Love in Law’s Shadow: Political Theory, Moral Psychology and Young Hegel’s Critique of Punishment

Abstract

Modern theory of punishment conflates two types of question. The first concerns the justification of state punishment, the second the moral damage that occurs when a person is violated, and how the resulting damage can be repaired. The first question leads to political theory and a particular legally based moral grammar of wrongdoing and punishment. The second goes in the direction of a different moral psychology involving a grammar of violation, grieving and reconciliation. Retrieving the young Hegel's analysis takes us in the second direction. It provides a critical vantage-point from which to view the dominant liberal political theory, including Hegel's own mature position as a founder of retributive theory. The modern theory of state punishment is legitimated by its public association with a moral psychology of violation, which it at the same time suppresses in favour of its own very different moral grammar.

Problematising Symbolic Reparation: ‘Complex Political Victims’, ‘Dead Body Politics’ and the Right to Remember

“…Instead of opting to ignore divisive aspects of the past, dialogue through selective commemoration presents the scope for a frank, if inevitably uncomfortable, discussion about competing interpretations of the past that can foster an appreciation of all perspectives. The purpose here should not be to offer defence for or demand disavowal of past violence, but rather to gain an insight into the motivations for past violence through a scaling up to the societal level of engagements already being undertaken by some individuals (Norrie 2019). These engagements might even foster incipient recognition that in some ways 'their' experiences mirror 'our' experiences.…”

Victims Who Have Done Nothing or Victims Who Have Done Nothing Wrong: Contesting Blame and ‘Innocent Victim’ Status in Transitioning Societies

“…For example, a change in the official discourse has meant that some Unionists now take a more critical view of Bloody Sunday (Aiken 2015). The willingness, too, of some members of NSAGs like Brighton bomber Pat Magee to take personal responsibility for the hurt caused by their actions has led to some victims trying to understand their victimisers' motives (Norrie 2019). While hardly a panacea for longstanding political and moral disagreement over the past, these developments demonstrate the post-conflict victimological usefulness in 'narrative criminology' (Presser & Sandberg 2015) engaging personal pasts in a constructively reflective, rather than morally condemnatory, way.…”

Animals Who Think and Love: Law, Identification and the Moral Psychology of Guilt

“…They are underpinned by an anticipatory or prospective identification. They constitute the basis for a moral grammar of guilt and reconciliation that can be identified both philosophically (Norrie 2018a) and in ethical practices of seeking and giving forgiveness (Norrie 2018b).…”

“…On the significance of Williams's opening of philosophy both to a limited Nietzschean critique and to psychoanalysis, seeLear (2003Lear ( , 2004). 2 Of comparative interest here is another, metaphysical, critique of modern morality based on an ethics of love offered by the young Hegel, before he himself succumbed to the modern form in his mature work: seeNorrie (2018a).…”