Skepticism about Corporate Punishment Revisited

Sarch, Alexander (2019) Skepticism about Corporate Punishment Revisited In: The Palgrave Handbook of Applied Ethics and the Criminal Law. Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 213-238. ISBN 978-3-030-22811-8

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Abstract

Some societies used to impose liability on inanimate objects, a practice we’d now regard as silly and confused. When we punish corporations today, are we making similar mistakes? Here I consider some important sources of philosophical skepticism about imposing criminal liability on corporations, and I argue that they admit of answers, which places punishing corporations on stronger footing than punishing inanimate objects. First, I consider the eligibility challenge, which asserts that corporations are not the right kind of thing to be punished. Second, the reductionist challenge insists that corporate culpability always reduces to individual culpability. I suggest that progress can be made in addressing these challenges by asking the right law-focused questions and attending to recent developments in criminal law theory and moral philosophy.

Item Type:	Book Section
Divisions :	Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences > School of Law
Authors :	Name Email ORCID Sarch, Alexander a.sarch@surrey.ac.uk
Editors :	Name Email ORCID Alexander, Larry Ferzan, Kimberley Kessler
Date :	3 December 2019
DOI :	https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-22811-8
OA Location :	https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-22811-8#about
Copyright Disclaimer :	The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2019
Depositing User :	James Marshall
Date Deposited :	21 Feb 2020 13:51
Last Modified :	21 Feb 2020 13:51
URI:	http://epubs.surrey.ac.uk/id/eprint/853817

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