Alan Norrie – författare

Punishment, Responsibility and Justice builds on Alan Norrie's previous work in the philosophy of punishment and criminal law to develop a challenging and ground-breaking critique of Kantian justice thinking. It casts a bold new light on recent debates about punishment and the criminal law in a period when traditional thinking has undergone opposition, crisis and change. The retributive and 'orthodox subjectivist' approaches, which have driven the textbook tradition and law reform for forty years, have been doubly challenged. A 'revisionist' critique opposes their Kantian insistence on formal individual autonomy from both a communitarian position on punishment and a 'morally substantive' view of responsibility. A 'postmodern' critique opposes orthodoxy for its failure to see how the Kantian subject is constructed in relations of power and domination. Against both orthodox subjectivist and revisionist views, Norrie develops a relational or dialectical critique to argue that they in fact both work in the same Kantian problematic. He establishes the concept of a 'blaming relation' as the basis for a critique of both, and to challenge the standard analytical account of criminal justice thinking. Moving from the legal theory of Ashworth, Duff, Fletcher, Moore, Smith and Williams to the jurisprudence of the courts, Norrie analyses the seemingly irresolvable problems of punishment, responsibility and justice in the criminal law from a relational point of view. Against the postmodern approach, he argues for the need to retain what remains of moral value in Kantianism by seeking 'a non-Kantian answer to the Kantian question' of individual justice. The result is a relational critique of punishment, responsibility and justice, which recognises the ambiguity and ambivalence that accompany judgment of wrongdoing, and which asserts both the real moral value and the fundamental limits of Kantian justice thinking.

This book presents essential key readings to stimulate debate about and within critical realism. It explores transcendental realist philosophy of science, critical naturalist philosophy of social science, the theory of explanatory critique, and dialectic critique.

Critical realism is a movement in philosophy and the human sciences most closely associated with the work of Roy Bhaskar. Since the publication of Bhaskars A Realist Theory of Science, critical realism has had a profound influence on a wide range of subjects. This reader makes accessible, in one volume, key readings to stimulate debate about and within critical realism. It explores the following themes:* transcendental realist* the theory of explanatory critique* dialectics* Bhaskar's critical naturalist philosophy of science.

Dialectic and Difference is the first systematic exploration of Roy Bhaskar’s dialectical philosophy and its implications for ethics and justice. That philosophy has three aims: a dialecticisation of original critical realism, a ‘critical realisation’ of dialectic, and a metacritique of western philosophy. In the first, real absence or negativity links structured being to dialectical becoming in a dynamic world. The second draws on Marx to locate the critical impulse in Hegel’s dialectic in a material, open and changing totality. The third identifies a central problem in western philosophy from the Greeks on, the failure to think real negativity as the essence of change (‘ontological monovalence’). Bhaskar’s ethics connect basic human ontology with universal principles of freedom and solidarity. He marries (‘constellates’) these with a grasp of how principles are historically shaped. His account of freedom moves from the infant’s ‘primal scream’ to the eudaimonic society, but thinks the limits to freedom under modern conditions. The morally real in ethics and justice is displaced and reconfigured as relations between ‘the ideal’ and ‘the actual’.Western philosophy systematically denies the real negativity that drives Bhaskar’s dialectic. Metacritique traces this to Parmenides and Plato’s account of non-being as difference. It enables a critique of the poststructural radicalisation of difference via Nietzsche and the doctrine of ‘Heraclitan flux’. Mobilised as ‘the other’ of Plato’s Forms, this remains a move on Platonic terrain. It too denies real negativity in structured being as the ground of historical change and moral praxis.This text is essential reading for all serious students of social theory, philosophy, and legal theory.

Dialectic and Difference is the first systematic exploration of Roy Bhaskar’s dialectical philosophy and its implications for ethics and justice. That philosophy has three aims: a dialecticisation of original critical realism, a ‘critical realisation’ of dialectic, and a metacritique of western philosophy. In the first, real absence or negativity links structured being to dialectical becoming in a dynamic world. The second draws on Marx to locate the critical impulse in Hegel’s dialectic in a material, open and changing totality. The third identifies a central problem in western philosophy from the Greeks on, the failure to think real negativity as the essence of change (‘ontological monovalence’). Bhaskar’s ethics connect basic human ontology with universal principles of freedom and solidarity. He marries (‘constellates’) these with a grasp of how principles are historically shaped. His account of freedom moves from the infant’s ‘primal scream’ to the eudaimonic society, but thinks the limits to freedom under modern conditions. The morally real in ethics and justice is displaced and reconfigured as relations between ‘the ideal’ and ‘the actual’.Western philosophy systematically denies the real negativity that drives Bhaskar’s dialectic. Metacritique traces this to Parmenides and Plato’s account of non-being as difference. It enables a critique of the poststructural radicalisation of difference via Nietzsche and the doctrine of ‘Heraclitan flux’. Mobilised as ‘the other’ of Plato’s Forms, this remains a move on Platonic terrain. It too denies real negativity in structured being as the ground of historical change and moral praxis.This text is essential reading for all serious students of social theory, philosophy, and legal theory.

