Retribution

(from the Introduction)
Intending only to research medieval conceptions of hell, author Alan Bernstein wanted to investigate postmortem retribution in the ancient world for historical context. This investigation turned into an entire book of its own. In The Formation of Hell, Bernstein seeks to explain how the idea of hell achieved a prominent place in people’s minds. He explicitly states that he intends to accomplish this without any prior concern for whether hell actually exists or any preceding judgement as to the nature or value of hell.  In the end, Bernstein provides a superb example of historical investigation and rigorous scholarship. Though there are certain theological and metaphysical implications omitted from the book, the author successfully demonstrates that the notion of hell originally arose late in Judaism out of a need to explain the injustices in the world and became a rhetorical device designed to elicit conformity to religious and cultural mores.

O artigo diferencia os elementos da teoria da pena, com especial destaque ao fundamento e às finalidades da pena criminal. Analisa as doutrinas absolutas e relativas e as suas respectivas capacidades de oferecer tratamento específico aos problemas do fundamento e das finalidades da pena criminal. Pretende demonstrar a imprecisão da classificação dicotômica que confunde o fundamento da pena com as suas diversas finalidades. A conclusão é que o fundamento da pena é a retribuição da culpa do autor da ofensa, independentemente de quais sejam as finalidades primordiais de cada espécie de pena.

This study aims to determine How is the contribution, growth, effectivity level of parking retribution towards district own source revenue of Malang Regency in 2010-2014 and how realization of forecasting trends parking fees of Malang Regency in 2015-2019. This type of research is descriptive research with quantitative approach. The datas chosen are secondary datas which are realization and targets of parking retribution in Malang Regency as well as realization and targets district own source revenue of Malang Regency region in 2010-2014 period. The results showed (1) The contribution of parking retribution towards district own source revenue of Malang Regency experiences fluctuation. This is caused by the renewal of regional regulation about policy official announcement of parking costs. (2) The growth of parking retribution experiences fluctuation. This is pursuant to realization of parking retribution which is focused only on the targets achievement without considering the history growth of it in previous years. (3) Effectivity level of parking retribution towards district own source revenue of Malang Regency classified effective. (4) The realization trend forecasting parking fees of Malang Regency in 2015-2019 continues to increase.

This article analyzes the Amorite view of history as found in the 18th century BCE Mari text (ARM I 3), a letter sent by Yasmaḫ-Addu to the god Nergal, reflecting the power-struggle between two Amorite clans, the Benjaminite Addu clan pitted against the Bensimʾalite Līm clan. In this text, the ruler of Mari, Yasmaḫ-Addu, recapitulates the historical events related to the protracted conflict between two reigning dynasties: the members of the Līm clan (Yagid-Līm, Yaḫdun-Līm, Sūmū-Yamam) against the Addu clan (Ilā-Kabkabū, Šamšī-Addu, Yasmaḫ-Addu). The former were the ancient rulers of Mari and belonged to the Bensimʾalite or northern Amorite tribes. The latter were part of the Benjaminite or southern tribes. The end of the power struggle between these two clans is reflected in the prophetic letter relating the message of the god Adad from Aleppo to the last ruler of Mari, Zimrī-Līm (A. 1968). The god Adad’s influence stretches beyond the city of Aleppo in northern Syria since he claims to have given the rule over Mari to the warlord who reveres him. These Mari documents represent a veritable philosophy of history with an ideology based on the operation of divine retribution. The view of history as the outworking of a retributive principle is common to all the major cultures of the Mediterranean seashore. It is found in Mesopotamia in several epochs (from the Legend of Narām Sîn to the the Poem of Erra), in the Hurrian-Hittite text concerning the fall of Ebla, in Egypt, in Greece, and in the Hebrew historiographic tradition. The Mari evidence coming from the Northwest Semitic domain to which the Hebrews also belonged could, therefore, be considered as one of the precursors of the theologico-historiographic genre, reflecting an ideology anticipating the one attributed to the redactor of the Deuteronomistic historiography (HDtr). This hermeneutical principle is a common ancient Near Eastern way of interpreting history which the Hebrew tradition shares.

