Home Philosophy The Limits of Blame
book: The Limits of Blame
Book
Licensed
Unlicensed Requires Authentication

The Limits of Blame

Rethinking Punishment and Responsibility
  • Erin I. Kelly
Language: English
Published/Copyright: 2018
View content
View more publications by Harvard University Press
To Publisher Page

About this book

Faith in the power and righteousness of retribution has taken over the American criminal justice system. Approaching punishment and responsibility from a philosophical perspective, Erin Kelly challenges the moralism behind harsh treatment of criminal offenders and calls into question our society’s commitment to mass incarceration.

The Limits of Blame takes issue with a criminal justice system that aligns legal criteria of guilt with moral criteria of blameworthiness. Many incarcerated people do not meet the criteria of blameworthiness, even when they are guilty of crimes. Kelly underscores the problems of exaggerating what criminal guilt indicates, particularly when it is tied to the illusion that we know how long and in what ways criminals should suffer. Our practice of assigning blame has gone beyond a pragmatic need for protection and a moral need to repudiate harmful acts publicly. It represents a desire for retribution that normalizes excessive punishment.

Appreciating the limits of moral blame critically undermines a commonplace rationale for long and brutal punishment practices. Kelly proposes that we abandon our culture of blame and aim at reducing serious crime rather than imposing retribution. Were we to refocus our perspective to fit the relevant moral circumstances and legal criteria, we could endorse a humane, appropriately limited, and more productive approach to criminal justice.

Reviews

Gives us a philosopher’s take on the concept of criminal ‘guilt,’ on how easily we miss the larger social context in which crime takes place, and how we need to broaden our blame in order to adjust our justice.
-- Adam Gopnik New Yorker

This book has an elegant humanity that is missing in many discussions of punishment. Erin Kelly makes a powerful case that blame should not have the central role in the justification of punishment that it traditionally has had, and proposes an alternative centered on harm reduction—grounded not in consequentialism but in principles of justice. The Limits of Blame is a model for philosophers who aim to engage with the criminal justice system.
-- Victor Tadros, University of Warwick

A wonderfully insightful book. Retributivists will have to think more carefully about the connection between responsibility and blame, and everyone in the field will need to reconsider their views on deterrence and proportionality.
-- Vincent Chiao, University of Toronto

In a fair-minded and incisive way, The Limits of Blame moves the debate forward, and will be of great interest to moral and legal philosophers as well as political theorists. This book is animated by an unmistakable social and political ethos.
-- Göran Duus-Otterström, Aarhus University

Topics

  • Publicly Available

    Frontmatter

    i
    Download PDF
  • Publicly Available

    Contents

    vii
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    Introduction: Criminalizing People

    1
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    1. Accountability In Criminal Law

    16
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    2. Skepticism About Moral Desert

    45
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    3. Blame And Excuses

    71
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    4. Criminal Justice Without Blame

    100
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    5. Rethinking Punishment

    122
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    6. Law Enforcement In An Unjust Society

    149
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    Conclusion: Civic Justice

    178
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    Notes

    187
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    Acknowledgments

    217
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    Index

    221

Publishing information
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook published on:
February 19, 2019
eBook ISBN:
9780674989436
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
https://doi.org/10.4159/9780674989436
eBook ISBN: 9780674989436
Sign up now to receive a 20% welcome discount
Institutional Access
How does access work?
Have an idea on how to improve our website?
Please write us.
© 2026 De Gruyter Brill
Downloaded on 20.2.2026 from https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.4159/9780674989436/html
Scroll to top button