The purely retributive moral justification of punishment has a gap at its centre. It fails to explain why the offender should not be protected from punishment by the intuitively powerful moral idea that afflicting another person (other than to avoid a greater harm) is always wrong. Attempts to close the gap have taken several different forms, and only one is discussed in this paper. This is the attempt to push aside the ‘protecting’ intuition, using some more powerful intuition specially (...) invoked by the situations to which criminal justice is addressed. In one aspect of his complex defence of pure retributivism, Michael S. Moore attempts to show that the emotions of well-adjusted persons provide evidence of moral facts which justify the affliction of culpable wrongdoers in retribution for their wrongdoing. In particular, he appeals to the evidential significance of emotions aroused by especially heinous crimes, including the punishment-seeking guilt of the offender who truly confronts the reality of his immoral act. The paper argues that Moore fails to vindicate this appeal to moral realism, and thus to show that intrinsic personal moral desert (as distinct from ‘desert’ in a more restricted sense, relative to morally justified institutions) is a necessary and sufficient basis for punishment. Other theories of the role of emotions in morality are as defensible as Moore’s, while the compelling emotions to which he appeals to clinch his argument can be convincingly situated within a non-retributivist framework, especially when the distinction between the intuitions of the lawless world, and those of the world of law, is recognised. -/- . (shrink)

This paper makes the counterintuitive argument that apologetic offenders in both criminal and noncriminal contexts deserve reductions in punishment even according to retributive theories of justice. I argue here that accounting for post-offense apologetic meanings can make retributivism more fair and consistent much in the same way that considering pre-offense behavior such as culpable mental states like premeditation provide a more holistic and accurate view of the badness of the offense at issue. On my view, retributivists should endorse the (...) general principle that categorically apologetic offenders deserve less punishment because certain kinds of contrition can revise the very nature of the offense and thereby make it less bad and deserving of less punishment. This claim is symmetrical with the popular view that unapologetic or remorseless offenders deserve more punishment. (shrink)

I address the question, ‘Should a retributivist support an entrapment defense and if so, under what circumstances?’, by considering the culpability of entrapped defendants. An entrapment defense is invoked by defendants who claim they violated the law because they were enticed to crime by the police and would not otherwise have committed the crime. There are different rationales for the defense: people who are normally law abiding, and who are not predisposed to commit crimes, do not commit crimes merely when (...) the opportunity is presented, without further coaxing—only criminals do—and so spending resources to entice and then punish such “false criminals” is wasteful from a utilitarian perspective. Several theorists assume retributivists must oppose the defense: entrapped defendants have broken the law and, according to one version of retributivism (Mabbott), this itself might warrant punishment; they are still culpable although they were enticed, because succumbing to temptation is no defense—there is no ‘private entrapment defense’; and to not punish the non-predisposed who are enticed to crime by government, while punishing those who are predisposed, is wrongly to assert that a person’s culpability hinges on their predisposition and wrongly to punish someone not for their present conduct but for their character or past actions. I explore some reasons why a retributivist can support an entrapment defense. First, entrapped defendants may be less culpable than the privately enticed insofar as they do not cause harm. As police control the situation, no actual harm is caused, and whether one actually causes harm may bear on one’s culpability; and if one’s predisposition was weak and required substantial police coaxing to be triggered, we might say that the police action and not the defendant caused the crime in the relevant sense. Second, applying Robert Nozick’s account of coercion in a novel way, I consider the argument that entrapped defendants may be less culpable insofar as their action was not fully voluntary, in that unlike in private enticement cases, they necessarily underestimate the probability of being caught before making their choice. (shrink)

This paper examines hart's model (1967) of the retributive theory. section i criticizes the model for not answering all the main questions to which a theory of punishment should be addressed, as hart alleges it does. section ii criticizes the model for its omission of the concept of desert. section iii criticizes attempts by card (1973) and by von hirsch (1976) to provide new ways of proportioning punitive severity to criminal injury. section iv discusses the idea of (...) retribution in justifying aim and criticizes the theory of fingarette (1977). the conclusion is that the new retributivists have not solved the problems inherent to older versions of the theory. (shrink)

