The Ends of Harm

`Anyone who performs the seemingly impossible task of providing a plausible account of criminal punishment, especially a hybrid account that accommodates both deterrent and dentological intuitions, should be applauded ... I admire the ambition, the scope, and the ingenuity of Tadros's Duty and Theory of Punishment' Hamish Stewart, Criminal Law and Philosophy `A stimulating, original and well-written account that prompts a reconsideration of the existing foundation of punishment.' Legal Studies, Vol 32 No 3, 30/11/2012 `Tadros has put his agile, analytical mind to work to solve a problem that should be of central concern to all of us. And in that spirit, his work should be read and celebrated.' Ki mberly Kessler Ferzan, Jotwell `If Tadros is right, philosophers of punishment must be moral and political philosophers too, and their philosophical horizons must expand accordingly. That it doubles as an attempt to meet this challenge makes The End of Harm an invigorating read.' James Edwards, Law Quarterly Review `In a nutshell, the duty view offers a deontological justification of punishment that is based on the deterrence effects of punishment, but avoids any commitment to the idea that proportionate punitive suffering is non-instrumentally valuable. This theoretical positioning is fascinating. It alone ensures that the duty view merits, and will receive, close scrutiny by theorists of punishment. Add to this the fact that Tadros' defense of his position is ingenious, draws on a wide range of philosophical resources, and manifests great sensitivity to moral nuance, and it becomes clear that the duty view is a powerful arrival among the justifications of punishment available today.' Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen, Criminal Law and Philosophy `I find a a great deal in [Tadros's] account of punishment to admire and even to borrow; this book is a magnificent contribution to criminal law theory. Tadros's arguments go directly to the heart of the deepest and most difficult questions about the normative foundations of the criminal law, serving as a painful reminder of the difficulty of constructing any rationale for our punitive practices. The Ends of Harm should induce all of us to rethink, refine, qualify, and even to abandon views that we have uncritically presupposed for a long time.' Douglas Husak, Law and Philosophy `Victor Tadros has produced a powerful and highly original moral justification for a practice of state punishment that would be more purposeful and humane than any presently existing system of criminal punishment. He argues with great cogency that the permissibility of punishment and the permissibility of self-defense have their common source in the enforcement of duties that wrongdoers owe to their victims. In the course of meticulously defending these comprehensive accounts of the right to punish and the right of self-defense, he illuminates a range of central issues in normative ethics, political philosophy, and legal theory. The Ends of Harm presents a profound and brilliant challenge both to our institutions of punishment and to our traditional ways of justifying them.' Jeff McMahan, Rutgers University, 2011 `Victor Tadros is one of the brightest, most inventive theorists working on the morality of punishment, and his admirable insight and creativity are on full display in this very impressive book.' Professor Christopher Heath Wellman, Washington University in St Louis, 2011 `Tadros's new book makes striking and original contributions not only to penal theory, but to moral philosophy more broadly. Starting from a vivid reminder of just how morally problematic the practice of state punishment is, he develops an instrumentalist account of punishment as general deterrence, but does so on the basis of a firmly non-instrumentalist, Kantian moral theory to which the idea of respect for persons (along with the 'means principle' that forbids treating people as means) is central. The key new idea here is that those who commit crimes acquire duties to their victims, including the duty to protect them against future harm; this, Tadros argues, can then justify the imposition of deterrent punishments as a way of enforcing those protective duties.' Professor R. A. Duff, University of Stirling and University of Minnesota, 2011