Stephen Kershnar

Our worldview assumes that people are morally responsible. Consider our emotions regarding other people or ourselves. We often feel anger, gratitude, pride, and shame toward them or ourselves. Consider religious beliefs. Jews and Christians believe that God cares whether a person does right by others and freely loves him. Consider moral values. We value dignity, freedom, and rights. The above emotions, beliefs, and values assume that people are responsible. In particular, they assume that a person is responsible for what she thinks and does, and that this is a good thing. This book argues that the above worldview is false. No one is responsible. I provide four arguments for this conclusion. (1) Foundation. No one is responsible because there is no foundation for responsibility. A foundation for responsibility is something for which a person is responsible but not by being responsible for something else. (2) Epistemic Condition. No one is responsible because no one fulfills the epistemic condition necessary for blameworthiness. (3) Internalism. If a person were responsible, then she would be responsible for, and only for, what goes on in her head. Most of the evidence for responsibility says the opposite. (4) Amount. No one is responsible because we cannot make sense of what makes a person more or less praiseworthy (or blameworthy). The above arguments cohere with each other, explain the responsibility-skepticism literature, and have disturbing implications.

In the middle of the twentieth century, many philosophers came to believe that the problem of morally justifying punishment had finally been solved. Defended most famously by Hart and Rawls, the so-called “Mixed Theory” of punishment claimed that justifying punishment required recognizing that the utilitarian and retributive theories were in fact answers to two different questions: utilitarianism answered the question of why we have punishment as an institution, while retribution answered the question of how to punish individual wrongdoers. We could thus reconcile the two great competing theories of punishment, and show how they were both right and not in conflict at all. Unfortunately, it gradually became apparent that the solution would not work. This essay attempts to set out thereasons why the Mixed Theory was bound to fail, and why the problem of reconciling the utilitarian and retributive goals remains with us. In this paper, Stephen Kershnar argues that character alone grounds desert. He begins by arguing that desert is grounded by a person’s character, action, or both. In the second section, He defends the claim that character grounds desert. His argument rests on intuitions that other things being equal, it would be intrinsically better for virtuous persons to flourish and vicious persons suffer than vice versa. In the third section, he argues that actions do not ground desert. He gives three arguments in support of this claim. First, there is little intuitive support for this supposed ground and to the extent that there is support, it is undermined when we consider what causes character and acts to diverge. Second, this type of desert doesn’t fit with a unifying account of the different aspects of intrinsic value. Third, the most plausible version of act-based desert leaves it unclear why acts should ground desert.

A particular amount of punishment is justified if and only if that amount of punishment is deserved and the desert claim is not overridden. In the case of some multiple murderers or people who perform serious violent acts in addition to murder, the deserved punishment must involve torture. I argue that this legitimate desert claim is not overridden by objections based on notions of brutality and inhumanity, the Kantian concern that persons be treated as ends, the intuitive distaste that many persons have for torture, the negative consequences of institutionalized torture, the concern for bias in the imposition of punishment, and the need for accuracy in measuring harms.

George Sher's theory of deserved punishment is unable to account for cases in which wrongdoing does not result in unfair advantages. Sher attempts to connect punishment with distributive justice by suggesting that punishment is deserved inasmuch as the unfair advantage gained by wrongdoing is offset. According to Sher's diachronic theory of fairness, punishment is also deserved when it occurs in response to transgression of a first-order ethical norm. A problem for the theory concerns the justification it provides for disparate treatment of wrongdoers who are morally indistinguishable.

Space warfare is warfare that takes place in outer space. It involves ground-to-space, space-to-ground, and space-to-space violence between nations or peoples. The violence can involve kinetic weapons, directed energy weapons, or electronic destruction. International law, specifically, the Outer Space Treaty and SALT I, currently bans weapons of mass destruction from being put into space, although one wonders if one country were to violate the ban whether others would follow suit. In this paper, I argue that that if there is a non-consequentialist morality of space war, then one country can unjustly attack a second country’s space vehicles. This in turn depends on property rights. But there is no adequate theory of property rights with regard to space war. Hence, there is no non-consequentialist morality of a space war.

