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Rejecting Retributivism. Seminar of the Moscow Center For Consciousness Studies

5 January, 2022

The subject of discussion is the book by philosopher Gregg Caruso "Rejecting Retributivism: Free Will, Punishment, and Criminal Justice".


One of the central positions justifying the use of punishments in jurisprudence is retributivism. According to this position, offenders are morally responsible for their actions and deserve punishment in proportion to the harm they have caused. Caruso puts forward six arguments against the retributivist position, demonstrating that we have substantial grounds to doubt that people really have the kind of free will and moral responsibility that are necessary to justify retributivist punishment. He also reveals the weaknesses of competing positions, including the consequentialist theory of intimidation, educational and communicative theories, defending his own approach of quarantine theory. According to Caruso, in comparison with retributivism, the quarantine model offers a much more humane, holistic and effective approach to the problem of criminal behavior. The success of the criticism of retributivism and the validity of Caruso's quarantine theory are discussed at the seminar.

Speakers: Ph.D. Artem Besedin and Ph.D. Alexey Skvortsov.
Participants: A.Yashin, S.Levin, A.Yunusov, K.Novichkov, E.Loginov, A.Mertsalov, V.Vasilyev.