Many books seek to explain the general principles of the criminal law. Crime, Reason and History stands out and alone as a book that critically and concisely analyses these principles and comes up with a different viewpoint: that the law is shaped by social history and therefore systematically structured around conflicting elements. Updated extensively to include two new chapters on loss of control and self defence and with an extended treatment of offence and defence, this new edition combines challenging and sophisticated analysis with accessibility.

Many books seek to explain the general principles of the criminal law. Crime, Reason and History stands out and alone as a book that critically and concisely analyses these principles and comes up with a different viewpoint: that the law is shaped by social history and therefore systematically structured around conflicting elements. Updated extensively to include two new chapters on loss of control and self defence and with an extended treatment of offence and defence, this new edition combines challenging and sophisticated analysis with accessibility.

For 200 years, the penal equation 'crime plus blame equals punishment' has meant prison crises, a permanent crime problem, violent and damaged lives. The retributive theory of punishment supports this; fully developed, it could transform it. A moral psychology of violation distinguishes primitive and mature retributivism, explaining punishment's necessary failure and guilt, forgiveness and reconciliation's power. 'Atonement' means both punitive 'payback' and being 'at one' again with self and others. Reconciliation for offender, victim and society leads to punishment's deep, tendential abolition.  Intellectually innovative and bold, Alan Norrie's mature retributivism is rooted in human ontology, in the metaphysical animal that thinks and loves. Speaking to law, philosophy, criminology and criminal justice, his moral psychology considers victims who victimise, grief at violation, denial and mourning and the loving prison. Exploring ethics, psychoanalysis, social theory, testimony and film, his psychologically developed moral philosophy challenges basic assumptions about punishment and the penal equation.

Critical realism is a movement in philosophy and the human sciences most closely associated with the work of Roy Bhaskar. Since the publication of Bhaskars A Realist Theory of Science, critical realism has had a profound influence on a wide range of subjects. This reader makes accessible, in one volume, key readings to stimulate debate about and within critical realism. It explores the following themes:* transcendental realist* the theory of explanatory critique* dialectics* Bhaskar's critical naturalist philosophy of science.

Starting from concrete legal issues, Alan Norrie develops a critical vision of law in its relation to morality and socio-historical context. Traced historically, the conflicts he describes can be read today in law's treatment of legality and justice, judgment and responsibility. Joint winner of the Hart / Socio-Legal Studies Association Book Prize 2006.

In this follow-up to Law and the Beautiful Soul, Alan Norrie addresses the split between legal and ethical judgment. Shaped by history, law’s formalism both eschews and requires ethics. The first essays consider legal form in its practical aspect, and the ethical problems encountered (‘law’s architectonic’). The later essays look at the complex underlying relation between law and ethics (‘law’s constellation’). In Hegel’s philosophy, legal and ethical judgment are brought together in a rational totality. Here, the synthesis remains unachieved, the dialectic systematically ‘broken’. These essays cover such issues as criminal law’s ‘general part’, homicide reform, self-defence, euthanasia, and war guilt. They interrogate legal problems, consider law’s method, and its place in the social whole. The analysis of law’s historicity, its formalism and its relation to ethics contributes importantly to central questions in law, legal theory and criminal justice.

In this follow-up to Law and the Beautiful Soul, Alan Norrie addresses the split between legal and ethical judgment. Shaped by history, law’s formalism both eschews and requires ethics. The first essays consider legal form in its practical aspect, and the ethical problems encountered (‘law’s architectonic’). The later essays look at the complex underlying relation between law and ethics (‘law’s constellation’). In Hegel’s philosophy, legal and ethical judgment are brought together in a rational totality. Here, the synthesis remains unachieved, the dialectic systematically ‘broken’. These essays cover such issues as criminal law’s ‘general part’, homicide reform, self-defence, euthanasia, and war guilt. They interrogate legal problems, consider law’s method, and its place in the social whole. The analysis of law’s historicity, its formalism and its relation to ethics contributes importantly to central questions in law, legal theory and criminal justice.

The criminal attacks that occurred in the United States on 11 September 2001 have profoundly altered and reshaped the priorities of criminal justice systems around the world. Domestic criminal law has become a vehicle for criminalising 'new' terrorist offences and other transnational forms of criminality. 'Preventative' detention regimes have come to the fore, balancing the scales in favour of security rather than individual liberty. These moves complement already existing shifts in criminal justice policies and ideologies brought about by adjusting to globalisation, economic neo-liberalism and the shift away from the post-war liberal welfare settlement. This collection of essays by leading scholars in the fields of criminal law and procedure, criminology, legal history, law and psychology and the sociology of law, focuses on the future directions for the criminal law in the light of current concerns with state security and regulating 'deviant' behaviour.

The criminal attacks that occurred in the United States on 11 September 2001 have profoundly altered and reshaped the priorities of criminal justice systems around the world. Domestic criminal law has become a vehicle for criminalising 'new' terrorist offences and other transnational forms of criminality. 'Preventative' detention regimes have come to the fore, balancing the scales in favour of security rather than individual liberty. These moves complement already existing shifts in criminal justice policies and ideologies brought about by adjusting to globalisation, economic neo-liberalism and the shift away from the post-war liberal welfare settlement. This collection of essays by leading scholars in the fields of criminal law and procedure, criminology, legal history, law and psychology and the sociology of law, focuses on the future directions for the criminal law in the light of current concerns with state security and regulating 'deviant' behaviour.