Commensurate Desert
Von Hirsch is one of the major contributors to modern retributive theory. Distinct from Kant's "eye for an eye," Von Hirsch asserts that crimes should be punished proportionately to the seriousness of the crime committed; this having priority over the utilitarian concerns about crime prevention. For example, theft should be punished more severely than speeding because it is morally more reprehensible; this would be true even if studies proved we might save more lives by punishing speeding more severely than theft.
Read more about this topic: Andrew Von Hirsch
Famous quotes containing the words commensurate and/or desert:
“A few [women] warrant our attention not because they have the answer but because they have rejected the mentality that insists there must be one answer. What makes them role models is not how much or how little they work, how many or how few hats they wear, but rather how well they understand, and accept, that for all rewards there will be commensurate sacrifice; for all gains, some loss; for any pleasure, some pain.”
—Melinda M. Marshall (20th century)
“The tremendous outflow of intellectuals that formed such a prominent part of the general exodus from Soviet Russia in the first years of the Bolshevist Revolution seems today like the wanderings of some mythical tribe whose bird-signs and moon-signs I now retrieve from the desert dust.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)