Crime, Death and Loyalty in English Liberalism

LNGLISH LIBERALISM is marked by two distinct modes of explanation for human action. One is a theory of learning and action based on maximizing self-interest in a world of scarce goods.' Its model of a just order is a government which protects each man in his body and possessions and enforces voluntary contractual exchanges. A second mode in these same writings is a theory of the historical origin of such political societies and the related problem of the denigration or rejection -in various times and places-of political orders whose primary end is the protection of individual rights. These two patterns of explaining human actions-one set in the timeless logic of psychological empiricism, the other located in the specificity of historical speech and action -come into obvious conflict in discussions of political loyalty and physical coercion. The paradox of men giving their lives to establish or protect a society based on self-interest is inseparably related to the problem of such a society's right to exact capital punishment for the simple crime of theft. Crime, criminals, and physical coercion as treated in the writings of English liberalism are examined here in three separate contexts: (I) in a state of nature or, more generally, in a timeless environment without human artifact; (2) in recorded history, both sacred and secular; and (3) in the future, occasioned by the victory of liberal economic and legal values. The objective of this study is to isolate these differing treatments of crime, criminals, and punishments, to show their relevance to theories of political loyalty, and to show how an understanding of the problems

Criminology · Law and economics · Liberalism · Loyalty · Political science · Politics · Sociology · American Constitutional Law and Politics · Historical Economic and Social Studies · Law