Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Login Alert

Log in

×

×

Only search content I have access to

Home

Log in
Register
Browse subjects
Publications
Open research
Services
About Cambridge Core
Cart

Cart

Institution login
Register
Log in
Cart

Back to search results

Home
Search

Search Results

Refine search

Refine search

Access:

Only show content I have access to (0)

Content type:

Chapters (5)

Author:

Publication date:

Over 3 years (5)

From year:

To year:

Apply

Subject: Show more

Philosophy (4)

Law (3)

Politics and International Relations (2)

Tags

Classifications

Journals Show more

Publishers: Show more

Cambridge University Press (5)

Societies Show more

Series: Show more

Collections: Show more

Actions for selected content:

Select all | Deselect all

View selected items
Save to my bookmarks
Export citations
Download PDF (zip)
Save to Kindle
Save to Dropbox
Save to Google Drive
Save content to
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to .

To save content items to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Please be advised that item(s) you selected are not available.
You are about to save
Your Kindle email address

Please provide your Kindle email.

@free.kindle.com @kindle.com (service fees apply)

By using this service, you agree that you will only keep content for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services

Save Search

You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

Search Title: required Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.

×

5 results

Contributors
- By Arash Abizadeh, David Braybrooke, Joshua Cohen, Eleanor Curran, Claire Finkelstein, Gerald Gaus, Michael Green, Kinch Hoekstra, Aaron James, S. A. Lloyd, Neil McArthur, Jeff McMahan, Chris Naticchia, Maryam Qudrat, Alice Ristroph, Susanne Sreedhar
Edited by S. A. Lloyd, University of Southern California
Book: Hobbes Today
Published online: 05 January 2013
Print publication: 17 December 2012, pp vii-x
- Chapter
- - Get access
    
    Check if you have access via personal or institutional login
    
    Log in Register
- Export citation

9 - The Imperfect Legitimacy of Punishment
from Part II - Application to Civil Society and Domestic Institutions
- By Alice Ristroph
Edited by S. A. Lloyd, University of Southern California
Book: Hobbes Today
Published online: 05 January 2013
Print publication: 17 December 2012, pp 190-208
- Chapter
- - Get access
    
    Check if you have access via personal or institutional login
    
    Log in Register
- Export citation

Contributors
- By David Dyzenhaus, Evan Fox-Decent, Ross Harrison, Dennis Klimchuk, Daniel Lee, Michael Lobban, Martin Loughlin, Thomas Poole, Alice Ristroph, Lars Vinx
Edited by David Dyzenhaus, University of Toronto, Thomas Poole, London School of Economics and Political Science
Book: Hobbes and the Law
Published online: 05 October 2012
Print publication: 30 August 2012, pp vii-viii
- Chapter
- - Get access
    
    Check if you have access via personal or institutional login
    
    Log in Register
- Export citation

6 - Criminal law for humans
- By Alice Ristroph
Edited by David Dyzenhaus, University of Toronto, Thomas Poole, London School of Economics and Political Science
Book: Hobbes and the Law
Published online: 05 October 2012
Print publication: 30 August 2012, pp 97-117
- Chapter
- - Get access
    
    Check if you have access via personal or institutional login
    
    Log in Register
- Export citation

4 - Actions of Mercy
- By Alice Ristroph
Austin Sarat, Amherst College, Massachusetts
Book: Merciful Judgments and Contemporary Society
Published online: 05 December 2011
Print publication: 31 October 2011, pp 205-233
- Chapter
- - Get access
    
    Check if you have access via personal or institutional login
    
    Log in Register
- Export citation
View extract

Summary

They stood gazing at the artificial Negro as if they were faced with some great mystery, some monument to another's victory that brought them together in their common defeat. They could both feel it dissolving their differences like an action of mercy. Mr. Head had never known before what mercy felt like because he had been too good to deserve any, but he felt he knew now.
– Flannery O’Connor
To know what mercy is, must one have received it? The losers don't write history, and (known) criminals don't write punishment theory. The scholars who do write punishment theory disagree on how to justify punishment, but they tend to agree that punishment is justifiable on some normative account. And if punishment is just, mercy is viewed as a threat, an extralegal distortion of the principles of legal justice. Quite literally, a merciful judgment is a judgment against punishment. It seems those who are for punishment are logically required to be against mercy. But do the critics of mercy fully understand what they oppose? Is the philosophical critique of mercy equivalent to victors’ history?

Recommend this

Email your librarian or administrator to recommend adding this to your organisation's collection.

Your name * Please enter your name

Your email address * Please enter a valid email address.

Who would you like to send this to *

Optional message

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

×

Librarians
Authors
Publishing partners
Agents
Corporates

Additional Information
Join us online

Legal Information

© Cambridge University Press 2023
Back to top

×