A Philosophical Inquiry Into the Concept of Guilt and Shame

FAIN: FA-10243-70

Herbert Morris
UCLA; Regents of the University of California, Los Angeles (Los Angeles, CA 90024-4201)

Study on possible reforms in criminal law, focusing on potential gains and losses in attempts to disassociate criminal law from guilt and shame morality. ABSTRACT: Examining concepts in guilt morality, comparing and contrasting guilt and shame moralities. In recent years serious proposals have been made for drastic reform in criminal law, cutting it loose from its moral underpinnings. Study to focus on possible gains or losses from attempt to disassociate criminal law from guilt morality, a morality in which there are responsible persons who sometimes act wrongly, who suffer because of it, who owe something as a result of a wrongdoing and who act to restore by appropriate conduct a damaged relationship with others. Study draws on analytical and non-analytical philosophy, history, psychology, sociology, theology and literature.