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4 Crim. L. & Phil. 1 (2010)

handle is hein.journals/crimlpy4 and id is 1 raw text is: Crim Law and Philos (2010) 4:1-16 DOI 10.1007/s11572-009-9081-x Revisionism and Desert Lene Bomann-Larsen Published online: 9 August 2009 © Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009 Abstract Revisionists claim that the retributive intuitions informing our responsibility- attributing practices are unwarranted under determinism, not only because they are false, but because if we are all victims of causal luck, it is unfair to treat one another as if we are deserving of moral and legal sanctions. One (moderate) revisionist strategy recom- mends a deflationary concept of moral responsibility, and that we justify punishment in consequentialist rather than retributive terms. Another (strong) revisionist strategy rec- ommends that we eliminate all concepts of guilt, blame and punishment, and treat dan- gerous criminals as we treat people with contagious diseases. I argue against both strong and moderate revisionism that (1) it is not unfair to hold persons desert-entailingly responsible (in a weaker sense of 'desert') insofar as they take an interest in being treated as appraisable, and (2) that it is unfair to persons not to treat them as desert-entailingly responsible (in this weaker sense) contrary to their interests in being treated as such. The interest-based argument, I conclude, give us a justification for communicating retributive attitudes, but may still require a weak revision of our retributive practices, in the direction of a communicative theory of punishment. Keywords Desert - Determinism - Fairness - Justification - Retributivism Repentance - Revisionism Introduction Does the truth of determinismi oblige us to revise our practices for attributing moral responsibility and punishing wrongdoers?2 One form of revisionism (Vargas 2005) claims I am agnostic about the truth of determinism, but presuppose it for purposes of argument. 2 I take as a premise that the public support for criminal punishment depends on and derives from our retributive reactive attitudes; hence, that there is overlap between morality and criminal law. This premise is L. Bomann-Larsen (E) Department of Philosophy, Classics, History of Art and Ideas, University of Oslo, PO Box 1020, 0315 Oslo, Norway e-mail: lene.bomann-larsen@ifikk.uio.no Springer

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