Can the law do without retributivism? Comments on Erin Kelly's The Limits of Blame

Erin Kelly's The Limits of Blame presents a critique of our current overly punitive legal system and champions a system of criminal justice that does not traffic in moral blame and is free of retributivist elements. This commentary questions the viability of such a system, and ultimately suggests that there is not much distance between a more perfect retributivist system and the kind of more nuanced and humane system of criminal justice that Kelly envisions.