Introduction

This is a book about philosophy and criminology. There will be criminologists who question the need for closer engagement with philosophy and, likewise, philosophers who do not see a great deal of benefit from associating with criminology. My argument here is that philosophy is essential to criminology as philosophers have for centuries been asking questions concerning how we get on with one another – and what happens when we do not – that have direct bearing on criminological concerns. Philosophers might also gain from engagement with criminology and greater exposure to the messy and dirty ‘real world’. For some the subject of criminology is simply a sociological or social policy interest. This book takes the view that criminology is much more than this, that there is also room for a philosophical criminology. I emphasise that this is ‘a’ philosophical criminology. Of course, there are many different philosophical standpoints as much as there are differing criminological perspectives, and it would be wrong to claim that this book presents the definitive philosophical criminology. Clearly I have my own views, values and preferred approaches which steer my writing. Thus, what this book contains is my take on a philosophical criminology. The reader is free to disagree. In fact, disagreement and debate are welcomed.

Some criminologists may consider the book a little esoteric for their particular view of the subject. Yet, take a look at most undergraduate criminology textbooks and there is a great deal of philosophy – although students may not always be aware of this. For instance, while it is often assumed that criminology originated in the 19th century with the dubious phrenology of Cesare Lombroso, textbook accounts also talk about an earlier ‘classical criminology’. The enlightenment scholars cited – usually Jeremy Bentham and Cesare Beccaria, but also Thomas Hobbes, John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau – were all philosophers rather than criminologists. Furthermore, more recent histories of criminology draw on an array of philosophical thought. For example,from the 19th century criminologists will be familiar with Émile Durkheim, Karl Marx and John Stuart Mill. From the 20th century there is criminological interest in the analytic philosophy tradition,such as the work of Richard Rorty (for example Wheeldon, 2015).