Criminal Law and Philosophy. A look to move towards critical learning

Abstract

The faculties of law have developed a teaching model based on rote learning of positive law, even equating it with the diffuse notion of “justice”. The teaching of criminal law could not avoid this method of learning, which has been subjected to an absence of critical approaches about the meaning of its own object of study. The separateness between Criminal Law and Philosophy has led to a lack of interest in the theory of punishment throughout legal training and an absence of reflection on the legal consequences of crime. The rise of the criminal law of the enemy and of the American retributive justice makes it more necessary than ever to stimulate a reflection on the punishment capable of challenging, from ius-alternativism, the prevailing incapacitative and retributive visions.