment, and free will skepticism. Philosophical Studies, 162(2), 143163.CrossRefGoogle 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), 641658.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
von Liszt, F. (1893). Die deterministischen Gegner der Zweckstrafe’ [Deterministic opponents of purposive punishment]. Die gesamte Strafrechtswissenschaft, 13, 325370. Translated by Iain L. Fraser.Google Scholar
Wootton, B. (1959). Social science and social pathology. Philosophy, 37(140), 165175.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

References

Biddle, L., Donovan, J., Owen-Smith, A., et al. (2010). Factors influencing the decision to use hanging as a method of suicide: A qualitative study. British Journal of Psychiatry, 197(4), 320325Google Scholar
Blair, J., Mitchell, D., and Blair, K.. (2005). The Psychopath. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.Google Scholar
Cauffman, E., Feldman, S. S., Waterman, J., and Steiner, H.. (1998). Posttraumatic stress disorder among female juvenile offenders. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 37(11), 12091216.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Clements, P. T., Speck, P. M., Crane, P. A., and Faulkner, M. J.. (2004). Issues and dynamics of sexually assaulted adolescents and their families. International Journal of Mental Health Nursing, 13, 267274.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fischer, J. M., and Ravizza, M.. (1998). Responsibility and Control: A Theory of Moral Responsibility. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Greene, J., and Cohen, J.. (2006). For the law, neuroscience changes nothing and everything. In Zeki, S. and Goodenough, O., eds., Law and the Brain. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 207226.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hart, H. L. A. (1968). Punishment and Responsibility: Essays in the Philosophy of Law. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
National Institute of Justice. (2006). Extent, Nature and Consequences of Rape Victimization. Findings from the National Violence against Women Survey. Washington, DC: US Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs.Google Scholar
Peay, J. (2011). Mental Health and Crime. Oxford: Routledge.Google Scholar
Sexual Violence Research Initiative. (2007). Rape: How Women, the Community and the Health Sector Respond. Geneva: World Health Organization.Google Scholar
Strawson, P. F. (1963). Freedom and Resentment. In Watson, G., ed., Free Will, 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 7293.Google Scholar
van der Kolk, B. A, and McFarlane, A. C.. (1996). The black hole of trauma. In van der Kolk, B. S. A., McFarlane, A. C., and Weisaeth, L., eds., Traumatic Stress: The Effects of Overwhelming Experience on Mind, Body and Society. New York: The Guilford Press, pp. 323.Google Scholar

References

Bradley, M. C. (1959). A note on Mr. MacIntyre’s Determinism. Mind, 68, 521526.Google Scholar
Callender, J. (2010). Free Will and Responsibility: A Guide for Practitioners. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Dennett, D. (1982). Mechanism and responsibility. In Watson, G., ed., Free Will: Oxford Readings in Philosophy. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 127173.Google Scholar
Double, R. (2002). Metaethics, metaphilosophy and free will subjectivism. In Kane, R., ed., The Oxford Handbook of Free Will. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 506528.Google Scholar
Duff, R. A. (2001). Punishment, Communication and Community. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Greene, J., and Cohen, J.. (2004). For the law, neuroscience changes nothing and everything. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, 359, 17751785.Google Scholar
Hart, H. L. A. (1968). Punishment and Responsibility. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Honderich, T. (1984). Punishment: The Supposed Justifications. London: Pluto Press.Google Scholar
Honderich, T. (2002). How Free Are You? The Determinism Problem, 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Kaufman, W. (2010). Self-defense, innocent aggressors and the duty of martyrdom. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 91(1), 7896.Google Scholar
Mackie, J. L. (1982). Morality and the retributive emotions. Criminal Justice Ethics, 1(1), 310.Google Scholar
