SAP sponsored event: Emotions & Punishment

Throughout the greater part of human history punishment was not imposed because one held the wrongdoer responsible for his deed, thus not on the presupposition that only the guilty one should be punished: rather, as parents still punish their children, from anger at some harm or injury, vented on the one who caused it–but this anger is held in check and modified by the idea that every injury has its equivalent and can actually be paid back, even if only through the pain of the culprit.” 
- Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals

Should I want to see my enemies suffer? Should prisoners pay through pain?

This conference aims to provide an international forum for researchers at all career stages working in the philosophy of emotions and their ethical, legal, and political significance to discuss the role of emotion in the practice of punishment.

We will understand punishment in a broad way: including both the legal practice of punishment and political forms of punishment (e.g., war reparations); but also the informal practices of punishment and the sanctions we apply in our relationships with each other, including how we ‘punish’ the expression of socially undesirable emotions, and how emotions themselves can be punishing.

Join us in Canterbury to consider together the relation between emotions & punishment!