Ethics of Sin and Punishment

The aim of the paper is exploring the ethical foundations and approaches to crime and punishment relying on the close moral roots of criminal law. Our further aims are to prove value-based approach to the basic concepts of criminal law. Primarily we intend to apply legal theoretical methods to perceive the relationship between criminal law and morality. Our ethical approach is based on Christian ethics relying on Greek and Jewish foundations. We seek comparison of the ethical conceptual possibilities of crime and punishment and the basic concepts of criminal law. We find out that the term crime is not used in criminal law, but it builds on this fundamentally ethical concept. The indeterministic conception of criminal guilt as the basis of blameworthiness also appears in St. Augustine’s ethics, based on Greek and Jewish legal and ethical considerations. The social necessity and proportionality of punishment is based on the foundations of Christian social teaching. Some elements of the Restoration appearing in the modern criminal law approach reflect the values of the ethics of Christian punishment. According to the Christian approach the punishment is good if the sinner comes repentant and it leads to reconcilation between commitment and victim.