Murray Rothbard claims that it is “evident that our theory of proportional punishment—that people may be punished by losing their rights to the extent that they have invaded the rights of others—is frankly a retributive theory of punishment, a ‘tooth (or two teeth) for a tooth’ theory.” The present paper argues that it is not. The role that Rothbard assigns for victims in determining punishment justifies classifying his theory of punishment as corrective rather than (...) class='Hi'>retributive, for vesting victims with rights over punishment defeats the retributive justice requirement that criminals are punished solely because they deserve it and in accordance with their respective deserts. Instead of giving offenders what they objectively deserve, the Rothbardian theory of punishment allows victims to seek compensation in various forms, including revenge. (shrink)

"This book argues for a mixed view of punishment that balances consequentialism and retributivism. He has published extensively on philosophy and applied ethics. A central question in the philosophy of law is why the state's punishment of its own citizens is justified. Traditionally, two theories of punishment have dominated the field: consequentialism and retributivism. According to consequentialism, punishment is justified when it maximizes positive outcomes. According to retributivism, criminals should be punished because they deserve it. This book defends a mixed (...) view that recognizes the strength of both of these intuitions. By this account, the legislature should develop institutional policies and statutory penalties that maintain the social order, that is, consequentialism. It establishes punishment policies to deter criminal activity. By contrast, the criminal judiciary should give individual defendants what they deserve, that is, retributivism and thus expressing the community's appropriate sense of resentment at being wronged. The book justifies the two-tiered model by showing how it accords with our moral intuitions, our assumptions about how what we know affects our moral obligations, and a commonly held theory of freedom. This approach is developed by engaging classic and contemporary work in the philosophy of law, and shows its advantages over competing approaches from contemporary retributivists and other mixed theorists. The work also defends consequentialism against a longstanding objection that the social sciences give us little guidance regarding which policies to adopt. It draws on cutting-edge criminological research to show how punishment theory can help us to address some of our most pressing social issues, including the death penalty, drug laws, and mass incarceration. The book will also be of interest to legal philosophers, social scientists, especially criminologists, sociologists, economists, and political scientists"--. (shrink)

Retributive theories of punishment hold that moral desert is a necessary and sufficient condition for punishment. This principle has been justified in light of rectifying a 'balance of justice' upset by wrongdoing. Many opposed to retributivism, such as Nussbaum, have argued such a ‘balance’ is nothing more than ‘magical’ thinking and retributivism is, in fact, positively harmful. On the contrary, I will argue that there is a compelling way to make sense of that intuition. The Chinese Neo-Confucian tradition and (...) medieval Latin theologian Thomas Aquinas hold that moral wrongs upset a normative order of relationships and, in this respect, disrupt the order that ought to exist in the human community. Despite criticisms that retributivism about punishment requires outlandish metaphysical assumptions, I therefore propose the theory remains plausible without any such appeal. (shrink)

I propose a theory of punishment that is unfamiliar in the West, according to which the state normally ought to have offenders reform their characters and compensate their victims in ways the offenders find burdensome, thereby disavowing the crime and tending to foster improved relationships between offenders, their victims, and the broader society. I begin by indicating how this theory draws on under-appreciated ideas about reconciliation from the Global South, and especially sub-Saharan Africa, and is distinct from the (...) protection and retribution theories that have dominated the Western philosophy of punishment for about 250 years. Then I argue that it neatly avoids objections to them and is prima facie plausible in its own right. I conclude that this reconciliation theory of state punishment should be taken seriously by philosophers of law and policy makers. (shrink)

