This book addresses the problem of justifying the institution of criminal punishment. It examines the "paradox of retribution": the fact that we cannot seem to reject the intuition that punishment is morally required, and yet we cannot (even after two thousand years of philosophical debate) find a morally legitimate basis for inflicting harm on wrongdoers. The book comes at a time when a new "abolitionist" movement has arisen, a movement that argues that we should give up the search for justification and accept that punishment is morally unjustifiable and should be discontinued immediately. This book, however, proposes a new approach to the retributive theory of punishment, arguing that it should be understood in its traditional formulation that has been long forgotten or dismissed: that punishment is essentially a defense of the honor of the victim. Properly understood, this can give us the possibility of a legitimate moral justification for the institution of punishment.?
| ISBN: | 9789401784757 |
| Publication date: | 21st September 2014 |
| Author: | Whitley RP Kaufman |
| Publisher: | Springer an imprint of Springer Netherlands |
| Format: | Paperback |
| Pagination: | 204 pages |
| Series: | Law and Philosophy Library |
| Genres: |
Methods, theory and philosophy of law Crime and criminology |