PHILOS 2G03 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Reprobation
8 Apr 2015
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Utilitarianism : pain is bad in itself, but punishment can end up creating more happiness! Punishing someone makes them less likely to reoffend. When other people see what we"re willing to do to a criminal transgresser, they will shy away from committing their own crimes. The unhappiness we prevent might be much less than the unhappiness we cause. A great many utilitarian scholars don"t stop here. They think that utilitarian reasoning should lead us to further conclusions about the way that we punish people. As soon as we start talking about punishment as minimizing unhappiness and maximizing happiness, we have reason to question deep seated beliefs about punishment. If you"re a utilitarian, that idea is not central to your thinking about punishment, it"s nowhere to be found in their justification for punishment. What makes punishment okay for utilitarianism is the happiness and unhappiness levels it causes in society.
