Uniwersytet Szczeciński

English abstract: The article concerns the concept of punishment as an act of communication. Some retributivsts (i.e. ‘positive’ retributivists) believe that punishment communicates a censure. The article’s central proposition is that the act of communication is, in fact, strongly connected with the criminal responsibility. Furthermore, responsibility should not be identified with punishment. The so called positive retributivists claim that in order to fulfill communication purposes, offender have to be punished. However, punishment seems to be conceptually independent of the process of moral communication. It is shown that communication is linked with the very idea of criminal responsibility and the censure should by communicated through responsibility. Therefore, the article offers the view of responsibility as a complex process. Responsibility is an important social practice which in many cases can substitute punishment, particularly in its communicative aspect.

Keywords: responsibility, justification of punishment, theory of punishment as communication

Language: Polish

Published: Number 2(9)/2014, pp. 95-107

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