This essay contributes to the relevance and use of the enemy, revenge and curse psalms today. According to biblical hermeneutic and current attitudes, the passages of the Psalms 12 and 137 are worked out as examples. Thereafter, the use of such statements in today's context is taken into consideration, taking into account considerations of Zenger, Levenson, Volf and LeMon.

The paper will present and analyze the Amorite view of history as found in the eighteenth century BCE Mari text (ARM I 3), a letter sent by Yasmaḫ-Addu to the god Nergal, reflecting the power-struggle between two Amorite clans, the Benjaminite Addu clan pitted against the Bensim’alite Līm clan. In this text, the ruler of Mari,Yasmaḫ-Addu, recapitulates the historical events related to the protracted conflict between two reigning dynasties: the members of the Līm clan (Yagid-Līm, Yaḫdun-Līm, Sūmū-Yamam) against the Addu clan (Ilā-Kabkabū, Šamšī-Addu, Yasmaḫ-Addu). The former were the ancient rulers of Mari and belonged to the Bensimʾalite or northern Amorite tribes. The latter were part of the Benjaminite or southern tribes. The end of the power struggle between these two clans is reflected in the prophetic letter relating the message of the god Adad from Aleppo to the last ruler of Mari, Zimrī-Līm (A. 1968). The god Adad’s influence stretches beyond the city of Aleppo in northern Syria since he claims to have given the rule over Mari to the warlord who reveres him. These Mari documents represent a veritable philosophy of history with an ideology based on the operation of divine retribution. The view of history as the outworking of a retributive principle is common to all the major cultures of the Mediterranean seashore. It is found in Mesopotamia in several epochs (from the Legend of Narām Sîn to the the Poem of Erra), in the Hurrian-Hittite text concerning the fall of Ebla, in Egypt, in Greece, and in the Hebrew historiographic tradition. The Mari evidence coming from the Northwest Semitic domain to which the Hebrews also belonged could, therefore, be considered as one of the precursors of the theologico-historiographic genre, reflecting an ideology anticipating the one attributed to the redactor of the Deuteronomistic historiography. This hermeneutical principle is a common ancient Near Eastern way of interpreting history which the Hebrew tradition shares.

A partir de una sentencia de la Corte de Apelaciones de Santiago, el artículo examina la tensión en que se encuentran nuestros tribunales de justicia, al indemnizar el daño moral en el ámbito de la responsabilidad extracontractual. Si bien rechazan que la indemnización decretada cumpla objetivos retributivos o disuasivos, ajustándose al principio de reparación integral del daño, en ciertos supuestos acuden a componentes punitivos en sus fallos, elevando el monto indemnizatorio. Se revisa esta tensión judicial, proponiendo su disolución a la luz de la pertinencia de consideraciones punitivas en el derecho privado.

From a decision of the Court of Appeals of Santiago, the article examines the tension found in our courts of justice when they seek to compensate moral damages in the context of tort law. While they deny that these awards are aimed at retributive or deterrent objectives, sticking to the principle of full compensation for damage, in some cases they take into account punitive components in their judgments, raising the amount of the award. This legal tension is reviewed, proposing its dissolution by endorsing the appropriateness of punitive considerations in private law.

Unlike the Western cultural frame, within which the clear opposition good – evil is held as sound and rational, stories and plays of the Japanese culture rarely offer such a clean division of the characters and their deeds. Tōkaidō Yotsuya Kaidan, also known in the West as The Ghost Story of Yotsuya, is a perfect example of the situation. As the story unfolds, following betrayal, murder and supernatural retribution, the balance of power and powerlessness is reversed and the difference between the victim and the tormentor fades and becomes obscure. The Ghost Story of Yotsuya blurs the common Euroamerican view of good and evil, honour and disgrace, forcing the Euroamerican reader to reflect and rethink their own perspective concerning those values.

The argument between retributivists and consequentialists about what morally justifies the punishment of offenders is incoherent. If we were to discover that all of the contending justifications were mistaken, there is no realistic prospect that this would lead us to abandon legal punishment. Justification of words, beliefs and deeds can only be intelligible on the assumption that if a justification were found to be invalid and there were no alternative justification, one would be prepared to stop saying, believing or doing what one has attempted to justify. Therefore, the moral standing or basis of our practices of punishing offenders cannot rest on a justification of it.

