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Moral and Criminal Responsibility in Plato's Laws

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2009

LORRAINE SMITH PANGLE
LORRAINE SMITH PANGLE*
Affiliation:
University of Texas at Austin
*
Lorraine Smith Pangle is Associate Professor of Government, University of Texas at Austin, 1 University Station A1800, Austin, TX 78712 (lorrainepangle@austin.utexas.edu).
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Abstract

In his most practical work, the Laws, Plato combines a frank statement of the radical Socratic thesis that virtue is knowledge and vice involuntary with a prudential acceptance of the political community's need for retributive punishment. This paper examines the Laws' statements of principle regarding responsibility and punishment and compares these with the actual criminal code proposed in Book 9. The result is to show how a radical philosophic insight can be adapted to make ordinary citizens more gentle, thoughtful, and humane without sapping their moral commitments. Lessons are drawn from the Laws for the contemporary restorative justice movement.

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Type
Research Article
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American Political Science Review , Volume 103 , Issue 3 , August 2009 , pp. 456 - 473
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2009

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