A retributive theory of punishment must at least say that it is a necessary condition for the justification of a punishment that the person punished should be guilty. But “guilty” here may be taken in two different senses, giving two very different kinds of justification. In the first sense, to be guilty is to have wilfully disobeyed a law or order of some authority, and it is the defiance of this authority which justifies punishment. Mr. Mabbott has put (...) up a good case for a view of this kind. It is clear that we regularly do justify the punishment of offenders on the ground that they have broken rules, and therefore deserve to be punished. And there are some moral situations in which this is the only fact to be considered in deciding whether or not to punish. As to the view that this constitutes the only valid justification of punishment, I wish to make two comments. (shrink)

Kant believed all and only the guilty should be punished. Other retributivists believed that only guilt should bring punishment down on a person. In neither way is the retributive theory sufficiently distinguished from utilitarianism for, on contingent grounds, the utilitarian may agree with either of these theses. The advantage of PRJ is that it brings out the difference between retributivism and utilitarianism more sharply while at the same time it manages to be a less stern and unyielding view (...) than traditional retributivism. The retributivist need not deny the core of good sense in utilitarianism, and he certainly need not deny the connection between morality and happiness. His view is that punishment does not have to produce good consequences in order to be justified. It suffices that it be deserved and that it not produce a set of clearly bad consequences. If it is true that punishment generally does have bad consequences which more than outweigh its good consequences then retributivists and utilitarians should join hands in their condemnation of punishment. The heart of the difference between the retributivist and the utilitarian is that the latter counts punishment itself as an evil but believes that, generally speaking, it is an evil which is instrumental in the production of enough good to out-weigh its intrinsic demerit. The retributivist does not regard punishment as an evil. The pain of punishment is not by itself a reason for not punishing (so long as it is not excessive). Insofar as utilitarianism is the view that no considerations but those of utility should justify punishment, it is only one side of that counterfeit coin the other side of which is Kant's dictum: “...Woe to him who creeps through the serpent-windings of Utilitarianism to discover some advantage that may discharge him from the Justice of Punishment, or even from the due measure of it....” It is irrational for Kant to rule out concern for utility but it is also irrational for the utilitarian to rule out concern for retribution.I have tried to show in this paper that the two main aspects of a plausible theory of retribution - PRJ and that the punishment should fit the crime - can be vindicated in terms of acceptable beliefs one of which is incompatible with utilitarianism (PRJ), and one of which does not derive the respect we accord it from any connection with utilitarianism. I emphasize, however, what I previously stated, that the retributivist does not have to believe that retributive justice must prevail at all costs. What is asked for is the recognition that one purpose of punishment (and not the one purpose) can justifiably have nothing to do with utility. The sensible retributivist will concede, and gladly, that there are more things in heaven and earth than retribution. (shrink)

Kant's theory of punishment is commonly regarded as purely retributive in nature, and indeed much of his discourse seems to support that interpretation. Still, it leaves one with certain misgivings regarding the internal consistency of his position. Perhaps the problem lies not in Kant's inconsistency nor in the senility sometimes claimed to be apparent in the Metaphysic of Morals, but rather in a superimposed, modern yet monistic view of punishment. Historical considerations tend to show that Kant was discussing (...) not one, but rather two facets of punishment, each independent but nevertheless mutually restrictive. Punishment as a threat was intended to deter crime. It was a tool in the hands of civil society to counteract human drives toward violating another's rights. In its execution, however, the state was limited in its reaction by a retributive theory of justice demanding respect for the individual as an end and not as a means to some further social goal. This interpretation of Kant's theory of punishment maintains consistency from the earliest through the latest of his writings on moral, legal, and political philosophy. It provides a good reason for rejecting current economic analyses of crime and punishment. Most important of all, it credits Kant's theory in its clear recognition of the ideals intrinsic to libertarian government. (shrink)

