Philosophy 2080 Study Guide - Midterm Guide: Retributive Justice, Determinant, Suspended Sentence
17 Apr 2017
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Views punishment as painful and evil: infliction of unconsented pain needs to be justified. Punishment can be justified by looking at the results of punishing people: punishing people to benefit society, we punish people to deter them and others away from committing a crime. There is a tight connection between punishment and crime: must suffer for the crime they have committed. Two kinds of retributivism: moral: justification of punishment should look backwards in time to peoples wrong doings, legal: one can only be punished if social rules have been broken, a violation of the law. Debt is an important notion to this theory: we are paying back the criminal by harming him as he has harmed. Positive (maximal) = wrong act is enough to be punished. Negative (minimal) = an innocent person must not be punished and a person must receive punishment proportionate to the crime. Permissive = a guilty individual may be punished, but not absolute duty to punish.
