The Moral Punishment Instinct / Jan-Willem van Prooijen.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Prooijen, Jan-Willem van, 1975- author.

Series:

Perspectives on justice and morality

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Punishment (Psychology).

Criminology--Psychological aspects.

Criminology.

Psychological aspects.

Physical Description:

ix, 291 pages ; 25 cm.

Place of Publication:

New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2018]

Summary:

" Punishment of offenders is one of the most universal features of human behavior. Across time and cultures it has been common for people to punish offenders, and one can easily find examples of punishment among ancient hunter-gatherers, in holy scriptures, in popular culture, and in contemporary courts of law. Punishment is not restricted to criminal offenders, but emerges within all spheres of our social life, including corporations, public institutions, traffic, sports matches, schools, parenting, and more. Punishment strongly influences what we think, how we feel, and what we do. The Moral Punishment Instinct asserts that people possess a hard-wired tendency to aggress against those who violate the norms of their group. We have evolved this instinct because of its power to control behavior by curbing selfishness and free-riding, thereby providing incentives to stimulate the mutual cooperation that ancient hunter-gatherers needed in order to survive in challenging natural environments. In this book, Jan-Willem van Prooijen methodically describes how punishment originates from moral emotions, stimulates cooperation, and shapes the social life of human beings. Guided by a host of recognizable and relatable examples, this book illuminates how the moral punishment instinct manifests itself among a variety of modern human cultures, children, tribes of hunter-gatherers, and even non-human animals-all while accounting for the role of this instinct in religion, war, racial bias, restorative justice, gossip, torture, and radical terrorism. "-- Provided by publisher.

"People universally punish offenders. Why? This book proposes that people possess a moral punishment instinct: A hard-wired tendency to aggress against those who violate the norms of the group. This instinct is reflected in how punishment originates from moral emotions, stimulates cooperation, and shapes the social life of human beings"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Machine generated contents note:

Preface

Chapter 1 Introduction

Chapter 2 Motives for Punishment

Chapter 3 Reason or Intuition?

Chapter 4 Origins of the Moral Punishment Instinct

Chapter 5 Punishment and Cooperation

Chapter 6 When Punishment Backfires

Chapter 7 Black Sheeps versus Ingroup Favoritism

Chapter 8 Punishing Dangerous Outsiders

Chapter 9 Revenge, Gossip, and Restorative Justice

Chapter 10 Conclusions and Implications

Notes

References

Index.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780190609979

0190609974

OCLC:

1006466663