Perspectives on Punishment: An Interdisciplinary Exploration

Punishment seems to be one of the most venerable and universal of moral impulses and social practices. It is central to law and jurisprudence, but it also exists beyond law: within the self; in relationships between individuals; inside families and communities. No single discipline circumscribes the subject of punishment, although it belongs to the matter of most disciplines in the humanities and social sciences. This collection of essays by jurists, philosophers, historians, a literary scholar, and a psychoanalyst explores elemental questions of punishment: cultural and psychological roots; justifications and their validity; legal formulations and enactments, crises in contemporary practice.