A collection of original contributions by philosophers working in the ethics of punishment, gathering new perspectives on various challenging topics including punishment and forgiveness, dignity, discrimination, public opinion, torture, rehabilitation, and restitution.

Taking a fresh look at a central controversy in criminal law theory, The Ethics of Capital Punishment presents a rationale for the death penalty grounded in a theory of the nature of evil and the nature of defilement. Original, unsettling, and deeply controversial, it will be an essential reference point for future debates on the subject.

Derived from Scott B. Rae’s widely adopted textbook, Moral Choices, this digital short looks carefully at the Bible’s teaching on capital punishment and at arguments for and against it. With cases and questions for further discussion at the end, The Ethics of Capital Punishment provides a wise and well-grounded introduction to a key public policy-related ethical question, namely, “Can a Christian in good conscience support capital punishment today?”

The philosophical discussion of state punishment is well on in years. In contrast with a large number of ethical problems which are concerned with right and wrong in relation to a narrowly specified area of human life and practice and which hav- at least since the early 70’s - been regarded as a legitimate part of philosophical thinking constituting the area of applied ethics, reflections on punishment can be traced much further back in the history of western philosophy. This is not surprising. That the stately mandated infliction of death, suffering, or deprivation on citizens should be met with hesitation - from which ethical reflections may depar- seems obvious. Such a practice certainly calls for some persuasive justification. It is therefore natural that reflective minds have for a long time devoted attention to punishment and that the question of how a penal system can be justified has constituted the central question in philosophical discussion. Though it would certainly be an exaggeration to claim that the justification question is the only aspect of punishment with which philosophers have been concerned, there has in most periods been a clear tendency to regard this as the cardinal issue. Comparatively much less attention has been devoted to the more precise questions of how, and how much, criminals should be punished for their respective wrong-doings. This may, of course, be due to several reasons.

The morality of capital punishment has been debated for a long time. This however has 1 not resulted in the settlement of the question either way. Philosophers are still divided. In this work I am not addressing the morality of capital punishment per se. My question is different but related. It is this. Whether or not capital punishment is morally right, is it moral or immoral for medical doctors to be involved in the practice? To deal with this question I start off in Chapter One delineating the sort of involvement the medical associations consider to be morally problematic for medical doctors in capital punishment. They make a distinction between what they call 2 “medicalisation” of and “involvement” in capital punishment, and argue that there is a moral distinction between the two. Whilst it is morally acceptable for doctors to be “involved” in capital punishment, according to the medical associations, it is immoral to medicalise the practice. I clarify this position and show what moral issues arise. I then suggest that there should not be a distinction between the two. The medical associations argue that the medicalisation of capital punishment, especially the use by medical doctors of lethal injection to execute condemned prisoners is immoral and therefore should be prohibited, because it involves doctors in doing what is against the aims of medicine.

Given the current climate of political division and global conflict it is not surprising that there has been an increasing interest in how we ought to respond to perceived wrongdoing, both personal and political. In this volume, top scholars from around the world contribute all new original essays on the ethics of forgiveness, revenge, and punishment. This book draws on both historical and contemporary debates in order to answer important questions about the nature of forgiveness, the power of apology, the relationship between punishment and revenge, the path to reconciliation, the morality of blame, and the role of forgiveness in political conflict. Chapter 16 is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

This book critically evaluates the way ordinary people enforce morality in everyday life.

Leading scholars from the fields of biblical studies and ethics provide a one-stop reference book on the vital relationship between Scripture and ethics.

In his new introduction to this current edition of this classic in the field originally published in 1982 (Humanities Press), Hoppe (economics, U. of Nevada, Las Vegas--as was the late author) extols Rothbard's marriage of the "value-free" science of economics with the normative enterprise of ethics and their offspring: libertarianism. Discussion areas are: natural law, a theory of liberty, the state vs. liberty, modern alternative theories of liberty, and toward a theory of strategy for liberty. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Justice, Crime, and Ethics, a leading textbook in criminal justice programs, examines ethical dilemmas pertaining to the administration of criminal justice and professional activities in the field. This tenth edition continues to deliver a broad scope of topics, focusing on law enforcement, legal practice, sentencing, corrections, research, crime control policy, and philosophical issues. The book’s robust coverage encompasses contentious issues such as capital punishment, prison corruption, and the use of deception in police interrogation. The tenth edition includes new material in a number of chapters including "Learning Police Ethics," "Using Ethical Dilemmas in Training Police," "Prison Corruption," "Crime and Justice Myths," "Corporate Misconduct and Ethics," "Ethics and Criminal Justice Research," and "Ethical Issues in Confronting Terrorism." The use of "Case Studies," "Ethical Dilemmas," and "Policy and Ethics" boxes continues throughout the textbook. A new feature for this edition is the inclusion of "International Perspective" boxes in a number of relevant chapters. Students of criminal justice, as well as instructors and professionals in the field, continue to rely on this thorough, dependable resource on ethical decision making in the criminal justice system.