Rethinking Criminal Justice: Punishment, Abolition and Moral Psychology

Criminal Law › Law › Monthly List of Titles published under HK and UK Jurisdictions

Rethinking Criminal Justice: Punishment, Abolition and Moral Psychology

By Alan Norrie
Cambridge University Press July 2025

Specifications

ISBN-13
9781108478878
Publisher
Cambridge University Press
Publication
July 2025
Format
Hardback
Jurisdiction
U.K. ? Countri(es) for reference only

Details

For 200 years, the penal equation 'crime plus blame equals punishment' has led to painful repetition: more prisons, violence, damaged lives, a never-ending 'crime problem'. The retributive theory of punishment is central to this; yet fully developed philosophically, it becomes something fundamentally different. A moral psychology of violation distinguishes retributivism's primitive and mature forms. It explains both punishment's necessary failure and how guilt, forgiveness and reconciliation are possible. 'Atonement' means both punitive 'payback' and being morally 'at one' with self and others. Such reconciliation for the offender, victim and wider society takes us from punishment to its abolition. Grounding responses to violation in moral psychology, mature retributivism finds its roots in natural human powers. Speaking to scholars of law, philosophy and criminology, Alan Norrie shows how a psychologically developed moral philosophy guides critical thinking towards abolishing crime and punishment.

Table of Contents

1. Criminal justice and the metaphysical animal

Part I. Two Routes Beyond Political Theory:
2. Political theory and young Hegel's critique of punishment
3. Victims who victimise: guilt in political theory and moral psychology

Part II. Moral Psychology, Law and the Metaphysics of Forgiveness:
4. Love, guilt and forgiveness
5. Law and the metaphysics of forgiveness

Part III. The Animal that Thinks and Loves: On Guilt:
6. 'Feeling rotten': beyond philosophy's limit
7. Two accounts of guilt in Freud
8. Primitive and mature guilt: taking retributivism seriously

Part IV. Three Case Studies: Denial, Mourning, Freedom, Reconciliation:
9. Denying guilt, taking responsibility: on Joshua Oppenheimer's The Act of Killing
10.Violation, mourning and melancholia: on Patricio Guzmán's Nostalgia for The Light
11. Guilt, freedom and reconciliation: on Jimmy Boyle's A Sense of Freedom

Part V. Mature Retributivism as Abolition:
12. Mature retributivism as abolition
HKD 1,261.00 −3%
HKD 1,300.00

Inclusive of HK delivery

Ready to ship
Delivery Time: around 4-5 weeks
Extra 10 working days if shipping address outside Hong Kong
  • Free HK shipping over HK$1,000
  • International shipping to 35+ countries
Order Form
Save

Recommended

You may also be interested in these books:

More titles from Law

View all
EU Values in Investment Law And Policy: Promises Of Democracy and Rule Of Law?
Oxford University Press

EU Values in Investment Law And Policy: Promises Of Democracy and Rule Of Law?

Maria Laura Marceddu
HKD 1,261.00
The Language of Contracts: A Handbook of Drafting Techniques
Bloomsbury Professional (formerly Tottel Publishing)

The Language of Contracts: A Handbook of Drafting Techniques

Ben Staveley
HKD 1,261.00
Questions of Liability: Essays on the Law of Tort
Hart Publishing

Questions of Liability: Essays on the Law of Tort

Donal Nolan
HKD 378.17
Constitutional Rights in Private Law
Hart Publishing

Constitutional Rights in Private Law

Tom Kohavi
HKD 1,134.90
Financial Regulation and Governance in the Post-COVID Era: Building an Inclusive and Resilient Financial Future
Routledge

Financial Regulation and Governance in the Post-COVID Era: Building an Inclusive and Resilient Financial Future

Ibrahim Nandom Yakubu; Ayhan Kapusuzoglu; Nildag Basak Ceylan
HKD 2,168.79
EU Administrative Law 4th ed New
Oxford University Press

EU Administrative Law 4th ed

Paul Craig
HKD 2,458.95