Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Criminal Law Blogs -> Sentencing Law and Policy

Criminal Law

: Sentencing Law and Policy

Deep thoughts on death and sovereignty

By Douglas A. Berman

I just noticed this intriguing paper on SSRN by Adam Thurschwell, titled "Ethical Exception: Capital Punishment in the Figure of Sovereignty."  Here is the abstract: Philosophers and legal theorists have traditionally analyzed capital punishment as a moral or ethical problem, by asking questions like: Is capital punishment justifiable given the utilitarian or retributive goals of the criminal justice system? Is it or can it be made consistent with our commitment to the moral autonomy and dignity of the human person?  And so on. In this paper I criticize the moral-philosophical approach and argue that a far more fruitful way of analyzing the institution of the death penalty is to approach it from a political-philosophical perspective -- in particular, by viewing it in its relation to the concept and practice of sovereignty that undergirds our understanding of the political state...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on October 23, 2008 (boomark / email).