|
Abstract: This article attempts to generate some anxiety about retributivism. The imputation of responsibility is a weighty matter that sets in motion powerful institutional and psychological mechanisms of blame and condemnation and coercive responses in the law. Most of the philosophical literature on the imputation of responsibility has focused upon the attributes that ought to be present in the agent before responsibility is imputed, but this article addresses the attributes that ought to be present, not in the agent, but in the one who imputes responsibility. This article addresses the obstacles or challenges to the legitimacy of imputation. It considers them within the context of retributive punishment.
|