Retribution

Retributive justifications for punishment are based in the idea that the offender deserves to be punished, and should be punished, whether or not it has any benefits such as rehabilitation, deterrence, or social safety. The articles in this section challenge the legitimacy of retribution from a naturalistic perspective that highlights the causes of criminal wrong-doing, putting the offender in an historical and situational context.

Common Misconceptions

When people first encounter the naturalistic view of things (e.g., Tenets of Naturalism), especially as it applies to ourselves and our place in the world, it can be a bit of a shock. It can engender a good deal of defensiveness, and no wonder: the applecart of traditional assumptions about the self, about free will, about standard justifications for some basic social practices, and about a host of other issues is substantially upset.

Towards a Naturalistic Spirituality

A naturalistic understanding of spirituality

The spiritual experience - the experience of meaning, connection and joy, often informed by philosophy or religion - is, from a naturalistic perspective, a state of the physical person, not evidence for a higher realm or non-physical essence. Nevertheless, this understanding of spirituality doesn’t lessen the attraction of such an experience, or its value for the naturalist. We naturally crave such feelings and so will seek the means to achieve them consistent with our philosophy.

Determinism and Responsibility

The Author (“A”) raises important issues about criminal justice, science, and traditional conceptions of responsibility, reaching the correct conclusion that “to remain credible and to become more effective, the concepts applied in the law must evolve so as to become grossly consistent with a contemporary scientific understanding of human nature.”

Spirituality

While the words "spiritual" and “spirituality” have supernatural connotations for many, they are widely used to refer to the domain of ultimate existential concerns that engage all of us, eventually. Our approach to these concerns need have nothing to do with the supernatural. Instead, the realization that human beings and their emotions, thoughts, desires and actions are empirically “at one with the universe” can ground a naturalistic, non-dualist spirituality, one that generates wonder, compassion, gratitude, and acceptance.

Morality

This section is devoted to various sallies at naturalizing morality, understanding that morality involves inherently normative questions in addition to the factual questions addressed by science. There are no pat scientific, empirical answers to questions about how we should treat one another, or what constitutes human flourishing. Nevertheless, by subtracting supernaturalist foundations for ethics, and by staying true to the facts as evidenced by science, worldview naturalism opens the door to more realistic, if improvable, answers to these questions.

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