One might legitimately ask what reasons other than vanity could prompt an author to issue a collection of his previously published essays. The best reason, I think, is the belief that the essays hang together in such a way that, as a book, they produce a whole which is in a sense greater than the sum of its parts. When this happens, as I hope it does in the present case, it is because the essays pursue related themes in such (...) a way that, together, they at least form a start toward the development of a systematic theory on the common foundations supporting the particular claims in the particular articles. With respect to this collection, the essays can all be read as particular ways of pursuing the following general pattern of thought: that a commitment to justice and a respect for rights (and not social utility) must be the foundation of any morally acceptable legal order; that a social contractarian model is the best way to illuminate this foundation; that a retributive theory of punish ment is the only theory of punishment resting on such a foundation and thus is the only morally acceptable theory of punishment; that the twentieth century's faddish movement toward a "scientific" or therapeutic response to crime runs grave risks of undermining the foundations of justice and rights on which the legal order ought to rest; and, finally, that the legitimate worry about the tendency of the behavioral sciences to undermine the values of. (shrink)

Nearly all retributive theories of punishment adopt the following model. Punishments are justified when the wrongdoers receive the punishment they deserve. A deserved punishment is one that is proportionate to the offender’s culpability. Culpability has two components: the severity of the wrong, and the offender’s blameworthiness. The broader aim of this article is to outline an alternative retributivist model that directly involves the victim in the determination of the appropriate and just punishment. The narrower aim is to show that (...) the methodology employed by Michael Moore in support of the standard retributive model in fact better supports this alternative model. Moore himself explicitly rejects the idea that victims can play a role in determining just punishments, because this would entail assigning different punishments to equally culpable offenders. When properly applied, however, Moore’s method for justifying retributivism results in an approach that directly involves the victim in the punishment process. (shrink)

The article discusses retributive justice and punitive restraint in response to the worst types of crime. I take the Breivik Case as a starting point. Anders Behring Breivik was sentenced to 21 years of preventive detention for killing 69 people, mainly youths, at Utøya and 8 people in Oslo on July 22nd, 2011. Retributivist theories as well as commonly held retributive intuitions suggest that much harsher punishment is required for such crimes. According to some retributivist theories, most notably (...) on the influential theories of Kant and Hegel, the death penalty is warranted for murderers like Breivik. This suggests that the rationale for punitive restraint in a case like the Breivik Case can only be found in forward- looking, consequentialist theories of punishment, or by adding to retributivist theories a side-constraint in the form of a principle of parsimony. However, I argue that if we look closer at the function of punishment in the retributivist theories of Kant and Hegel, they too imply a rationale for punitive restraint, even for such horrific crimes as here discussed. Against Kant and Hegel’s own views on the death penalty, I argue that their broader “freedom theories” of retributive justice do not imply the justice of the death penalty or life imprisonment. In the last part of the article, I explore differences in the concepts of freedom entailed by Kant and Hegel’s theories, and I relate these to some of the background factors relevant to the Breivik Case. (shrink)

This paper argues that many of our most important theories of retributivism are unwittingly committed to the radical thesis that prepunishment—punishment before an offense—is morally permissible. From the perspective of diachronic justice on which these theories crucially depend, the timing of retribution is, ceteris paribus, irrelevant. But retributivism’s counterintuitive support does not stop there: there are conditions under which pre-offense apprehension and punishment guarantees a higher probability of justice being done. Under these conditions, the popular retributive theories I have (...) in mind do not just permit, but require, prepunishment. (shrink)

From the article's conclusion: "This article does not challenge the coherence of retributive theory nor does it challenge the consistency of a retributive theorist who supports the death penalty. I have only argued that one cannot justify the death penalty simply by establishing the claim that wrongdoers deserve punishment which fits the crime. Unless one is willing to condone all sorts of barbaric punishments, then one must appeal to additional ethical considerations to establish which equivalent (or roughly (...) equivalent or proportional) punishments are morally acceptable.". (shrink)