The notion that immigrants have a right to immigrate to the U.S. appears to conflict with the government’s or citizens’ property rights. Michael Huemer has given one of the most interesting and provocative arguments on immigration in years. It turns the dominant view on its head. Unfortunately, the argument fails. U.S. citizens own land, individually, collectively, and via their government. For immigrants to gain a right to enter on it, Huemer must think that the landowners have lost their rights to their land, the landowners’ rights are overridden, or the landowners’ rights are undermined. He does not show that any of these are true. A separate issue and one not discussed here is whether it is a wise policy to reduce or end immigration to the United States.

A punitive desert-claim should be understood as a claim about the intrinsic value of punishment, where this value is grounded in an act or feature of the person to be punished. The purpose of my project is to explore the structure and justification of such punitive desert-claims. ;I argue that a true punitive desert-claim takes the form and , and that belief in these principles is justified on the basis of our considered moral judgments. The Principle of Deserved Punishment. A person who deserves punishment deserves it because, and only because, she has performed a culpable wrongdoing. The Principle of the Proportionality of Deserved Punishment. A person receives the punishments she deserves if and only if the punishment she receives is proportional to her culpable wrongdoing. ;My analysis proceeds as follows. In chapter two, I argue in favor of the claim that a culpable wrongdoing is the sole basis for deserved punishment. ;In chapter three, I put forth an account of the structure of a punitive desert-claim and argue that deserved punishment is not justified via the consequences that result from punishment. Having clarified the basis and structure of deserved punishment, I then set out to provide the justification for it. ;In chapter four, I argue that deserved punishment cannot be justified by an appeal to more general moral principles. My argument here rests on the criticism of different types of theory that attempt to justify deserved punishment on the grounds of more general principles. Here I criticize those theories that attempt to justify and on the grounds of: the culpable wrongdoer's choice, the culpable wrongdoer's hypothetical consent, the state's promise to punish, the demands of a justified institution, and distributive justice. ;In the last chapter I argue that and best account for our considered moral judgments about specific cases. From this, I conclude that our belief in both principles is justified

In "Kant on Freedom and the Appropriate Punishment," the author begins by noting that in The Metaphysics of Morals , Kant asserts that a wrongdoer should be given a punishment that is similar to his wrongdoing. He then makes two interpretive claims with regard to this assertion.First, he claims that the best way to understand this assertion in the context of other things Kant says is that the state is obligated to punish a wrongdoer in a way that imposes on the wrongdoer an amount of suffering equal to what he caused and through an action that is similar in type to the wrongdoer's offense. The argument in support of this claim occurs in section II and rests on two more specific interpretive claims about Kant's theory: that state punishment should resemble the wrongdoer's acts and should involve the same level of suffering as was involved in the original wrongdoing and that punishment in accordance with these constraints is an obligatory duty.Second, the author claims that on Kant's theory this principle of appropriate punishment is justified because it restores equality in the distribution of freedom for members of the state. The argument in support of this claim occurs in section III. The argument rests in part on Kant's justification of the state and coercion in terms of the value of equalized freedom. By applying this same justification to Kant's principle of appropriate punishment, the author claims to be able to account for the principle as well as to relate the principle to Kant's political theory. Der vorliegende Beitrag beginnt mit der Feststellung, daß Kant in der Metaphysik der Sitten geltend macht, ein Übeltäter solle eine Bestrafung erleiden, die mit seiner Tat vergleichbar ist. Im Hinblick auf diese Forderung Kants werden zwei Thesen aufgestellt.Erstens wird behauptet, die genannte Forderung sei vor dem Hintergrund sonstiger Äußerungen Kants am besten dahingehend zu verstehen, daß der Staat verpflichtet sei, einen Übeltäter in einer Weise zu bestrafen, die diesem ein Maß von Leid zufügt, das dem von ihm selbst verursachten gleichkommt. Geschehen müsse dies durch eine Handlung, die in ihrer Art dem vom Übeltäter begangenen Verbrechen entspricht. Die Begründung dieser These erfolgt in Abschnitt II und stützt sich wiederum auf zwei mehr in die Einzelheiten gehende Thesen zu Kants Theorie: Staatliche Bestrafung sollte den Handlungen des Übeltäters ähneln und Leid in einer Größenordnung mit sich bringen, wie es auch die ursprüngliche Tat zur Folge hatte. Bestrafung in Übereinstimmung mit diesen Bedingungen ist eine Pflicht.Zweitens wird die Auffassung vertreten, dieses Prinzip angemessenen Strafens sei im Rahmen der Theorie Kants gerechtfertigt, weil es für die Mitglieder des Staates die Gleicheit in bezug auf die Verteilung der Freiheit wiederherstelle. Die Begründung dieser These findet sich in Abschnitt III und beruht zum Teil auf Kants Rechtfertigung von Staat und Zwang durch den Verweis auf den Wert gleichmäßig verteilter Freiheit. Die Übernahme eben dieser Rechtfertigung auch für Kants Theorie angemessenen Strafens soll sowohl dazu dienen, das Prinzip selbst zu begründen, als auch dazu, es in Kants politische Theorie einzuordnen

