Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
  1. Home
  2. Search

Refine search

Refine search

Access:
Content type:
Publication date:
Apply   From and To filters
Subject: Show more
Journals Show more
Publishers: Show more
Societies Show more
Series: Show more
Collections: Show more

Actions for selected content:

Select all | Deselect all
  • View selected items
  • Export citations
  • Download PDF (zip)
  • Save to Kindle
  • Save to Dropbox
  • Save to Google Drive

Save Search

You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
Cancel
×

2 results

  • Chapter 1 - Defining Social Punishment

  • from Part I - The Descartes Lectures 2018
  • Linda Radzik, Texas A & M University, Christopher Bennett, University of Sheffield, Glen Pettigrove, University of Glasgow, George Sher, Rice University, Houston
  • Book:
    The Ethics of Social Punishment
    Published online:
    30 October 2020
    Print publication:
    12 November 2020, pp 3-23

  • Summary

    The philosophical literature on punishment concentrates its attention almost exclusively on legal forms of punishment. Indeed, some writers suggest that our common methods for enforcing morality in everyday life (such as angry rebukes, social withdrawal, consumer boycotts, and public shaming) are not really punitive at all. This chapter argues that social punishment is a genuine phenomenon that is deserving of philosophical attention. It distinguishes between formal and informal social punishments and explains how these differ from nonpunitive responses to wrongdoing such as moral criticism and natural penalties.

The Ethics of Social Punishment
  • The Enforcement of Morality in Everyday Life
  • Linda Radzik, Christopher Bennett, Glen Pettigrove, George Sher
  • Published online:
    30 October 2020
    Print publication:
    12 November 2020
  • How do we punish others socially, and should we do so? In her 2018 Descartes Lectures for Tilburg University, Linda Radzik explores the informal methods ordinary people use to enforce moral norms, such as telling people off, boycotting businesses, and publicly shaming wrongdoers on social media. Over three lectures, Radzik develops an account of what social punishment is, why it is sometimes permissible, and when it must be withheld. She argues that the proper aim of social punishment is to put moral pressure on wrongdoers to make amends. Yet the permissibility of applying such pressure turns on the tension between individual desert and social good, as well as the possession of an authority to punish. Responses from Christopher Bennett, George Sher and Glen Pettigrove challenge Radzik's account of social punishment while also offering alternative perspectives on the possible meanings of our responses to wrongdoing. Radzik replies in the closing essay.