Mercy and criminal justice

This dissertation analyzes criminal justice from the perspective of non-ideal theory. In the first half of the dissertation, I propose a new understanding of mercy as a moral response to injustice within existing criminal justice systems. In the second half, I argue that certain expressions of blame are an injustice plaguing most criminal justice systems.;In short, I am highlighting a new type of injustice and suggesting a new mode of response to injustice. In my analysis of mercy in Part I, I distinguish between two concepts of mercy in Western political thought: negative mercy and positive mercy. To grant negative mercy is to compassionately spare someone from harsh treatment that she deserves. To grant positive mercy is to respond to someone justly when unjust social rules call for a harsher response. Following Seneca and departing from most contemporary philosophical literature, I focus on the concept of positive mercy. I argue that officials within criminal justice systems have moral reason to exercise positive mercy and that most political communities have moral reason to incorporate a general practice of positive mercy into their criminal justice systems. I argue that judges who exercise positive mercy are not impermissibly derogating from rules in service of personal feelings, but are rather serving the rule of law and fulfilling their obligation to support just institutions.;In my analysis of blame in Part II, I identify a species of blame that I call abrasive blame: the expression of attitudes meant to hurt a person because she did something wrong. The political community expresses abrasive blame toward criminal offenders through the organ of the criminal justice system. Although I argue that this abrasive blame is permissible under certain conditions, the justification is fragile at best. I argue that it is unfair for the political community to abrasively blame battered offenders and fragile offenders. I raise a red flag about abrasive blame toward these offenders; I do not argue that it is necessarily wrong to punish them. I suggest that in some cases, the exercise of positive mercy might be the political community's best response to these offenders.