John Martin Fischer’s book, Death, Immortality, and Meaning in Life is outstanding. It is very readable (often funny) and has a clear organization that makes it easy to follow. It is tightly argued and fascinating. It discusses ideas with enjoyable references to and discussions of the Buddha, Ram Dass, Gilgamesh, Stephen Jay Gould, Hinduism, Aldous Huxley, the Koran, C. S. Lewis, LSD, Christopher Marlowe, Somerset Maugham, reincarnation, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, Star Trek, Jonathan Swift, and Rick Warren. There is an issue as to whether Fischer’s theories of meaning in life, badness of death, and goodness of immortality succeed. Still, the book is excellent. It is ideal for anyone teaching these subjects and will be of interest to laypeople as well as philosophers, theologians, and religious leaders who specialize in these topics.

In David Boonin’s Should Race Matter? Unusual Answers to the Usual Questions, Boonin addresses some of the most controversial race-policies. Specifically, he addresses reparations for slavery, affirmative action, hate-speech penalties, hate-crime laws, and racial profiling. The book is excellent, but in the end the arguments do not succeed. Consider first his argument on reparations for slavery. In general, problems with the relevant compensation-counterfactuals undermine our ability to gage the amount of compensation owed. Similarly, because no one knows how much of the black-white gap is due to genetics or African cultural influence or other factors, judging the amount of the black-white gap due to slavery and subsequent oppression is nearly impossible. When paid via tax dollars, both unwarranted compensation and unpaid compensatory debts are unjust. Hence, when it is murky whether or to what extent compensation is owed, compensatory justice pulls us in two directions. Consider, also, how much of the debt has been paid off already via affirmative action and disproportionately filling government jobs with blacks. If blacks are doing better than how they would in the absence of slavery and past discrimination because of government benefits, then it is not clear if further compensation is owed. Boonin needs to consider whether blacks occupy more professional roles or have more income than they would have but for past discrimination. This might come about if we discovered that affirmative action was widely applied or that large numbers were hired by the government and it pays a lot more than the private sector.

David Boonin’s book, The Problem of Punishment, combines an incredible command of the literature with an organized and careful discussion. With the possible exception of Michael Moore’s book, Placing Blame, this is the best book ever written on the philosophy of punishment. His overall thesis is that legal punishment is wrong. Boonin argues that the purported justifications of punishment fail the Foundational Test or the Entailment Test. (1) Foundational Test: A theory satisfies the foundation test if and only if it does not have implications that are so counterintuitive that there is sufficient reason to reject the theory. (2) Entailment Test: A theory satisfies the Entailment Test if and only if it entails that legal punishment is permissible. Despite the book’s brilliance, Boonin’s overall strategy is mistaken. He tries to show that no theory can justify punishing all and only people who violate the law and entail that all such offenders should receive proportionate punishments. He also argues that many of the theories fail on their own terms, but let us leave aside these specific criticisms. Consider the following question: Are the laws in question are perfectly just or not? If the laws are perfectly just, then we are talking about an ideal set of laws. The ideal laws might well perfectly track one of the factors such as desert, forfeiture, or fairness because doing so is what makes them perfectly just. In this case, the theory in question will pass the Entailment Test. If the laws are not perfectly just, then it is not clear why it is desirable for a theory to justify punishing all offenders. For example, if the state does not allow someone to engage in free speech, practice the religion of her choice, or deny intercourse to her husband, it is not clear why in such cases we should think that an adequate theory should justify state punishment. Boonin’s book is must reading for anyone who wants to explore the moral status of punishment. His overall strategy, however, is mistaken.

