A Śaiva Theory of Meaning

The Pauṣkara briefly discusses the meaning-expressing nature of śabda (constituted of phonemes, varṇa) and the means to the cognition of word and sentence meaning. According to this dualistic Śaiva Tantra, meaning is denoted by nāda, a capacity of varṇas. Varṇas also are the means to the cognition of meaning through a capacity (saṃskāra) manifested in them. Although the meaning-denoting capacity is natural to varṇas, the relation of words (which are nothing but groups of varṇas) with objects is fixed by convention. This article translates and analyzes the relevant passages from the sixth and eighth chapters. Certain arguments of plagiarism levelled against the eighth chapter of the Pauṣkara are examined in the concluding part of the article.     

Self-control Depletion and the General Theory of Crime

Criminological research on self-control focuses mainly on self-control failure. Such research has not, however, investigated the consequences of exercising self-control for the individual doing so. The present study investigates this issue within the framework of both criminological self-control theory and research on self-control depletion from social psychology, which depicts self-control as akin to a “muscle” that is “depletable” by prior use [Muraven and Baumeister (2000) Psycholog Bull 126:247–259]. Results are presented from a laboratory experiment in which students have the opportunity to cheat. Both “trait self-control,” as measured by the Grasmick et al. [(1993) J Res Crime Delinq 30:5–29] self-control inventory, and “self-control depletion” independently predicted cheating. The implications of these findings are explored for criminological perspectives on self-control and offender decision-making.

Integrated Theory and Crimes of Trust

The integrated theory first proposed by Elliott et al. (1979), combining strain, social control, and social learning (and sometimes social disorganization) theories, has been repeatedly tested and consistently supported for a wide range of behaviors including licit and illicit substance use, violence, and other forms of illegal behavior. It has not, however, been tested for a class of illegal behaviors best described as crimes of trust, which include different types of fraud, workplace theft, and income tax evasion. This category of offending includes offenses commonly regarded as white collar crime, and also offenses that have been more or less marginal to the study of white collar crime. The present paper tests the integrated theory specifically for crimes of trust in the National Youth Survey Family Study, a national, multigenerational sample of individuals whose focal respondents were 11–17 years old in 1976–1977, and who are now in middle adulthood. Relying on structural equation modeling (SEM), parallel tests are performed for two generations, the focal respondents in early middle age (ages 38–45) and their adult offspring (ages 18–24) for the period 2002–2004.     

Representing Theory and Theorising in Criminal Justice Studies: Practising Theory Considered

The author considers the role and place of theory in criminal justice studies. The argument is that the operation and interrogation of fundamental categories is integral to social scientific enquiry and if criminal justice studies is to resist a technocratic “protective service” orientation it must promote theorising and thinking conceptually via the texts which represent the discipline to undergraduates. Although theory is situated at the core of social science curricula, there is little or no agreement on its role or place in research and pedagogy. The dominant understanding of theory within criminal justice studies (including its sociological and criminological incarnation) is that it is something to be referred to. What is seldom emphasised in theory or methods texts is the practice of theorising. Texts that are designed to be the student’s first contact with the field of criminal justice studies, and which reflect broader attitudes toward social enquiry, seldom consider the methodological and pedagogical issues related to the production and role of analytic concepts and do not present social science as an imaginative or reflexive practice. Drawing on critical realist metatheory, this paper advances a distinction between social and sociological problems and social science and protective service toward illustrating that a social science approach to the study of criminal justice demands the operation and interrogation of analytic categories and explicit consideration of issues of epistemology and ontology. Works which seek to avoid this serve only to foster a passive rather than active engagement with their subject matter.     

The Intensification of Hating: A Theory

Hate, a simple word, is easily understood by young children. But as a concept, hate is vast, complex, and slippery. The study of hate is not limited to one discipline; it is studied throughout the humanities and social sciences. This paper, which presents a psychological theory of hating, argues that hate is an understudied psychological construct and has particular relevance to justice research. Hate can trigger injustice, and injustice has the capacity to trigger derogation, violence, and hate. Relying on four literatures—justice, psychology, psychoanalysis, and criminal justice—we present a theory of hating that describes the formation, perpetuation, and expression of this influential emotional state. The Intensification Theory of Hating describes hate as a dynamic process that moves from antecedents to emotions, cognitions, morals, and behaviors. Hate, we argue, is not only an emotion; it becomes systemic when interactions among its components unfold over time to intensify hate. We conclude by proposing research approaches and questions that could address hate in psychological and justice research. Submitted to David De Cremer and Kees van den Bos, “Justice and feelings: An emotional revolution”. Social Justice Research, December 11, 2006     

A Political Theory of Blackmail: A Reply to Professor Dripps

This essay was originally presented at the Rutgers Institute for Law and Philosophy as part of the Symposium on The Evolution of Criminal Law Theory. It is a Reply to Professor Donald Dripps’ politically-based justification for blackmail’s prohibition. Under Dripps’ account, by exacting payment from the victim blackmail is an impermissible form of private punishment that usurps the state’s public monopoly on law enforcement. This essay demonstrates that Dripps’ account is either under-inclusive or over-inclusive or both. Dripps’ account is applied to a number of the standard blackmail scenarios by which theories of blackmail are typically assessed. Dripps’ account is under-inclusive by failing to treat as blackmail Victim-Welcomed Blackmail, Non-Monetary Blackmail, Rebuffed Blackmail, and Non-Informational Blackmail which the law considers as blackmail. And it is over-inclusive by treating as blackmail Victim-Initiated Exchange and Unconditional Disclosure which the law does not recognize as blackmail.     

Towards a Comparative Theory of the Contractual Construction of Personal Work Relations in Europe

This article seeks to build upon the earlier article ‘Fromthe Contract of Employment to the Personal Work Nexus’(2006) 35 ILJ 1, and further to substantiate the theoreticalbasis for our work on the European comparative law of personalwork contracts. Two associated but distinct hypotheses are presented;the first one concerns ‘institutions’ and exploresthe ways in which the contract of employment has become andbeen a central institution of European labour or employmentlaw systems, but an institution differently constructed anddisplaying normative diversity as between those different systems.The second hypothesis postulates a contrast in juridical methodologyas between English common-law-based systems and continentalEuropean civil-law-based systems, the former being characterisedby a ‘regulated self-designed contracts’ approach,and the latter by a ‘standardised contract typology’approach. In conclusion, these two hypotheses are integratedinto a composite tentative comparative theory, which, we argue,can usefully be related to the theoretical discourse about the‘varieties of capitalism’ in Europe.     

The Turn to Imagination in Legal Theory: The Re-Enchantment of the World?

Various contemporary legal theorists have turned to ‘imagination’ as a keyword in their accounts of law. This turn is fruitfully considered as a potential response to the modern condition diagnosed by Max Weber as ‘disenchantment’. While disenchantment is often seen as a symptom of a post-metaphysical age, it is best understood as the consummation of metaphysics and not its overcoming. Law’s participation in disenchantment is illustrated by way of Holmes’ parable of the dragon in ‘The Path of the Law’, which illustrates the rationalization and demystification of law. Four ideal–typical turns to ‘imagination’ are identified: the theoretical (turning to imagination as synthesis), the progressive (imagination as empathy), the transformative (imagination as invention) and the nostalgic (imagination as attunement). Most of these turns to imagination remain complicit with disenchantment. ‘Imagination’ often appears only to be harnessed in the service of more conventional keywords of legal thought: theoreticians turn to imagination as synthesis to serve as a form of super-reason; progressives turn to imagination as empathy to make law a more effective instrument; transformatives turn to imagination as invention to serve as a form of super-will. By turning to imagination as attunement, nostalgics come closest to accepting a world that is not masterable, i.e. they come closest to accepting an enchantment that is a gift and not the product of our imaginations. Indeed, modern imaginations are themselves symptoms of disenchantment. If Weber’s diagnostic calls for a human response, it cannot be one of overcoming disenchantment by imaginative re-enchantment: it belongs integrally to enchantment to exceed any and all human capacities.     

Response to Tudor: Remorse-based Sentence Reductions in Theory and Practice

Steven Tudor defends the mitigation of criminal sentences in cases in which offenders are genuinely remorseful for their crimes. More than this, he takes the principle that such remorse-based sentence reductions are appropriate to be a ‘well-settled legal principle’—so well settled, in fact, that ‘it is among those deep-seated commitments which can serve to test general theories as much as they are tested by them’. However, his account of why remorse should reduce punishment is strongly philosophical in character. He sets to one side the many practical difficulties in implementing such reductions in the real world of criminal justice institutions so that he can focus on the question of whether a plausible account of sentencing can show that remorse should mitigate punishment. I contend that Tudor’s defense of such reductions is unpersuasive in certain respects. Yet even if it can be made more persuasive, I argue that the conditions that would have to be satisfied for remorse-based sentence reductions to be justifiably implemented are so many and various that they would likely exceed our abilities to responsibly grant them in real world legal contexts. I therefore claim that Tudor has failed to provide a defense of the ‘remorse principle’ that serves to explain or justify existing legal practices.