Retributive approaches to the justification of legal punishment are often thought to place exacting and unattractive demands on state officials, requiring them to expend scarce public resources on apprehending and punishing all offenders strictly in accordance with their criminal ill deserts. Against this caricature of the theory, I argue that retributivists can urge parsimony in the use of punishment. After clarifying what parsimony consists in, I show how retributivists can urge reductions in the use of punishment in order (...) to conserve scarce resources for other valuable social purposes, minimize the foreseeable and adverse effects of legal punishment on the innocent, and accommodate the fact that existing societies fail in numerous ways to satisfy the conditions that make retributive punishment fully justified. (shrink)

Terrorism is commonly viewed as a form of war, and as a form of war, the morality of terrorism seems to turn on the usual arguments regarding the furtherance of political objectives through coercive means. The terrorist argues that his options for armed struggle are limited, and that the use of force against civilians is the only way he can advance his cause. But this argument is subject to a powerful response. There is the argument from consequences, which asserts that (...) terrorism is almost always counterproductive, even assuming the terrorist’s political objectives are legitimate. There is the argument from rights, which claims that terrorism violates the basic human rights of (at least) its civilian victims, and is therefore morally objectionable regardless of its consequences. And there is the argument from virtue, which notes that slaughtering civilians requires no skill or courage and therefore generates no honor or glory, making the terrorist not a virtuous warrior but a vicious one. But terrorism is not only a means of political coercion. It is also, in the view of many terrorists, a means of retribution. It is a means of exacting punishment on a political community the terrorist believes is collectively responsible for grievous wrongs certain members of that community have committed. And viewed as a means of retribution, the usual arguments made against terrorism-as-coercion have no moral force. To explain why terrorism-as-retribution is morally wrong, we must attack the notion of collective responsibility on which the terrorist relies. (shrink)

Despite our moral misgivings, retributive canons of justice-the return of evil to evildoers-remain entrenched in law, literature, and popular moral precept. In this wide-ranging examination of retribution, Marvin Henberg argues that the persistence and pervasiveness of this concept is best understood from a perspective of evolutionary naturalism. After tracing its origins in human biology and psychology, he shows how retribution has been treated historically in such diverse cultural expressions as law codes, scriptures, drama, poetry, philosophy, and novels. Henberg considers (...) retributive thought in light of contemporary moral theory and current social and political concerns and advances his own theory of the morality of legal punishment."Retribution is no single doctrine or unified set of doctrines, but rather a sprawling variety of doctrines, many of them at odds with one another," observes Henberg. He suggests that understanding retributive thought as the quest for solace in the face of suffering helps to explain its variable nature. Since there is no single defensible moral criterion for identifying exact retaliation, culture is more important than nature in selecting among retributive practices. Typically, some forms of retribution are culturally approved, while others are disapproved. In place of the mistaken tendency to think of legal punishment as morally justified, Henberg maintains that legal punishment should be thought of as morally permitted. Author note: Marvin Henberg is Professor and Chair of the Department of Philosophy and Director of the University Honors Program at the University of Idaho. (shrink)

Few defences of retribution in criminal justice make a plausible case for the view that punishment plays a necessary role in restoring relations between offenders, victims and the community. Even fewer defences of retribution make a plausible appeal to the interpersonal practice of apologizing as a symbolically adequate model for criminal justice. This review article considers Christopher Bennett’s engaging defence of an apology ritual in criminal justice, an account of justifiable punishment that draws from the best of retributive and (...) restorative justice theory. (shrink)

In this chapter, Dahan Katz defends relational conceptions of retribution and desert. She clarifies the ways in which such relational conceptions avoid major worries associated with retributive theory, while addressing further worries that arise distinctively with respect to such an approach. In doing so, Dahan Katz provides further defense of the response-retributive theory of punishment that she has proposed elsewhere, while defending a wider set of views within the retributive tradition.