In punishment, proportionality is the systematic mathematical relationship between the significance of the wrongdoing and the amount of punishment that may be imposed on the wrongdoer. In this chapter, Kershnar argues that there is no adequate equation for proportionality. The lack of an adequate equation rests on intuitions and the absence of a shared metric. If there is no equation for proportionality, then there is no proportionality. This is because if there is no equation for proportionality, then there is no general justification for proportionality. Purported justifications of punishment that lack proportionality—specifically, consequentialism and consent theory—are implausible. The lack of proportionality, then, is a threat to the notion that some punishment is justified and, more generally, non-consequentialism.

The article claims that a person who deserves punishment deserves it because, and only because, she has performed a culpable wrongdoing . The article thus rejects the theory that the basis of deserved punishment is a bad moral character. The argument rejecting The Character Theory of Deserved Punishment is divided into two parts:1) that it is not necessarily the case that an intentional act reflects the agent's moral character, and2) that it is not necessarily the case that a culpable wrongdoing reflects the agent's moral character. The article then proceeds to isolate instances of culpable wrongdoing and of bad moral character to see which of these factors accompanies the considered moral judgment that the agent deserves punishment. It concludes that our intuitions suggest deserved punishment and the amount of punishment someone deserves, correlate with culpable wrongdoing rather than with a person's bad moral character. Der Beitrag geht davon aus, daß eine Person dann und nur dann Strafe verdient, wenn sie eine rechtswidrige Tat schuldhaft begangen hat. Er wendet sich damit gegen die Auffassung, Basis für eine verdiente Strafe sei der schlechte Charakter der bestraften Person. Das Argument, das die letztere Lehre verwirft, zerfällt in zwei Teile. 1) Es ist nicht notwendigerweise so, daß eine Vorsatztat den schlechten Charakter des Handelnden, und 2) es ist nicht notwendigerweise so, daß schuldhaft begangenes Unrecht überhaupt den Charakter des Handelnden widerspiegelt. Anschließend untersucht der Beitrag Beispiele schuldhaftes Unrechttuns und Beispiele schlechten moralischen Charakters, um festzustellen, welcher dieser Faktoren das moralische Urteil, daß der Handelnde Strafe verdient, begleitet. Er kommt zu dem Ergebnis, daß unsere Intuitionen den Gedanken, jemand verdiene Strafe, und die Höhe der Strafe, die der Betreffende verdient, mit der Annahme einer schuldhaft begangenen rechtswidrigen Tat korrelieren und nicht mit der Annahme der Betreffende habe einen schlechten Charakter

The retributive duty is both held by and owed to the victim of a culpable wrongdoing. This reflexive account fits nicely with a Kantian emphasis on autonomy because the Kantian account allows us to explain how a person can have a duty to oneself. The reflexive account also fits nicely with, and is in part supported by, the notion that a culpable wrongdoer forfeits some of his rights . The waivability of the retributive duty in part explains why it is intuitively permissible for the victim not to punish the wrongdoer, but why the same is not true with regard to the state. The reflexive duty also fits into a consent-based account of state authority and the notion that natural duties are mostly negative. Das Opfer einer schuldhaften Verletzung seiner Rechte hat nicht nur Recht, sondern auch die Pflicht Vergeltung zu üben. Diese reflexive Erwägung paßt sehr gut zu einer Betonung des Autonomiegedankens nach der Weise Kants, da die Auffassung Kants zu erklären vermag, wie eine Person eine Pflicht gegen sich selbst haben kann. Ebenso gut paßt die reflexive Erwägung zu - und sie wird zum Teil auch gestützt von - der Erkenntnis, daß jemand, der schuldhaft Unrecht tut, einige seiner Rechte verwirkt. Freilich kann auf die Vergeltung verzichtet werden, und das erklärt teilweise, warum es unseren Intuitionen entspricht, daß es dem Opfer erlaubt ist, den Täter nicht zu strafen, während das für den Staat gerade nicht gilt. Die reflexive Pflicht paßt schließlich auch zu einer auf Einverständnis gegründeten Sichtweise staatlicher Autorität, und sie läßt sich gut vereinbaren mit der Erkenntnis, daß natürliche Pflichten zumeist negativ formuliert sind