Chevigny, Paul G. “From Betrayal to Violence: Dante’s Inferno and the Social Construction of Crime.” Law & Social Inquiry, vol. 26, no. 4, 2001, pp. 787–818. JSTOR, Web.
This paper by Chevigny considers contemporary grounds for crime classification. Notably, the notion that the seriousness of crimes is founded in the “desert” depends primarily on the perpetrator’s mental condition and, to a lesser extent, on the harm caused or threatened to the community. The article draws on Dante’s Inferno and demonstrates how the magnitude of sins is socially created. Dante believed that the crimes most worthy of penalty were those of abuse of trust, for reasons rooted in sociopolitical factors as well as the philosophy and law of his day. He considered such acts to be the most deliberate and cause the most harm to society. Furthermore, Chevigny states that the value of trust in modern society has been misconstrued in the contemporary grading of crimes. The source is helpful to the research paper because it provides valuable information on crime grading. Additionally, Chevigny emphasizes that desert cannot be retaliation; the purpose of responsibility in criminal law was to substitute retaliation with a justified reaction to heinous conduct. The need to manage the aggression’s dangers at practically any cost, along with the resulting loss of a clear concept of the purposeful mental state, has all but demolished the foundation for the dessert.
Foster, Kenelm O. P. “The Canto of the Damned Popes: Inferno XIX.” Dante Studies, with the Annual Report of the Dante Society, no. 87, 1969. pp. 47–68. JSTOR, Web.
According to Foster, Dante’s aims in creating the Inferno were twofold: he intended to portray a notion of damnation and wanted to illustrate evidence of human beings incurring damnation through the way they lived, the actions they took, and choices that were wicked, evil, and immoral. As a result, the concept underlying Dante’s Inferno is self-evident. Nonetheless, Foster intended to highlight a few critical concerns. As a result, the study analyzes how Dante sees evil in general and what exactly was evil for him. Furthermore, the author cited competent theologians to support their claims. The article is helpful because it discusses the meaning of evil.
Stearns, Brenton J. “Divine Punishment and Reconciliation.” The Journal of Religious Ethics, vol. 9, no. 1, 1981. pp. 118–130. JSTOR, Web.
Brenton claims that divine punishment is pain viewed against the backdrop of ultimate or religious morality based on a difference between suffering and punishment. The article is suitable for the research because it discusses how the punishment fits the crime and how Dante determined the more severe crimes. Suffering can be retributively just in some instances, even when there is an apparent lack of distributive justice. Suffering may endure indefinitely after reunification with God, but it no longer has the character of condemnation. An innocent or forgiven person cannot be punished, no matter how much suffering is inflicted on them. Thus, divine punishment is the highest moral ideal, the perception of pain by a morally decent person.
Steinberg, Justin. “More than an Eye for an Eye: Dante’s Sovereign Justice.” Ethics, Politics, and Justice in Dante, edited by Giulia Gaimari and Catherine Keen, UCL Press, 2019, pp. 80–93. JSTOR, Web.
The paper is useful for the research because Brenton argues that it is essential to refer critically to Dante’s art of justice as the contrapasso for the following reasons. First, the contrapasso always represents a restricted, unduly narrow sense of justice in Dante’s texts; it is the defective justice of the Other (the justice of the Pythagoreans for Aristotle, the fairness of the Jews for Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas). As a result, the restrictions of justice founded on simple ‘reciprocity’ are inherent in its private nature; the contrapasso fails to embrace public offenses, crimes against the sovereign, and crimes against the political establishment. Third, when Bertran refers to his penalty as a “contrapasso,” he overlooks the public aspect of his transgression. Ultimately, the contrapasso should not be regarded as the “rule” of Dante’s justice because it is used explicitly to highlight its limitations.