Moore, M. (1997). Placing Blame: A Theory of Criminal Law. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Pereboom, D. (2002). Living without free will: The case for hard incompatibilism. In Kane, R., ed., The Oxford Handbook of Free Will. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 477488.Google Scholar
Pereboom, D. (2006). Reasons-responsiveness, alternative possibilities, and manipulation arguments against compatibilism: Reflections on John Martin Fischer’s My Way. Philosophical Books, 47(3), 198212.Google Scholar
Pereboom, D. (2013). Free will skepticism and criminal punishment. In Nadelhoffer, T., ed., The Future of Punishment. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 4978.Google Scholar
Sangero, B. (2008). In defense of Self-Defence in Criminal Law; and on Killing in Self-Defence – A reply to Fiona Leverick. Criminal Law Bulletin, 44(6), 134.Google Scholar
Strawson, G. (2002). The bounds of freedom. In Kane, R., ed., The Oxford Handbook of Free Will. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 441460.Google Scholar
Strawson, P. F. (1962). Freedom and resentment. Proceedings of the British Academy, 48, 125.Google Scholar
Swinburne, R. (2004). The Existence of God, 2nd ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tadros, V. (2011). The Ends of Harm: The Moral Foundations of the Criminal Law. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar

References

Alliance for Safety and Justice. (2016). Crime survivors: The first-ever national survey of victims’ views on safety and justice. Available at: https://allianceforsafetyandjustice.org/wp-content/uploads/documents/Crime%20Survivors%20Speak%20Report.pdf.Google Scholar
Baillargeon, J., Penn, J. V., Knight, K., et al. (2009). Risk of reincarceration among prisoners with co-occurring severe mental illness and substance use disorders. Administration and Policy in Mental Health and Mental Health Services Research, 37(4), 367374.Google Scholar
Baumeister, R. F., Masicampo, E. J., and DeWall, C. N.. (2009). Prosocial benefits of feeling free: Disbelief in free will increases aggression and reduces helpfulness. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 35, 260268.Google Scholar
Bayer, R. (2008). Stigma and the ethics of public health: Not can we but should we. Social Science and Medicine, 67, 463472.Google Scholar
Beven, J. P., O’Brien-Malone, A., and Hall, G.. (2004). Using the interpersonal reactivity index to assess empathy in violent offenders. International Journal of Forensic Psychology, 1(2), 3341.Google Scholar
Bottoms, A. E., and Shapland, J.. (2016). Learning to desist in early adulthood: The Sheffield desistance study. In Shapland, E., Farrall, S., and Bottoms, A. E., eds., Global Perspectives on Desistance: Reviewing What We Know, Looking to the Future. New York: Routledge, pp. 99125.Google Scholar
Callender, J. S. (2018). Justice, Reciprocity and the Internalisation of Punishment in Victims of Crime. Neuroethics, 1–12.Google Scholar
Canton, R. (2017). Why Punish? An Introduction to the Philosophy of Punishment. New York: Palgrave.Google Scholar
Caruso, G. D. (2012). Free Will and Consciousness: A Determinist Account of the Illusion of Free Will. Plymouth, UK: Lexington Books.Google Scholar
Caruso, G. D., ed. (2013). Exploring the Illusion of Free Will and Moral Responsibility. Plymouth, UK: Lexington Books.Google Scholar
Caruso, G. D. (2016). Free will skepticism and criminal behavior: A public health-quarantine model. Southwest Philosophy Review, 32(1), 2548.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clarke, R. (2005). On an argument for the impossibility of moral responsibility. Midwest Studies in Philosophy, 29, 1324.Google Scholar
Daly, K. (2016). What is restorative justice? Fresh answers to a vexed question. Victims & Offenders, 11(1), 929. doi: http://10.1080/15564886.2015.1107797.Google Scholar
Dennett, D. (1984). Elbow Room: The Varieties of Free Will Worth Wanting. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Double, R. (2002). The moral hardness of libertarianism. Philo, 5, 226234.Google Scholar
Duff, R. A. (2017). A criminal law we can call our own. Northwestern University Law Review, 111(6), 14911505.Google Scholar
Falk, O., Wallinius, M., Lundström, S., et al. (2014). The 1% of the population accountable for 63% of all violent crime convictions. Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, 49, 559571.Google Scholar