This paper criticizes four major approaches to criminal law – consequentialism, retributivism, abolitionism, and “mixed” pluralism – each of which, in its own fashion, affirms the celebrated emblem of the “scales of justice.” The argument is that there is a better way of dealing with the tensions that often arise between the various legal purposes than by balancing them against each other. For we should aim to genuinely reconcile them instead.

One of the most frequently voiced criticisms of free will skepticism is that it is unable to adequately deal with criminal behavior and that the responses it would permit as justified are insufficient for acceptable social policy. This concern is fueled by two factors. The first is that one of the most prominent justifications for punishing criminals, retributivism, is incompatible with free will skepticism. The second concern is that alternative justifications that are not ruled out by the skeptical view per se face significant independent moral objections (Pereboom 2014, 153). Yet despite these concerns, I maintain that free will skepticism leaves intact other ways to respond to criminal behavior—in particular preventive detention, rehabilitation, and alteration of relevant social conditions—and that these methods are both morally justifiable and sufficient for good social policy. The position I defend is similar to Derk Pereboom’s (2001, 2013, 2014), taking as its starting point his quarantine analogy, but it sets out to develop the quarantine model within a broader justificatory framework drawn from public health ethics. The resulting model—which I call the public health-quarantine model—provides a framework for justifying quarantine and criminal sanctions that is more humane than retributivism and preferable to other non-retributive alternatives. It also provides a broader approach to criminal behavior than Pereboom’s quarantine analogy does on its own.

The account of Paul's sea journey from Caesarea to Rome, and of the shipwreck off Malta, is probably the "dramatic center" of Acts. It is the moving bridge between the mysterious scene of Christian origins and the awesome power of the Roman forum, and it is an adventure recounted with much more than Luke's usual amount of detail. The task of commenting on the passages in question (27:1-28:16) presents certain difficulties, since it is hard to decide whether Luke is being more litterateur than historian, or whether he is virtually reproducing a document rather than relating the events in his own way. Some scholars contend that the journey narrative has all the ingredients of a Hellenistic romance, 1 while others hold that both the realism and the presence of "we passages" confirm its essential historicity. 2 To complicate matters, there remains the possibility that Luke appropriated a travel story which was originally not about Paul at all, but about someone else who voyaged in the same direction. 3 While these difficulties have encouraged a swell of critical exegesis, however, another problem has had the quite opposite effect. The details of the sea adventure seem to have lent


Harvard Theological Review 69:3-4 (1976), 259-67

"This book explores how restorative justice is used and what its potential benefits are in situations where the state has been either explicitly or implicitly involved in human rights abuses. Restorative justice is increasingly becoming a popular mechanism to respond to crime in democratic settings and while there is a burgeoning literature on these contexts, there is less information that focuses explicitly on its use in nations that have experienced protracted periods of conflict and oppression.

This book interrogates both macro and micro utilisations of restorative justice including truth commissions, criminal justice reform and the development of initiatives by communities and other non-state actors. The central premise is that the primary potential of restorative justice in responding to international crime should be viewed in terms of the lessons that it provides for problem-solving, rather than its traditional role as a mechanism or process to respond to conflict. Four values are put forward that should frame any restorative approach – participation, empowerment, reintegration and transformation. It is thought that these values provide enough space for local actors to devise their own culturally relevant processes to achieve longstanding peace.

This book will be of interests to those conducting research in the fields of restorative justice, transitional justice as well as criminology in general."

Os profissionais envolvidos com o sistema penal rotineiramente tomam decisões sobre a culpabilidade e a punibilidade de transgressores. O comportamento de punir um ofensor tem sido estudado por psicólogos e neurocientistas, que buscam compreender quais as motivações subjacentes ao ato de punir, bem como quais as estruturas cerebrais envolvidas no processamento de informações sobre a intencionalidade e gravidade de uma ofensa. Estudos recentes apontam que a decisão de punir envolve áreas cerebrais específicas, cuja origem estaria ligada à necessidade, no contexto de evolução da espécie, de estabilizar a cooperação em grupos, por intermédio do reforço das normas sociais mediante a aplicação de sanções. Neste artigo, buscamos fazer uma revisão crítica dessa literatura, apontando que, apesar da importância dos estudos da chamada Neurociência da Punição, os pressupostos por eles adotados ainda são discutíveis, do ponto de vista da biologia evolucionista e da neurociência cognitiva.

