About The Workshop
SW 83– Punishment Beyond the State
Convenors: Wojciech Ciszewski (Jagiellonian University) and Natalia Witosza (Jagiellonian University).
Contact: natalia.witosza@doctoral.uj.edu.pl
When we think about punishment, we usually have in mind legal sanctions imposed by the state. In academic debate, it is common to identify the idea of “punishment” with “legal punishment,” thereby ignoring, or even dismissing, the very possibility that other kinds of punishment practices may exist (Radzik 2020). However, punishment does not exist only within the legal system – there are also forms of punishment that operate beyond the state.
This broader understanding of punishment is not new. Classical thinkers such as John Stuart Mill and John Locke referred to certain forms of social pressure exerted on individuals, which may take the form of disparaging speech, sarcastic comments, or boycotts (Mill 1977), as well as to practices of administering justice in societies without political institutions (Locke 1988). Similarly, Herbert Hart, after presenting the standard definition of punishment, acknowledges that some practices commonly described as punishment do not meet the conditions of this definition (Hart 2008).
In contemporary philosophical discourse, the idea of social punishment has emerged, and the most comprehensive account of it has been offered in a series of works by Linda Radzik (2016, 2017, 2020). On Radzik’s account, social punishment refers to “non-legal forms of authorized, intentional, reprobative, reactive harming between people who are not acting within hierarchically structured institutional roles” (Radzik 2020). She also distinguishes social punishment practices from private punishment practices such as gossiping or private shaming (Radzik 2016). Among informal responses to violations of moral norms, namely punishment practices beyond the state, we can distinguish public shaming, cancelling, no-platforming, boycotting, etc.
The aim of this workshop is to explore the nature, scope, and legitimacy of punishment practices that occur outside the framework of state institutions.
This workshop invites contributions that explore the idea of punishment beyond the state from the perspectives of political philosophy, moral philosophy, and legal theory. Papers may include analyses of topics related to legal punishment in the context of other forms of punishment, for example their moral permissibility.
Suggested topics include (but are not limited to):
- Differences between legal, social, and other forms of punishment
- Relations between legal and non-legal forms of punishment
- The classification of practices as social punishment (e.g. shaming, cancelling, no-platforming, trolling, boycotting, gossiping)
- Main arguments and counterarguments in debates on the legitimacy of legal and social punishment practices
- Context-dependent criteria for identifying punishment practices (e.g. academic, political, artistic contexts)
- The recognition of non-legal punishment practices in state law
- Legal guarantees of anonymity and the right to be forgotten
- Private censorship as a potential threat to freedom comparable to public censorship
- Punishment practices in societies without political institutions
The workshop is organized by Wojciech Ciszewski (Jagiellonian University) and Natalia Witosza (Jagiellonian University).
Abstracts of no more than 500 words should be submitted no later than June 1, 2026, to: natalia.witosza@doctoral.uj.edu.pl
Notifications of acceptance will be sent on a rolling basis. Applicants are kindly reminded of the registration deadlines: regular registration ends on April 30, 2026, and late registration closes on June 15, 2026. https://ivr2026istanbul.org/registration/
