Jonathan A. Jacobs – författare

In a liberal democracy, theory suggests that the political order and character of a civil society are closely connected: the political order allows for a dynamic and pluralistic civil society, and people's civic participation encourages support for the political order. In examining the role of punishment in the U.S. and the U.K., however, Jonathan Jacobs maintains that the current state of incarceration is antithetical to the principles of a liberal democracy and betrays an abandonment of that project's essential values. The existing system imposes harsh injustices on incarcerated people: it subjects them to inhumane prison conditions, creates numerous obstacles that block their reentry into society upon release, and erodes their capacity to participate in civic life and exercise individual moral agency. And in recent decades, the number of its people that the U.S. has incarcerated has grown dramatically.Jacobs engages with substantial philosophical literature to argue that necessary and significant reforms to the U.S. and U.K. criminal justice systems demand a serious recommitment to the values and principles of a liberal democracy. Topics include the justification and aims of punishment, the role of criminal justice within theories of a just society, and empirical considerations regarding long-term incarceration and its impact. By comprehensively exploring the relationship between criminal justice and justice, he highlights distinctive elements of criminal justice as the basis for a retributivist conception of punishment that highlights desert and proportionality. Jacobs defends retributivism against familiar accusations that it approves vindictiveness and inevitably harms offenders, and shows how consequentialist approaches are seriously flawed. Drawing equally from both philosophy and criminology, Jacobs argues for a renewed dedication to the values and principles of a liberal democracy as critical to the possibility of criminal justice being truly just.

This edited volume examines the ways in which theological considerations have figured in natural law theorizing, from Plato to Spinoza. Theological considerations have long had a pronounced role in Catholic natural law theories, but have not been seriously examined from a wider perspective. The contributors to this volume take a more inclusive view of the relation between conceptions of natural law and theistic claims and principles. They do not jointly defend one particular thematic claim, but articulate diverse ways in which natural law has both been understood and related to theistic claims. In addition to exploring Plato and the Stoics, the volume also looks at medieval Jewish thought, the thought of Aquinas, Scotus, and Ockham, and the ways in which Spinoza's thought includes resonances of earlier views and intimations of later developments. Taken as a whole, these essays enlarge the scope of the discussion of natural law through study of how the naturalness of natural law has often been related to theses about the divine. The latter are often crucial elements of natural law theorizing, having an integral role in accounting for the metaethical status and ethical bindingness of natural law. At the same time, the question of the relation between natural law and God -- and the relation between natural law and divine command -- has been addressed in a multiplicity of ways by key figures throughout the history of natural law theorizing, and these essays accord them the explanatory significance they deserve.