State punishment is an exercise of state power. Punishment is an act said to be morally wrong so how are we to jus;fy their given right to impose inten;onal suffering on law-breakers? It follows that the need to refine which type of state we are talking about is significant in order to help us jus;fy why the state is permiCed to punish, let alone why they do so. We also need to define what concept of punishment we will be using throughout the essay. Before then can we can delve into the essay ;tle by cri;cally analysing retribu;on and the other reasons for the state to punish law-breakers. These reasons are explained under the umbrella term of ‘consequen;alism’, which includes: deterrence, expressionism and rehabilita;on. Finally I will conclude the essay by disagreeing with the essay ;tle and will formulate an answer that incorporates all reasons for punishment, as well as highligh;ng how isola;ng retribu;on as the ul;mate reason for the state to punish law breakers is rather unwise.

T. M. Scanlon’s contractualism is a meta-ethical theory that explains moral motivation and also provides a conception of how to carry out moral deliberation. It supports non-consequentialism – the theory that both consequences and deontological considerations are morally significant in moral deliberation. Regarding the issue of punishment, non-consequentialism allows us to take account of the need for deterrence as well as principles of fairness, justice, and even desert. Moreover, Scanlonian contractualism accounts for permissibility in terms of justifiability: An act is permissible if and only if it can be justified to everyone affected by it. This contractualist thesis explains why it is always impermissible to frame an innocent person, why vicarious punishment is impermissible, and why there has to be a cap on sentences. Contractualism therefore allows us to take deterrence as a goal of punishment without the excess of utilitarianism. This paper further argues that the resulting view is superior to pure retributivism. Finally, it shows why legal excuses and mitigation can be justified in terms of the notion of negative desert.

This paper seeks to critically evaluate the retributivist theory of punishment, making use of Jean Hampton’s writing "Forgiveness and Mercy" to make sense of the idea of retribution and to explain it in a way that distinguishes it from revenge.

It is impossible to imagine what Studies in Religion at the University of Sydney would have been like without the contribution of Garry Trompf (b. 27 November 1940, in Melbourne). The department (then called Religious Studies) was only two years old, having been established in 1976 by the University Senate, when he took up a lectureship in 1978. Garry had been working in Papua New Guinea since 1972, and it was not until 1986 that he committed completely to Sydney, and gave up the Chair of History at the University of Papua New Guinea. That year he was promoted to Associate Professor and made Head of Department, a position he held until 1991.

Legitimacy of criminal sanction is originated on its own purposes pursued in a state governed by the Rule of Law. That legitimacy should include the penalty as well as security measures, bearing in mind that both are imposed to someone breaking a rule of conduct, and therefore, someone capable to do it. Reviewing penal capacity or criminal liability concepts is required because if penal capacity means the capacity to understand the reality and adjust the behavior to it, and if every legitimate criminal sanction have to be imposed to someone who have the capacity of break it, then security measures also have to be imposed only to people responsible, capable to understand rules and act in accordance. With regard to people not subject to criminal liability they are standing outside Criminal Law and punish them would be illegitimate. In this line, criminal liability should be seen not only as a crime assumption but also as a basic statement for any dialogue the state shall have with the citizens: at the level of crime itself, proceedings and sentence execution.

Recent empirical work suggests that emotions are responsible for deontological anti-consequentialist intuitions. For instance, anger places value on actions of revenge and retribution, value not derived from the consequences of these actions. As a result, it contributes to the development of retributive intuitions. I argue that if anger evolved to produce these retributive intuitions because of their biological consequences, then these intuitions are not a good indicator that punishment has value apart from its consequences. This severs the evidential connection between retributive intuitions and the retributive value of punishment. This argument may generalize to other deontological intuitions and theories.

Die Philosophie viel über Rache geschrieben und dabei wenig über den Begriff der Rache gesagt. In diesem Aufsatz versuche ich, einen Begriff der Rache zu entwickeln, der weniger täterzentriert und mehr rächerzentriert ist, um das Phänomen der Rache zu mehr zu machen als dem Musterbeispiel einer falschen Handlung.

