Denunciation

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
A "Lion's Mouth" postbox for anonymous denunciations at the Doge's Palace in Venice. Text translation: "Secret denunciations against anyone who will conceal favors and services or will collude to hide the true revenue from them".

Denunciation (from Latin denuntiare, "to denounce") is the act of publicly assigning to a person the blame for a perceived wrongdoing, with the hope of bringing attention to it.[1][2] Notably, centralized social control in

Jesus of Nazareth, betrayed Jesus, making his arrest and his subsequent delivery to the Romans
possible.

Commonly, denunciation is justified by proponents because it allegedly leads to a better society by reducing or discouraging crime. The punishment of the denounced person is said to be justified because the convicted criminal is morally deserving of punishment. Yet, this reasoning does not present a compelling argument for society's right to inflict punishment on a specific individual. Society may recognize a crime's impact on law-abiding society, but traditional punishment theories do not even attempt to deal with punishment's effect on law-abiding society. Just as punishment may impact potential lawbreakers, it may also impact those who abide by the law. To fully understand society's right to inflict punishment, one must recognize punishment's full impact on all segments of society, not just on potential lawbreakers.[6]

History

Athenian democracy used the process of ostracism to allow popular anonymous denunciations.

However, a distinction must be made between denunciation and justified reporting. According to a common understanding[

whistleblower" has been applied by more approving sources to such people since the mid-20th century. The US-American Edward Snowden (former member of the CIA) and the Russian Grigory Rodchenkov (former director of the Moscow Anti-Doping Center who became a whistleblower on doping practices in Russia
) are two famous recent examples.

See also

References

  1. ^ "denounce". Merriam-Webster. Retrieved July 20, 2018.
  2. S2CID 145252854
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  6. ^ Rychlak, Ronald J. (1990): Society's moral right to punish: A further exploration of the denunciation theory of punishment. Tulane Law Review, vol. 65, No. 2, 1990, online since 5 Jun 2013 - " To fully understand society's right to inflict punishment, one must recognize punishment's full impact on all segments of society, not just the potential lawbreakers."

Further reading