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A Retributivist Justification

            We live in a country which has a set of rules that we must abide by in order to be considered good members of society. Our legal system encourages us to do as they say or one gets punished. For example we can get punished for something as little as not paying a parking ticket or a severe punishment for murder. This is called legal punishment. Two justifications of legal punishment are retributivist justification and utilitarian justification. .
             Does a criminal deserve to be punished? A retributivist believes that an eye for an eye is the proper way to conduct punishment. Criminals commit crimes knowing the possibilities of getting caught and having major punishments. Once the criminal knows the severity of their crime and they choose to continue on with it or commit it many times the criminal deserves the most severe punishment to fit the crime. A retributivist justification of legal punishment states that criminals should be punished for the harm they have caused with the same or higher punishment (moral punishment). Lawbreakers deserve to be punished: The punishment of a criminal should depend of the severity of the crime. As a society we should punish the criminals with the punishments that are not necessarily " legally right" but morally right. A person who commits a crime should have to pay for the consequences. A proper example would be a scenario with a child molester, if such criminal constantly does harm to children should this criminal be punished with the same harm he put his victim through, maybe even worse harm? Or should such criminal just spend time in prison contemplating what he did and how he could of avoided getting caught? According to John Rawls a retributivist justification of legal punishment comes down to the idea of other people punishing other people for the harm the " bad people" have caused the "good people". Punishing people that break the law can help prevent any future infractions.


Essays Related to A Retributivist Justification

1. Human Behavior

... should be applied only to the guilty. While it is undoubtedly right to limit punishment to wrongdoers, the question arises as to whether relegating the retributivist principle to a mere formula for distribution really does satisfy our retributivist feelings. The common reaction, for example, upon hearing of Paul Bernardo' s torture and murder of Leslie Mahaffy and the subsequent mutilation of her ... body, is one of reprobation, outrage, and even revulsion. As John Mackie points out, we feel that wrong actions call for a hostile response. The positive retributivist principle has "immedia...

  • Word Count: 2070
  • Approx Pages: 8
  • Has Bibliography
  • Grade Level: Undergraduate

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