Hostname: page-component-cb9f654ff-lqqdg Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-09-02T19:24:22.673Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Symbol of Justice: Bloodguilt in Kant

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 September 2020

Krista K. Thomason
Krista K. Thomason*
Affiliation:
Swarthmore College
*
Email: kthomas2@swarthmore.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

One of the more notorious passages in Kant occurs in the Doctrine of Right where he claims that ‘bloodguilt’ will cling to members of a dissolving society if they fail to execute the last murderer (MM, 6: 333). Although this is the most famous, bloodguilt appears in three other passages in Kant’s writings. These have received little attention in Kant scholarship. In this article, I examine these other passages and argue that bloodguilt functions as a symbol for the demandingness of justice. I then offer a sympathetic interpretation of the passage from the Doctrine of Right.

Keywords

Kantbloodguiltjusticeideas of reasonpunishmentDoctrine of Right

Information

Type
Articles
Information
Kantian Review , Volume 26 , Issue 1 , March 2021 , pp. 79 - 97
Check for updates
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Kantian Review

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Ataner, Atilla (2006) ‘Kant on Capital Punishment and Suicide’. Kant-Studien, 97, 452–82.Google Scholar
Bader, Ralf M. (2015) ‘Kant’s Theory of the Highest Good’. In Joachim, Aufderheide and Bader, Ralf M. (eds), The Highest Good in Aristotle and Kant (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 183–213.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baier, Annette (1993) ‘Moralism and Cruelty: Reflections on Kant and Hume’. Ethics, 103, 436–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barney, Rachel (2015) ‘The Inner Voice: Kant on Conditionality and God as Cause’. In Joachim, Aufderheide and Bader, Ralf M. (eds), The Highest Good in Aristotle and Kant (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 158–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brooks, Thom (2003) ‘Kant’s Theory of Punishment’. Utilitas, 15, 206–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Byrd, B. Sharon (1989) ‘Kant’s Theory of Punishment: Deterrence in its Threat, Retributive in its Execution’. Law and Philosophy, 8, 153–200.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cottingham, John (1979) ‘Varieties of Retributivism’. Philosophical Quarterly, 29, 238–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ferreira, M. Jamie (2014) ‘Hope, Virtue, and the Postulate of God: A Reprisal of Kant’s Pure Practical Rational Belief’. Religious Studies, 50, 3–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fletcher, George (1989) ‘Punishment and Self-Defence’. Law and Philosophy, 8, 201–15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Forrester, Stefan (2012) ‘Why Kantian Symbols can’t be Kantian Metaphors’. Southwest Philosophy Review, 28, 107–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Held, Jacob M. (2010) ‘Honor, Dignity, and the Summum Bonum: Kant’s Retributivism in Context’. Vera Lex, 11, 75–100.Google Scholar
Hill, Thomas. E. Jr. (2012) ‘Treating Criminals as Ends in Themselves’. In Virtue, Rules, and Justice (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 296–319.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johnson, Jane (2008) ‘Revisiting Kantian Retributivism to Construct a Justification of Punishment’. Criminal Law and Philosophy, 2, 291–307.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kant, Immanuel (1996a) Practical Philosophy. Trans. and ed. Gregor, Mary J.. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kant, Immanuel (1996b) Religion and Rational Theology. Trans. and ed. Wood, Allen W. and di Giovanni, George. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kant, Immanuel (1997) Lectures on Ethics. Ed. Heath, Peter and Schneewind, J. B., trans. Heath, Peter. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kant, Immanuel (1998) Critique of Pure Reason. Trans. and ed. Guyer, Paul and Wood, Allen W.. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kant, Immanuel (2000) Critique of the Power of Judgment. Ed. Guyer, Paul, trans. Guyer, Paul and Matthews, Eric. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kant, Immanuel (2007) Anthropology, History, and Education. Ed. Zöller, Günter and Louden, Robert. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kant, Immanuel (2016) Lectures and Drafts on Political Philosophy. Ed. Rauscher, Frederick, trans. Rasucher, Fredrick and Westphal, Kenneth. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kleingeld, Pauline (1998) ‘The Conative Character of Reason in Kant’s Philosophy’. Journal of the History of Philosophy, 36, 77–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Koritansky, Peter (2005) ‘Two Theories of Retributive Punishment: Immanuel Kant and Thomas Aquinas’. History of Philosophy Quarterly, 22, 319–38.Google Scholar
Merle, Jean-Christophe (2000) ‘A Kantian Critique of Kant’s Theory of Punishment’. Law and Philosophy, 19, 311–38.Google Scholar
Murphy, Jeffrie (1987) ‘Does Kant have a Theory of Punishment?’. Columbia Law Review, 87, 509–32.Google Scholar
Nuyen, A. T. (1989) ‘The Kantian Theory of Metaphor’. Philosophy and Rhetoric, 22, 95–109.Google Scholar
O’Connell, Eoin (2012) ‘Happiness Proportioned to Virtue: Kant and the Highest Good’. Kantian Review, 17, 257–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
O’Connell, Eoin (2014) ‘Kantian Moral Retributivism: Punishment, Suffering, and the Highest Good’. Southern Journal of Philosophy 52, 477–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pillow, Kirk (2001) ‘Jupiter’s Eagle and the Despot’s Handmill: Two Views on Metaphor in Kant’. Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 59, 193–209.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Potter, Nelson. T. Jr (2002) ‘Kant and Capital Punishment Today’. Journal of Value Inquiry, 36, 267–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reath, Andrews (1988) ‘Two Conceptions of the Highest Good in Kant’. Journal of the History of Philosophy, 26, 593–619.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ripstein, Arthur (2009) Force and Freedom: Kant’s Legal and Political Philosophy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rohlf, Michael (2010) ‘The Ideas of Pure Reason’. In Paul, Guyer (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason (New York: Cambridge University Press), 190–209.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scheid, Don E. (1983) ‘Kant’s Retributivism’. Ethics, 93, 262–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shell, Susan Meld (1997) ‘Kant on Punishment’. Kantian Review, 1, 115–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sussman, David (2007) ‘Shame and Punishment in Kant’s Doctrine of Right’. Philosophical Quarterly, 58, 299–317.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tarbert, David (1968) ‘The Fabric of Metaphor in Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason ’. Journal of the History of Philosophy, 6, 257–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Timmermann, Jens (2015) ‘Why Some Things Must Remain Unknown: Kant on Faith, Moral Motivation, and the Highest Good’. In Joachim, Aufderheide and Bader, Ralf M. (eds), The Highest Good in Aristotle and Kant (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 229–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Uleman, Jennifer K. (2000) ‘On Kant, Infanticide, and Finding Oneself in a State of Nature’. Zeitschrift für Philosophische Forschung, 54, 173–95.Google Scholar
Varden, Helga (2008) ‘Kant’s Non-Voluntarist Conception of Political Obligations: Why Justice is Impossible in the State of Nature. Kantian Review, 13, 1–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wood, Allen W. (2008) Kantian Ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Wood, Allen W. (2010) ‘Punishment, Retribution, and the Coercive Enforcement of Right’. In Lara, Denis (ed.), Kant’s Metaphysics of Morals: A Critical Guide (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 111–29.Google Scholar
Yost, Benjamin (2010) ‘Kant’s Justification of the Death Penalty Reconsidered’. Kantian Review, 15, 1–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar