Punishment and the Limits of Evolutionary Analysis

In The Punisher’s Brain, Judge Morris Hoffman explores the foundations and development of our punishment practices through the lens of evolution. Drawing on his experiences as both a trial judge and research fellow, Hoffman combines a wide-ranging evolutionary, historical, and scientific analysis of punishment with colorful examples drawn from law and life. The result is an accessible and engaging account of punishment that raises a number of provocative possibilities for understanding, and potentially reforming, the institution of punishment. I confess to have opened the book with some trepidation. It has become fashionable (again) in recent years for scholars to import wholesale the methods and mindset of the natural and social sciences into the study of punishment. Too often, the result is a crude reductionism that neglects the social meaning and moral significance of this complex human institution. Science can surely inform law, but it must never be permitted to occupy the field. While Hoffman’s analysis occasionally succumbs to the imperial temptations of the genre, it is generally measured and modest in its claims and conclusions. In this way, The Punisher’s Brain advances an important and fascinating debate without presuming to have settled—or conquered—it once and for all.