Punishment, Liberalism, and Communitarianism

Abstract

In his most recent book, R.A. Duff, who is without a doubt one of the pre-eminent criminal law theorists today, presents an extraordinarily ambitious theory of punishment. This book fits well within Duff’s long-term project of laying bare the relationships between the criminal law and different specialized fields within philosophy. Duff’s philosophical treatment of the criminal law began with his Intention, Agency, and Criminal Liability, in which he thoroughly analyzed the relationship between the criminal law and contemporary philosophy of mind and action. Now Duff is squarely concerned with the connections between the criminal law and contemporary political philosophy. Duff claims that the comprehensive theory of punishment he advances “does justice to the central retributivist concern that punishment must focus on and be justified by its relationship to the crime for which it is imposed,” that it also “does justice to the consequentialist concern that punishment must be justified by some good that it aims to achieve,” and, furthermore, that his account does justice “to the abolitionist concern that we should aim