L' Autrice si sofferma sulle modifiche introdotte dal d. lgs. 23/2015 in riferimento alla tutela dei lavoratori e delle lavoratrici ingiustamente licenziati, ponendo in luce come  il parametro di riferimento individuato dal legislatore ovvero la retribuzione utile ai fini del tfr costituisca una scelta volta ad incrementare quella brutale monetizzazione al ribasso, ratio dell'intero provvedimento legislativo.

T. M. Scanlon’s contractualism is a meta-ethical theory that explains moral motivation and also provides a conception of how to carry out moral deliberation. It supports non-consequentialism – the theory that both consequences and deontological considerations are morally significant in moral deliberation. Regarding the issue of punishment, non-consequentialism allows us to take account of the need for deterrence as well as principles of fairness, justice, and even desert. Moreover, Scanlonian contractualism accounts for permissibility in terms of justifiability: An act is permissible if and only if it can be justified to everyone affected by it. This contractualist thesis explains why it is always impermissible to frame an innocent person, why vicarious punishment is impermissible, and why there has to be a cap on sentences. Contractualism therefore allows us to take deterrence as a goal of punishment without the excess of utilitarianism. This paper further argues that the resulting view is superior to pure retributivism. Finally, it shows why legal excuses and mitigation can be justified in terms of the notion of negative desert.

Saint
Anselm has three theories of justice and two of the relationship between justice and mercy, each one better than the last.
The first theory of justice (in
Monologion
chapters 70
-
74) is mostly
about  divine  justice  with  respect  to  creatures,  and  it  makes  no  mention  of  mercy.  In  the Proslogion, he assumes that mercy must be an attribute of God, and then tries to advance a view of  justice  and  mercy  as  contraries,  where  justice  is  giving  people  their  due  and  mercy  is  not punishing  them  when  justice  would  require  it.  Recognizing  the  insuperable  problems  with  that conceptual  scheme,  Anselm  found  he  was  forced  to  reject  retributive  theories  of  punishment, eudaimonistic  theories  of  ethics,  and  theories  that  define  justice  as  giving  to  each  his  due,  in order to give a theoretically acceptable account of mercy.

The Protestant theological doctrine of the uses of the moral law had a striking analogue in the classic Anglo-American doctrine of the purposes of criminal law and punishment. Protestant theologians have long argued that God's moral law was not a pathway to salvation, but it still had "uses" in this life: (1) a civil use that restrains person from sinful conduct by threat of divine punishment; (2) a theological use that condemns sinful persons in their consciences and drives them to repentance; and (3) an educational use that teaches those who have already been saved the good works that please God and induce others to come to God, too. Protestant jurists, in turn, developed an analogous theory of three purposes of why a state needs criminal law and punishment: (1) deterrence of individuals and groups through the threat of criminal punishment; (2) retribution, the necessary punishment needed to restore a convicted criminal within the community; and (3) rehabilitation, teaching a person the good works that become proper citizenship. This Article analyzes the close conceptual connections between these theological and legal doctrines and the historical evidence that each influenced the development of the other. The Article also calls for a proper balancing of the three uses of moral law and the three purposes of criminal law.

The paper considers acts of private (in the sense of individually motivated and extra-legal) revenge, and draws attention to a special kind of judgement we may make of such acts. While endorsing the general view that an act of private revenge must be morally wrong, it maintains that under certain special conditions (which include its being just) it is susceptible of a rational respect from others which is based on its standing outside morality, as a choice by the revenger not to act morally but to obey other compelling motives. This thesis is tested against various objections, notably those which doubt the intelligibility or application of such non-moral 'respect,' or would assimilate it to moral approval; and it is distinguished from various positions with which it might be confused, such as the 'admirable immorality' of Slote, or the Nietzschean critique of morality. I The thesis of this paper is that, under certain conditions, an act of private revenge may properly be the object of a special kind of positive judgement, even though it is at the same time rightly morally condemned. The name I propose for this positive judgement is 'non-moral respect.' I will suggest in passing that respect of this kind can be extended to various other kinds of acts which are morally wrong, but the main focus of the paper will be upon revenge. By 'private revenge,' I mean a deliberate injurious act or course of action against another person, motivated by resentment of an injurious act or acts performed by that other person against the revenger, or against some other person or persons whose injury the revenger resents. Both motive (vengeful resentment) and injurious act must be present to constitute revenge. Within the motive, we could distinguish further between the passive resentment that is a response to the injury received, and the active vengeful feeling that empowers the decision to strike back, but I will not pursue this distinction, since for revenge both components must be present: where only passive resentment is felt, we have not revenge but forbearance, or impotent embitterment.

