The Injustice of Punishment

This book offers original answers to the two toughest challenges facing the rejection of moral responsibility and retributive justice: If you reject moral responsibility, what do you do about punishment? And if you reject the moral responsibility system and retributive justice, what workable alternative system will replace them? Drawing on extensive psychological studies, Waller argues that although we cannot eliminate punishment in the foreseeable future, it is better to honestly acknowledge that all punishment is fundamentally unjust. That acknowledgment spurs us to seek effective means of reducing the need for punishment and minimizing the inevitable harm involved in punitive processes.

The Injustice of Punishment emphasizes that we can never make sense of moral responsibility while also acknowledging that punishment is sometimes unavoidable. Recognizing both the injustice and the necessity of punishment is painful but also beneficial. It motivates us to find effective means of minimizing both the use and severity of punishment, and encourages deeper inquiry into the causes of destructive behavior and how to change those causes in order to reduce the need for punishment. There is an emerging alternative to the comfortable but destructive system of moral responsibility and just deserts. That alternative is not the creation of philosophers but of sociologists, criminologists, psychologists, and workplace engineers; it was developed, tested, and employed in factories, prisons, hospitals, and other settings; and it is writ large in the practices of cultures that minimize belief in individual moral responsibility. The alternative marks a promising path to less punishment, less coercive control, deeper common commitment, and more genuine freedom.