This classic collection of essays, first published in 1968, has had an
enduring impact on academic and public debates about criminal
responsibility and criminal punishment. Forty years on, its arguments
are as powerful as ever. H.L.A. Hart offers an alternative to
retributive thinking about criminal punishment that nevertheless
preserves the central distinction between guilt and innocence. He also
provides an account of criminal responsibility that links the
distinction between guilt and innocence closely to the ideal of the rule
of law, and thereby attempts to by-pass unnerving debates about free
will and determinism. Always engaged with live issues of law and public
policy, Hart makes difficult philosophical puzzles accessible and
immediate to a wide range of readers.
For this new edition, otherwise a reproduction of the original, John
Gardner adds an introduction engaging critically with Hart's arguments,
and explaining the continuing importance of Hart's ideas in spite of the
intervening revival of retributive thinking in both academic and policy
circles.
Unavailable for ten years, the new edition of Punishment and
Responsibility makes available again the central text in the field for
a new generation of academics, students and professionals engaged in
criminal justice and penal policy.