Traditionally Kant's theory of punishment has been seen as wholly retributive. Recent Kantian scholarship has interpreted the theory as more moderately retributive: punishment is deterrent in aim, and retributive only in so far as the amount and type of penalty is to be determined by retributive considerations (the ius talionis). But it is arguable that a more coherent Kantian theory of punishment can be developed which makes no appeal to retribution at all: hypothetical (...) contractors would have no good reason to endorse punishment distributed retributively. This position is first sketched behind Rawls's neo‐Kantian ‘veil of ignorance’, and it is suggested that the same theory will emerge from Scanlon's more relaxed neo‐Kantian position. (shrink)

I examine emotional reactions to wrongdoing to determine whether they offer support for retributivism. It is often thought that victims desire to see their victimizer suffer and that this reaction offers support for retributivism. After rejecting several attempts to use different theories of emotion and different approaches to using emotions to justify retributivism, I find that, assuming a cognitive theory of emotion is correct, emotions can be used as heuristic guides much as suggested by Michael Moore. Applying this method (...) to the actual emotional reactions of victims' relatives, however, does not find support for retributivism. Instead, it suggests punishment should be understood as part of a process of recovery with a complex set of demands. Retributive concerns can play a role in the process, but they don't have the priority that retributivism requires. (shrink)

Libertarians typically object to having the state deal with law and order for several general reasons: it is inefficient; it is carried out at the expense of taxpayers; and it punishes so-called victimless crimes. Exactly what the observance of liberty implies with respect to the treatment of tortfeasors and criminals is more controversial among libertarians. A pure theory of libertarian restitution and retribution is mainly what is attempted here, without becoming involved in general moral anti-state arguments. However, the pure (...) theory alone will raise practical problems that require immediate response if the theory is to appear at all plausible. (shrink)

In the late 1930 s Hans Kelsen supplemented his Pure Theory of law with an evolutionist model of human social institutions, identifying what he considered to be the minimum content of a legal order and the attributes of the earliest legal orders. He argued that more rational alternatives necessarily developed through social evolution, but that the unevenness of the process allowed the survival of relics of earlier rational legal orders. Among these evolutionary relics were the ideology of retributivism and (...) perhaps the practice of retribution. Kelsen made numerous attempts to integrate this insight into the Pure Theory, without success; this in turn may help explain both his abandonment of the evolutionist model in the 1940 s and his radical revision of the Pure Theory in the 1960 s. (shrink)

The following essay responds to a draft article that criticises the theory of libertarian restitution in “Libertarian Rectification: Restitution, Retribution, and the Risk-Multiplier” (LR). The article was freely available to internet search engines. Hence, it seems fair and useful to reply to these very welcome objective criticisms. It is not intellectually relevant that its author might subsequently and subjectively have thought better of them, possibly as a result of the earlier version of this reply. Generally, the article misconstrues the (...) position on retribution in LR. Eventually, it makes apparent qualifications to its own position such that there does not seem to be any clear theoretical difference between the two on the central disputed issue. LR’s position is to explain and defend only the non-normative theory of libertarian restitution: full restoration or compensation to the damaged (initiatedly imposed on) party. But it is argued that this can include a retributive aspect if that is what the victim prefers. Moreover, such restitution will tend to act as a deterrent that maximises both overall interpersonal liberty (theorised as no initiated imposed costs) and human welfare (theorised as preference satisfaction). (shrink)

The ‘dualist project’ in the philosophy of punishment is to show how retributivist and reductivist (utilitarian) considerations can be combined to provide an adequate justification of punishment. Three types of dualist theories can be distinguished—‘split‐level’, ‘integrated’ and ‘mere conjunction’. Split‐level theories (e.g. Hart, Rawls) must be rejected, as they relegate retributivist considerations to a lesser role. An attempted integrated theory is put forward, appealing to the reductivist means of deterrence. However, it cannot explain how the two types of considerations, (...) retributivist and reductivist, are to be genuinely integrated as opposed to merely conjoined. An attempt to find integration at the deeper level of political philosophy is then examined, in the form of Lacey's communitarian theory of punishment. In the end, mere conjunction dualism must be accepted by default. This conclusion points to a deep‐lying schizophrenia in our substantive criminal law. Although developing this theme is beyond its scope, the paper ends by saying a little on how a mere conjunction dualist theory of punishment leads on to a similar theory of criminalization. (shrink)

