PRE‐PUNISHMENT,COMMUNICATIVE THEORIES OF PUNISHMENT,AND COMPATIBILISM

Saul Smilansky holds that there is a widespread intuition to the effect that pre‐punishment – the practice of punishing individuals for crimes which they have not committed, but which we are in a position to know that they are going to commit – is morally objectionable. Smilanksy has argued that this intuition can be explained by our recognition of the importance of respecting the autonomy of potential criminals. ( Smilansky, 1994 ) More recently he has suggested that this account of the intuition only vindicates it if determinism is false, and argues that this presents a problem for compatibilists, who, he says, are committed to thinking that the truth of determinism makes no moral difference ( Smilansky, 2007 ). In this paper I argue that the intuitions Smilansky refers to can be explained and vindicated as consequences of the truth of a communicative conception of punishment. Since the viability of the communicative conception does not depend on the falsity of determinism, our intuitions about pre‐punishment do not clash with (what Smilanksy calls) compatibilism. And if the communicative theory of punishment is – as Duff (2001 ) suggests – a form of retributivism, the account also meets New's (1992 ) challenge to retributivists to explain what is wrong with pre‐punishment.     

Back to Basics: Problems and Prospects for Applied Philosophy

ABSTRACT This paper is an account of a response to a well-intentioned and genuinely naive question concerning the nature of 'applied philosophy'. It indicates differing points of view concerning the nature of philosophy and what one might or might not expect from it. It tries to synthesise these points of view into a position that sees philosophy as continuous with that attitude of mind that was epitomised by Socrates, an attitude of mind which is directed to every aspect or dimension of human life. The notion of the enquiring activist is borrowed to encapsulate this attitude as a valuable goal of 'applied philosophy'.