Subjective Strains, Conditioning Factors, and Juvenile Delinquency: General Strain Theory in Taiwan

Agnew’s [Agnew, R. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 38(4), 319–361, 2001, 2006a, 2006b] general strain theory (GST) argues that subjective strain and objective strain should be distinguished from each other, and that subjective strain should be related more strongly to delinquency. In addition, GST suggests that the strain–delinquency relationship is conditioned by certain conditioning factors, and that research should treat these conditioning factors as a whole, i.e., the individual’s “overall” standing regarding these conditional factors. The present study uses a random sample of Taiwanese adolescents (13–17 years old) to study these two issues. The results suggest that strain as measured in this study is related positively to delinquency; however, subjective strain does not differ from objective strain in predicting delinquency. Additionally, the “overall standing” conditioning factors interact differently with subjective strain and objective strain but in the expected direction.     

Crimes committed by terrorist groups: Theory,research, and prevention

Statement of Purpose: A decline in state-sponsored terrorism has caused many terrorist organizations to resort to criminal activity as an alternative means of support. This study examines terrorists' involvement in a variety of crimes ranging from motor vehicle violations, immigration fraud, and manufacturing illegal firearms to counterfeiting, armed bank robbery, and smuggling weapons of mass destruction. Special attention is given to transnational organized crime. Crimes are analyzed through the routine activity perspective and social learning theory. These theories draw our attention to the opportunities to commit crime and the criminal skills necessary to turn opportunity into criminality. Through these lenses, the research appraises the “successes” and “failures” of terrorists' engagement in crime. Because “failures” can result from law enforcement efforts to (1) interrupt criminal skill development, and/or (2) remove criminal opportunities via technologies and transportation systems, the research represents a best practices approach to the study and control of terrorism. This project was supported by Grant No. 2003-DT-CX-0002 awarded by the National Institute of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. Points of view in this document are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.     

Breaking the Circle. Dharmakīrti’s Response to the Charge of Circularity Against the Apoha Theory and its Tibetan Adaptation

This paper examines the Buddhist’s answer to one of the most famous (and more intuitive) objections against the semantic theory of “exclusion” (apoha), namely, the charge of circularity. If the understanding of X is not reached positively, but X is understood via the exclusion of non-X, the Buddhist nominalist is facing a problem of circularity, for the understanding of X would depend on that of non-X, which, in turn, depends on that of X. I distinguish in this paper two strategies aiming at “breaking the circle”: (i) conceding the precedence of a positive understanding of X, from which a negative understanding (i.e., the understanding of “non-X”) is derived by contrast, and (ii) denying any precedence by proposing a simultaneous understanding of both X and non-X. I consider how these two options are articulated respectively by Dharmakīrti in his Pramāṇavārttika cum Svavṛtti and by one of his Tibetan interpreters, Sa skya Paṇḍita, and examine the requirements for their workability. I suggest that Sa skya Paṇḍita’s motivation to opt for an alternative solution has to do with his criticism of notions shared by his Tibetan predecessors, an outline of which is given in Appendix 1. In Appendix 2, I present the surprising use of the charge of circularity by an early Tibetan logician against his coreligionists.     

The Purpose of Legal Theory: Some Problems with Joseph Raz’s View

This article seeks to clarify Joseph Raz’s contention that the task of the legal theorist is to explain the nature of law, rather than the concept of law. For Raz, to explain the nature of law is to explain the necessary properties that constitute it, those which if absent law would cease to be what it is. The first issue arises regarding his ambiguous usage of the expression “necessary property”. Concurrently Raz affirms that the legal theorist has the following tasks: (a) explain the essential properties of that which the concept of law refers to, which exists independently from any concept of law; (b) explain the essential properties of law given our concept of law. After trying to dissolve the ambiguity of Raz’s argument, I conclude that based on his methodological commitments the only possible task for a legal philosopher would be conceptual analysis, understood as the task of explaining our concept of law.     

Complexity Theory &; Socio-Legal Studies

The complexity theory paradigm is in the process of being taken up from the natural sciences into the social sciences and humanities. This article introduces complexity theory as a theoretical framework for socio-legal study. Complexity theory is analysed as being developed in non-organic, organic and social registers, and as exhibiting a specific image of thought. The complexity theory of the non-organic register is introduced in terms of Prigogine’s work on order out of chaos and dissipative structures. The complexity theory of the organic register is introduced in terms of Kauffman’s work on edge of chaos self-organisation in morphogenesis and co-evolution. Finally, the complexity theory of the social register is addressed in terms of assemblage theory. Specifically addressing the level of social organisation and the role of law, the work of J.B. Ruhl is considered as the first working through of the implications of complexity theory for socio-legal scholarship. The article goes on to argue that the key starting points of a complexity paradigm for socio-legal study are: an ontogenetic image of thought; complex dynamic dissipative structures and assemblages in phase space; the socio-legal as complex adaptive assemblages in co-evolution with their broader environment; and commitment to emergence and self-organisation at the edge of chaos. In particular, it proposes that the complexity theory of law allows for the search for lost, hidden, local, bottom-up, emergent modes of legality, and for a new conceptual creativity in socio-legal work. The complexity theory theoretical framework is of particular interest and challenge to scholars working in the social sciences with Maturana & Varela based autopoetic systems theory.     

General Strain Theory in Taiwan: A Latent Growth Curve Modeling Approach

Agnew’s general strain theory (GST) [Agnew R (2001) Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 38:319–361; Agnew R (2006a) Pressured Into Crime: An Overview of General Strain Theory. LA:Roxbury] has been the focus of considerable academic attention and has become an important criminological theory [Cullen et al. (2006) Taking Stock: The Status ofCriminological Theory. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction]. However, most previous empirical studies have employed Western samples (e.g., US sample) to test this theory, which hinders the generalizability of GST. Although some studies have used Eastern samples to evaluate GST, these studies are only cross-sectional, which makes drawing any causal relationship problematic, and a cross-sectional study cannot uncover the more dynamic relationship between strain, negative emotion, and delinquency. Furthermore, depression has become epidemic around the world [World Health Organization 2001, ) and many previous studies that test GST focus only on anger. This makes depression a crucial element in testing GST. The present study uses longitudinal data (Taiwan Youth Project) and a latent growth model (LGM) to investigate strain, depression, and delinquent acts among adolescents (12–15 years old). The results generally support GST propositions: both strain and depression increase delinquency, and depression mediates the strain–delinquency relationship. Some cultural-specific influences were also discovered.     

The Languages of the Law: An Integrated View From Vico and Conceptual Metaphor Theory

Work on the relation between figurative language and the law is a fairly recent trend, within legal discourse studies, linguistics, and semiotics. The work in conceptual metaphor theory, for example, is starting to unpack the underlying metaphorical and metonymic structure of legal language, producing some new and important insights into the nature of this language. Missing from this emerging line of inquiry are the views of the Neapolitan philosopher Giambattista Vico, who was the first to understand the power of figurative language in the creation of symbolic systems, like language and the law. His tripartite evolutionary model of language shows that there is not one language of the law, but three “languages.” By integrating Vico’s model with the work in conceptual metaphor theory it will be possible to penetrate the underlying conceptual structure of legal discourse and thus lead to a more insightful science of this discourse.     

War as an Institutional Fact: Semiotics and Institutional Legal Theory

In institutional legal theory, norms and facts are reciprocally operating elements: an interplay in which meaning construction is closely connected with acting: the pragmatic understanding of legal language in terms of its uses. With the semiotic elements of institutional theory, extended by the notion of ‘semiotic groups’, an analytical framework can be constructed to analyze a case study on the shifts in the concept of war which have taken place since the 1945 UN Charter and in the aftermath of 9/11. The semiotic aspects of the institutional approach can offer insight into the complexity of the processes of meaning attribution in the field of law and war.

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The Application of Learning Theory to Serial Murderor “You Too Can Learn to be a Serial Killer”

Popular ideas concerning serial murder see these killings as an act committed by a deranged or irrational individual. This article contends that this is not the case, but that the killer is behaving in a manner which makes sense and is logical to the killer and is a response to some perceived wrong. The process through which this reponse occurs is detailed. The conclusion suggests that if serial murder is indeed a learned response then this response can be “unlearned” and the serial murderer can be restored to again function within society.