Introduction

According to the British criminologist Anthony Bottoms (2002: 24), ‘if they are true to their calling, all criminologists have to be interested in morality’. Moral philosophy, or ethics, is concerned with how we live and how we ought to live with one another. It considers what is good or bad, as well as deontic judgements of rightness, wrongness, obligation, requirement, reason for doing and what ought to be. Such concerns should be central criminological concerns. Criminologists assert that crime – or harm or deviancy – is a social construction and ask what it is about such actions (or inactions) that makes them unacceptable; in effect, what makes them good or bad, right or wrong. According to Hans Boutellier (2000) a criminal act tells us something of the morality of the offender and the morality of the society that defines this act as criminal: ‘… criminality is viewed as a moral problem and the moral significance of criminality occupies a central position. A criminal event is viewed as an incident whereby a person commits an act that has moral connotations because it is disapproved of, regardless of whether this is rightly so’ (2000: 4).

In order to understand such criminalisation, criminology can therefore learn a great deal from closer engagement with moral philosophy; but similarly, moral philosophy can gain insight into moral censure from looking at criminology. As Boutellier has put it: ‘Not only does every society get the criminality it deserves, to an even larger extent it gets the criminology it deserves. The way criminality is viewed nowadays can grant us some insight into the morality of our times’ (2000: 4).

As was explored in the previous chapter, our values have a strong influence on what we regard as morally good or bad, what behaviour is to be celebrated, tolerated or censured as unacceptable. Also considered were relativist and universalist ethical positions. A relativist might claim that values and morals are down to personal opinion or taste, or just conventions that are culturally and context specific (see Driver, 2007). On the face of it relativism is attractive as it is seemingly tolerant of other ways of thinking and living. However, as noted, it can also be tolerant of actions and omissions that are generally regarded as morally in tolerable such as racism, slavery or rape.