Punishment and community: The reintegrative theory of punishment

Canadian Journal of Philosophy

Volumn 26, Issue 1, 1996, Pages 57-81

  Reitan, Eric ^a  

^a PACIFIC LUTHERAN UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0041910595     PISSN: 00455091     EISSN: 19110820     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/00455091.1996.10717444     Document Type: Article

References (21)

1. 1984. The Public and Its Problems 149Chicago: Swallow Press. More precisely, John Dewey takes community to be characterized essentially by ‘conjoint activities whose consequences are appreciated as good by all persons who take part in it, and where the realization of the good is such as to affect an energetic desire to sustain it.’ See
2. 1981. 205 Alisdair MacIntyre has taken the family to be a paradigm of community, along with the city, the tribe, and the nation. MacIntyre's concept of community is, however, clearly different from community in the normative sense, since not all families, tribes, etc., show respect for one another's needs and interests. For MacIntyre community is found in a group when it is united by a common history, culture, and tradition— but these uniting bonds do not guarantee mutual concern. See Alisdair MacIntyre, After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press
3. Mason, Andrew. 1993. ‘Liberalism and the Value of Community,’. Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 23: 211–25. (Mason does a good job of distinguishing community in its normative sense from community as it has been understood by such contemporary thinkers as Alisdair MacIntyre, Richard Rorty, and Michael Sandel, who, he thinks, have all neglected to some extent the normative sense of community. Julius Moravscik (‘Communal Ties,’ Proceedings of the American Philosophical Association621988) and Jane Roland Martin (Reclaiming Conversation (New Haven: Yale University Press 1985) also articulate conceptions of community in what I take to be its normative sense, in which interactive strategies and attitudes are given a central place.
4. Reitan, Eric. 1992. ‘The Ethics of Community: The Metaphysical and Ethical Presuppositions of AVP,’. The Acorn, 7: 21
5. Dean Pruitt has used the expression ‘integrative solution’ to refer to such mutually beneficial resolutions to conflicts.
6. 1981. Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In Boston: Houghton Mifflin. These include strategies for separating people from problems, uncovering the interests that underlie expressed positions, and devising creative options for resolving problems. See Roger Fisher and William Ury
7. Weil, Simone. 1952. “ ‘The Needs of the Soul,’ in ”. In The Need for Roots 21New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons.
8. Murphy, Jeffrie. 1979. “ ‘Kant's Theory of Criminal Punishment,’ reprinted in ”. In Retribution, Justice, and Therapy 83Boston: D. Reidel. It is interesting to note that in Murphy's scheme punishment, by exacting the debt owed by the criminal to society, enables the criminal to ‘re-enter the community of good citizens on an equal status’ (84). Thus Murphy's understanding of the stigma associated with crime leads him towards a view of punishment that bears some similarities to my reintegrative account. There are, however, a few critical differences between Murphy's theory and the one I develop here. First, the community of good citizens is defined by Murphy according to a contractual model in which self-interest drives autonomous individuals to conform to law, whereas in my scheme this community is defined by mutual care. Second, for Murphy reintegration is an effect of punishment but not the justification for it— the demands of fairness and rational consistency, rather than the goal of building community, provide the justification. Murphy's account of retribution can, however, be incorporated within the reintegrative theory to explain the stigma of the crime. Thus the two theories are not strictly opposed. A deeper discussion of the relationship between the two theories is warranted, and will be the subject of a future paper.
9. Murphy, G., 1988. Forgiveness and Mercy 122–43. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Jean Hampton and Jeffrie
10. 1989. Simone Weil: ‘The Just Balance’ Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. For a good discussion of Weil's views on justice, see Peter Winch, esp. ch. 14.
11. Morris, Herbert. 1984. ‘A Paternalistic Theory of Punishment,’. American Philosophical Quarterly, 18: 1981–71. 263; Jean Hampton, ‘The Moral Education Theory of Punishment,’ Philosophy and Public Affairs13 208–38. For a critical discussion of this kind of theory, see Russ Shafer-Landau, ‘Can Punishment Morally Educate?’ Law and Philosophy10 (1991, 189–219
12. Dilman, Ilham. 1986. Morality and the Inner Life 203–4. (London: Macmillan Press 1979), esp. see also R.A. Duff, Trials and Punishments (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 57–8, ch. 9.
13. Morris. See 265–6. See also Hampshire, ‘Moral Education,’ 227, for a slightly different account of how the hard treatment of punishment educates the criminal. According to Hampshire, the hard treatment is intended to ‘represent’ the pain suffered by the criminal's victims, thus enabling the criminal to identify with the victim and recognize the wrongness of what was done. It is plausible to suppose that punishment educates in both the way I suggest and in the way Hampshire emphasizes.
14. Niebuhr, Reinhold. 1967. “ ‘Pacifism and the Use of Force,’ reprinted in ”. In Love and Justice: Selections form the Shorter Writings of Reinhold Niebuhr Edited by: Robertson, D. B., 250–1. Cleveland: World Publishing. see also Morris, 270.
15. Niebuhr. 1986. “ ‘God's Justice and Mercy,’ reprinted in ”. In The Essential Reinhold Niebuhr 29New Haven: Yale University Press. !Robert McAfee Brown, E.M. Forster makes a similar point at the end of A Passage to India.
16. Philosophy and Public Affairs, 217 Murphy makes the point powerfully in ‘Marxism and Retribution,’ 2 (1973,–43
17. Morris. See 268.
18. 1984. In a Different Voice In this respect, the reintegrative theory of punishment is more in harmony with recent work in feminist ethics than with the Kantian tradition. The feminist emphasis on care and responsibility to relationships rather than on rights and justice can serve as a powerful foundation for the reintegrative theory. See especially Carol Gilligan, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press 1982) and Nel Noddings, Caring: A Feminine Approach to Ethics and Moral Education (Berkeley: University of California Press
19. Murphy. ‘Marxism,’ 243
20. 1991. “ ‘Punitive Violence and its Alternatives,’ in ”. In Justice, Law, and Violence Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Hugo Adam Bedau !James Brady and Newton Garver, (203–4
21. See Duff, 66–7.