Fazel, S., and Danesh, J.. (2002). Serious mental disorder in 23,000 prisoners: A systematic review of 62 surveys. The Lancet, 359(9306), 545550.Google Scholar
Fazel, S., Fiminska, Z., Cocks, C., and Coid, J.. (2016). Patient outcomes following discharge from secure psychiatric hospitals: A systematic review and meta-analysis. The British Journal of Psychiatry, 208, 1725.Google Scholar
Feinberg, J. (1970). Justice and personal desert. In Feinberg, J., ed., Doing and Deserving: Essays in the Theory of Responsibility. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, pp. 5594.Google Scholar
Fischer, J. M., Kane, R., Pereboom, D., and Vargas, M.. (2007). Four Views on Free Will. New York: Blackwell Publishing.Google Scholar
Fischer, J. M., and Ravizza, M. S. J.. (1998). Responsibility and Control: A Theory of Moral Responsibility. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Focquaert, F., Glenn, A. L., and Raine, A.. (2015). Psychopathy and free will from a philosophical and cognitive neuroscience perspective. In Glannon, W., ed., Free Will and the Brain: Neuroscientific, Philosophical, and Legal Perspectives. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, pp. 103124. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139565820.007CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frick, P. J., and White, S. F.. (2008). Research review: The importance of callous-unemotional traits for developmental models of aggressive and antisocial behavior. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 49(4), 359375.Google Scholar
Gao, Y., Glenn, A. L., Schug, R. A., Yang, Y., and Raine, A.. (2009). The neurobiology of psychopathy: A neurodevelopmental perspective. Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, 54(12), 813823.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gazzaniga, M. (2011). Who’s in Charge. Free Will and the Science of the Brain. New York: Ecco.Google Scholar
Giner-Sorolla, R., Piazza, J., and Espinosa, P.. (2011). What do the TOSCA guilt and shame scales really measure: Affect or action? Personality and Individual differences, 51, 445450.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hamzaoglu, O., Ozkan, O., Ulusoy, M., and Gokdogan, F.. (2010). The prevalence of hopelessness among adults: Disability and other related factors. The International Journal of Psychiatry in Medicine, 40(1), 7791.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Husak, D. (2000). Retribution in criminal theory. San Diego Law Review, 37, 959986.Google Scholar
James, D. J., and Glaze, L. E. (2006). Mental health problems of prison and jail inmates. Special Report Bureau of Justice Statistics. US Department of Justice.Google Scholar
Levy, N. (2013). Skepticism and sanction: The benefit of rejecting moral responsibility. Law and Philosophy, 31(5), 477493.Google Scholar
McKenna, M. (2009). Compatibilism and desert: Critical comments on Four Views on Free Will. Philosophical Studies, 144, 313.Google Scholar
Morris, A. (2002). Critiquing the critics. A brief response to critics of restorative justice. The British Journal of Criminology, 42, 596615.Google Scholar
Nadelhoffer, T., and Tocchetto, D. G., (2013). The potential dark side of believing in free will (and related concepts). In Caruso, G., ed., Exploring the Illusion of Free Will and Moral Responsibility. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, pp. 121140.Google Scholar
Odgers, C. L., Burnette, M. L., Chauhan, P., Moretti, M. L., and Reppucci, D.. (2005). Misdiagnosing the problem: Mental health profiles of incarcerated juveniles. The Canadian Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Review, 14(1), 2629.Google Scholar
Paciello, M., Fida, R., Tramontano, C., Lupinettie, C., and Caprara, G. V.. (2008). Stability and change in moral disengagement and its impact on aggression and violence in late adolescence. Child Development, 79(5), 12881309.Google Scholar
Palmer, E. J., and Begun, A.. (2006). The relationship between moral reasoning, provictim attitude and interpersonal aggression among imprisoned young offenders. International Journal of Offending Theory and Comparative Criminology, 50, 446457.Google Scholar
