Corlett on Kant, Hegel, and retribution

Philosophy

Volumn 76, Issue 298, 2001, Pages 561-580

  Brooks, Thom ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF SHEFFIELD   (United Kingdom)

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[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0347379267     PISSN: 00318191     EISSN: 1469817X     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/s0031819101000560     Document Type: Review

References (41)

1. I am responding to J. Angelo Corlett, 'Making Sense of Retributivism,' Philosophy, 76 (2001), 77-110.
2. Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, Werner S. Pluhar (trans. ) (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, [1781/17987] 1996), 9 [A xiii].
3. See Mark Tunick, 'Is Kant a Retributivist?' History of Political Thought, 17 (1996), 60-78.
4. Immanuel Kant, The Metaphysics of Morals, Roger J. Sullivan, translator, Mary Gregor (ed. ) (Cambridge University Press, [1797] 1996), 105 [6:331]
5. See Corlett, 'Making Sense of Retributivism,' 86-7. [Emphasis given. ] When citing all works by Kant, the first number will refer to the page in the edition cited. In the brackets, the first number refers to the volume number of the Prussian Academy of Sciences edition of Kant's works with the second number after the colon referring to the page number in this volume where the quotation is found
6. See Tunick, 'Is Kant a Retributivist?' 60n1.
7. Corlett, 'Making Sense of Retribution,' 87
8. Kant, Metaphysics of Morals, 105 [6:331].
9. In large part, Hegel shares this view. See G. W. F. Hegel, Elements of the Philosophy of Right, Allen W. Wood (ed. ) and H. B. Nisbet (trans. ) (Cambridge University Press, [1821] 1991), 49 [§15 Addition]; 113 [§81, Remark]; 115-116 [§82, Addition]; 124-125 [§99, Remark]; 126-127 [§100, Remark]; and 131-132 [§104]. See op. cit. , 117-118 [§86, Addition] and 104 [§73].
10. 'But to look upon all punishments and rewards as mere machinery in the hands of a higher power, serving only to put rational beings into activity toward their final purpose (happiness) is so patently a mechanism which does away with the freedom of their will that it need not detain us here. ' Immanuel Kant, Critique of Practical Reason, Mary Gregor (ed. and trans. ) (Cambridge University Press, [1788] 1997), 35 [5:38].
11. See Kant's essay 'The End of All Things' in Immanuel Kant, Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason, Allen Wood and George di Giovanni (eds) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 204 [8:338-339].
12. Kant, The Metaphysics of Morals, 105 [6:331]. [Emphasis given. ]
13. Kant, Metaphysics of Morals, 106 [6:333]
14. (Cesare Beccaria [Cesare Bonesana, Marquis di Beccaria], Henry Paolucci (trans. ) On Crimes and Punishments (New York: Library of Liberal Arts/Bobbs-Merrill, [1764] 1963), 46. )
15. Kant, Critique of Practical Reason, 34 [5:37]. Ernest van der Haag shares this view: 'punishment must, whenever possible, impose pain believed to exceed the pain suffered by the individual victim of the crime. No less is deserved. '
16. ('Refuting Reiman and Nathanson,' Philosophy and Public Affairs, 14 (1985), 167.
17. See Tom Sorell, Moral Theory and Capital Punishment (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1987), 134.
18. Immanuel Kant, Lecture on Ethics, Louis Infield (trans. ) (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, [1930] 1963), 57.
19. Kant, Lecture on Ethics, 55.
20. This statement mirrors Fichte's belief that the purpose of punishment is solely to deter. (See J. G. Fichte, Foundations of Natural Right, Frederick Neuhouser (ed. ), Michael Bauer (trans. ) (Cambridge University Press, [1795-1796] 2000. ), 226-248 [§20]. )
21. I know of only three treatments: B. Sharon Byrd, 'Kant's Theory of Punishment: Deterrence in its Threat, Retribution in its Execution,' Law and Philosophy, 8 (1989), 196, 196n144
22. Don Scheid, 'Kant's Retributivism,' Ethics, 93 (1983), 268-271
23. I take this phrase from Tunick, 'Is Kant a Retributivist?' 65.
24. Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, 11 [4:397].
25. See Jeffrie Murphy, 'Doe Kant Have a Theory of Punishment?' Columbia Law Review, 87 (1987), 509-532. At 509 Murphy states 'I am not even sure that Kant develops anything that deserves to be called a theory of punishment at all. I genuinely wonder if he has done much more than leave us with a random (and not entirely consistent) set of remarks. '
26. Corlett, 'Making Sense of Retributivism,' 80n13.
27. The paragraph he looks at is §100 from G. W. F. Hegel, The Philosophy of Right, F. [sic] M. Knox (trans. ) (Oxford University Press, 1942), 70-1. The translator was, in fact, Sir T. M. Knox.
28. Hegel, The Philosophy of Right, 70 [§100].
29. Hegel assumes that over time rationality will be fully commensurable with what 'is actual. '
30. Hegel, Elements of the Philosophy of Right, 127 [§101]. [Emphasis given. ]
31. Other commentators who make the same error are Igor Primoratz, Justifying Legal Punishment (Atlantic Highlands: Humanities Press, 1989), 61
32. and Sorell, Moral Theory and Capital Punishment, 64.
33. This reading is addressed in my 'Utilitarianism, Capital Punishment, and Innocent Persons,' Review Journal of Philosophy & Social Science (forthcoming).
34. John Rawls, Collected Papers, Samuel Freeman (ed. ) (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999), 24.
35. See Jeffrie Murphy, Kant: The Philosophy of Right (London: Macmillan, 1970), 141
36. For example, see James Mill, Essays on Government, Jurisprudence, Liberty of the Press, and Law of Nations (New York: Augustus M. Kelly Publishers, [1825] 1967), 16-7 in 'Jurisprudence' and 4 in 'Liberty of the Press
37. John Stuart Mill, 'Speech in Favour of Capital Punishment,' in Peter Singer (ed. ) Applied Ethics (Oxford University Press, 1986), 102-3
38. and Rawls, Collected Papers, 24. I will give a full defence of Bentham below.
39. Primoratz, Justifying Legal Punishment, 25.
40. Jeremy Bentham, Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (Darien: Hafner Publishing, [1780] 1970), 93-4.
41. Bentham, Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, 142.