Recent empirical work suggests that emotions are responsible for anti-consequentialist intuitions. For instance, anger places value on actions of revenge and retribution, value not derived from the consequences of these actions. As a result, it contributes to the development of retributive intuitions. I argue that if anger evolved to produce these retributive intuitions because of their biological consequences, then these intuitions are not a good indicator that punishment has value apart from its consequences. This severs the evidential connection (...) between retributive intuitions and the retributive value of punishment. This argument may generalize to other deontological intuitions and theories. (shrink)

Thaddeus Metz defends the retributive theory of punishment against challenges mounted by some of the contributors to this collection. People, he thinks, ought to be censured in a way that is proportional to what they have done and for which they are responsible. Understanding does not conflict with judging. On the contrary, according to him, the more we understand, the better we are able to censure appropriately. Metz’s argument is Kantian insofar as he argues that ‘respect for persons (...) [victims, responsible wrongdoers and the community at large] requires condemning people proportionately to their responsible wrongdoing and hence that understanding a person merely indicates what would be proportionate, not that proportionality is unjustified’. His reason for thinking that Kantian respect requires retribution is that, as in non-retributive cases such as economic justice, compensatory justice, and justice in healthcare rationing, it requires imposing burdens on persons consequent to an awareness of their responsible choices. To use his slogan, ‘judging is apt because of understanding’. (shrink)

The enterprise of state punishment requires the use of limited resources for which there are other competitors, such as national defense, market regulation, and social welfare. How resource-demanding retributive justice will turn out to be depends on how retributivists answer a series of questions concerning the theory’s structure. After elaborating these questions and the varieties of retributive justice that answers to them might generate, I consider the resource demands of retributive justice in the context of competing (...) theories of distributive justice. Various tensions and outright conflicts between the pursuit of retributive and distributive justice are then explored. (shrink)

First published in 1929, this book explores the crucial, ethical question of the objects and the justification of punishment. Dr. A. C. Ewing considers both the retributive theory and the deterrent theory on the subject whilst remaining commendably unprejudiced. The book examines the views which emphasize the reformation of the offender and the education of the community as objects of punishment. It also deals with a theory of reward as a compliment to a theory of (...) punishment. Dr. Ewing’s treatment of the topics is philosophical yet he takes in to account the practical considerations that should determine the nature and the amount of the punishment to be inflicted in different types of cases. This book will be of great interest to students of philosophy, teachers and those who are interested in the concrete problems of punishment by the state. It is an original contribution to the study of a subject of great theoretical and practical importance. (shrink)

Many people have the intuition that the failure to impose punishment on perpetrators of such serious human rights violations as murder, torture and rape that occurred in the course of violent conflict preceding a society’s transition from authoritarianism to democracy amounts to an injustice. This intuition is to an appreciable extent accounted for by the retributivist outlook of a high proportion of those who share it. Colleen Murphy, however, though she accepts that retributivism may justify punishment of offenders in stable (...) democracies, claims in her recent book on transitional justice that retributivism is inapplicable in the circumstances of transitional justice. I argue that the four arguments she provides in support of this claim are unsuccessful and that retributivism, assuming it to be a tenable rationale for punishment, justifies the subjection of perpetrators of at least some serious human rights abuses to sanctions in at least some transitional societies. (shrink)

This article responds to Anh Le’s critique of my Journal of Military Ethics article entitled “The Morality of Retributive Targeted Killing.” Le argues that while retribution can in theory function...