The Nature of Criminal Behavior: From Spinoza's Philosophical Determinism to the Scientific Determinism of Criminology

The explanation and analysis of "criminal behavior" in the development of modern thought from the beginning of modernity to the present has had various formulations, the quality of which is also important for the quality of explanation and determination of criminal response. The mechanistic view of modern thought, which begins with Rene Descartes, provides the basis for explaining crime in the light of mechanical essentialism, a view that reaches its peak with the greatest commentator of Descartes' philosophy, Baruch Spinoza; in such a way that freedom is interpreted under necessary and causal relationships and human will is confined within the framework of a philosophical and metaphysical determinism and the criminal is defined as lacking moral responsibility and criminal guilt. Kant's Copernican revolution takes modern thought beyond the essentialist approach and Spinoza's essentialism and provides the basis for reinterpreting criminal behavior under the essentialism based on scientific and positivist determinism, and this time, the criminal is considered to be lacking moral responsibility and criminal guilt. Although these two essentialist perspectives analyze crime deterministically, their epistemological contexts are completely different, with the former taking shape in a pre-Kantian epistemological world and the latter in a post-Kantian epistemological world. Despite the similarity in terms of deterministic and essentialist logic in both approaches, their practical and strategic implications for the criminal justice system are different, and each leads to a specific perspective on the nature of crime, punishment, and criminal policy that is distinct from the other.