This is an updated version of the previous paper. Aside from some small changes in the framing of certain parts of discussion (especially, in the 'objections' subsection), the conclusion, footnotes & blue-booking, everything is here. The conclusion is a delicate thing--and therefore needs a bit more attention (hence, its omission) which tries to contextualize the paper in terms of Jack Balkin's idea of "constitutional redemption", but there are no substantive arguments therein. Most everything of worth to the paper is included in this draft.--A.c.S

P.S. A proper abstract can be found at the beginning of the document.

P.P.S. I apologize for the completely new re-upload, but it seems that the preview mechanism for academia.edu stops working for subsequent edits. The annoying consequence is that the paper can't be read in the browser, but downloaded. Hence, this re-upload.

This article demonstrates that the punishment eventually imposed upon Absalom was not only due to Nathan’s oracle in 2 Samuel 12, but was also the outcome of Absalom’s own deeds. Absalom’s narrative thus contributes to the structuring of the account according to the model of dual causality. On the divine level, Absalom is an instrument in God’s hands to punish David, according to the rule of ‘punishing children for the iniquity of parents’ (Exod. 20.5; 34.7; Num. 14.18; Deut. 5.9); on the earthly level, however, Absalom is unaware of divine will, and he is motivated to act erroneously by his own bad nature—his ambitiousness, his narcissism, and similar traits—when he rebels against his father

This article analyzes the first section of the ethiopian version of 1 Enoch, called Book of Watchers (BW). After a brief overview of the history of scholarship and textual criticism, it presents, through key quotations and a particular subdividing of the work, the existence of a « retributional » process, which evolves according to successive versions of BW. The present article considers the question, which is important for the intellectual environement referred to as « enochic », of the human or supernatural origin of evil. The article highlights its cosmic origin, caused by the disobedience of certain angels, and the later ethical responsibility of the « sinners ». The article emphasizes the desire of the last editor to comfort the « victims » of the devil, and to support the « righteous » and the « chosen » in their way, through the apocalyptic announcement, by the patriarch Enoch of the condemnation and punishment’s which is prepared for the rebel angels and for the « sinners ».

The Protestant theological doctrine of the uses of the moral law had a striking analogue in the classic Anglo-American doctrine of the purposes of criminal law and punishment. Protestant theologians have long argued that God’s moral law was not a pathway to salvation, but it still had “uses” in this life: (1) a civil use that restrains person from sinful conduct by threat of divine punishment; (2) a theological use that condemns sinful persons in their consciences and drives them to repentance; and (3) an educational use that teaches those who have already been saved the good works that please God and induce others to come to God, too. Protestant jurists, in turn, developed an analogous theory of three purposes of why a state needs criminal law and punishment: (1) deterrence of individuals and groups through the threat of criminal punishment; (2) retribution, the necessary punishment needed to restore a convicted criminal within the community; and (3) rehabilitation, teaching a person the good works that become proper citizenship. This Article analyzes the close conceptual connections between these theological and legal doctrines and the historical evidence that each influenced the development of the other. The Article also calls for a proper balancing of the three uses of moral law and the three purposes of criminal law.

This book chapter is part of a book which is the result of a Globethics.net conference in March 2018 at the Catholic University of East Africa (CUEA) in Kenya, focused on the integration of Ethics in Higher Education. The book captures the potential for sharing of knowledge, and triggering interdisciplinary collaboration and research across a wide variety of issues ranging from research practice, religion, entrepreneurship, leadership, fundraising and corruption. While some of the chapters focus on the understanding of ethics and its relationship with the various other aspects of life, this chapter concentrates on the a reason based philosophical method of effectively teaching publications and research ethics at the university.