Practice question · Select all that apply
Which are objections that have been made to a purely retributive justification of punishment?
Hints
- Three are objections to retribution; one is the classic objection to its rival.
- Punishing the innocent for the sake of deterrence is a utilitarian embarrassment, not a retributive one.
Show the answer
- A. Desert on its own supplies no scale, so it cannot say how much punishment a given wrong is worth
- B. It explains why punishment is deserved but not why the state rather than the victim inflicts it
- D. It looks backwards and therefore says nothing about what punishment achieves
Why
The fourth is aimed at the wrong target. Punishing the innocent is precisely what retribution forbids and what pure prevention struggles to rule out, which is why the two families are usually combined: retribution supplies the ceiling and the prohibition, prevention supplies the point.
Practise What Punishment Is For
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