Pereboom, D. (2001). Living without Free Will. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Pereboom, D. (2011). Free-will skepticism and meaning in life. In Kane, R., ed., The Oxford Handbook of Free Will, 2nd ed. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 407424.Google Scholar
Pereboom, D. (2013). Free will skepticism and criminal Punishment. In Nadelhoffer, T., ed., The Future of Punishment. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 4978.Google Scholar
Pereboom, D. (2014). Free Will, Agency, and Meaning in Life. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Pereboom, D. (2015). A notion of moral responsibility immune to the threat from causal determination. In Clarke, R., McKenna, M., and Smith, A. M., eds., The Nature of Moral Responsibility. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 281296.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. 193222.Google Scholar
Pickard, H. (2011). Responsibility without blame: Empathy and the effective treatment of personality disorder. Philosophy, Psychiatry, Psychology, 18, 209224.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pickard, H. (2017). Responsibility without blame for addiction. Neuroethics, doi: http://10.1007/s12152-016-9295-2Google Scholar
Pickard, H., and Pearce, S.. (2010). Finding the will to recover: Philosophical perspectives on agency and the sick role. Journal of Medical Ethics, 36, 831833.Google Scholar
Pryce, C .R., Azzinnari, D., Spinelli, S., et al. (2011). Helplessness: A systematic translational review of theory and evidence for its relevance to understanding and treating depression. Pharmacology and Therapeutics, 132, 142267.Google Scholar
Roos, S., Salmivalli, C., and Hodges, E. V. E.. (2015). Emotion regulation and negative emotionality moderate the effects of moral (dis)engagement on aggression. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 61(1), 3.Google Scholar
Shapland, J. (2016). Forgiveness and restorative justice: Is it necessary? Is it helpful? Oxford Journal of Law and Religion, 5, 94112.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sharp, C. (2008). Theory of mind and conduct problems in children: Deficits in reading the “emotions of the eyes.” Cognition and Emotion, 22, 11491158.Google Scholar
Smilansky, S. (2001). Free will: From nature to illusion. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, New Series, 101, 7195.Google Scholar
Specker, J., Focquaert, F., Sterckx, S., & Schermer, M. H. (2018). Forensic practitioners’ Views on Stimulating Moral Development and Moral Growth in Forensic Psychiatric Care. Neuroethics, 1–13.Google Scholar
Spenser, K. A., Betts, L. R., and Gupta, M. D.. (2015). Deficits in theory of mind, empathic understanding and moral reasoning: A comparison between young offenders and non-offenders. Psychology, Crime and Law, 21(7), 632647.Google Scholar
Stillman, T. F., Baumeister, R. F., Vohs, K. D., et al. (2010). Personal philosophy and personnel achievement: Belief in free will predicts better job performance. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 1(1), 4350.Google Scholar
Strawson, G. (1994). The impossibility of moral responsibility. Philosophical Studies, 75(1), 524.Google Scholar
Stuewig, J., Tangney, J. P., Kendall, S., et al. (2015). Children’s proneness to shame and guilt predict risky and illegal behaviors in young adulthood. Child Psychiatry & Human Development, 46(2), 217227.Google Scholar
Tadros, V. (2011). The Ends of Harm: The Moral Foundations of Criminal Law. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tangney, J. P., Stuewig, J., and Mashek, D. J.. (2007). Moral emotions and moral behavior. Annual Review of Psychology, 58, 345372.Google Scholar
Vilhauer, B. (2009). Free will and reasonable doubt. American Philosophical Quarterly, 46(2), 131140.Google Scholar
Vohs, K.D., and Schooler, J.W.. (2008). The value of believing in free will: Encouraging a belief in determinism increases cheating. Psychological Science, 19(1), 4954.Google Scholar
Walen, A. (2014). Retributive justice. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.Google Scholar
Waller, B. N. (2015). The Stubborn System of Moral Responsibility. Boston, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Ward, T., Mann, R. E., and Gannon, T. A.. (2007). The good lives model of offender rehabilitation: Clinical implications. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 12, 87107.CrossRefGoogle 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
×