Theories of Retributive Justice
Theories of retributive justice are concerned with punishment for wrongdoing, and need to answer three questions:
- why punish?
- who should be punished?
- what punishment should they receive?
This section considers the two major accounts of retributive justice, and their answers to these questions. Utilitarian theories look forward to the future consequences of punishment, while retributive theories look back to particular acts of wrongdoing, and attempt to balance them with deserved punishment.
Read more about this topic: Justice
Famous quotes containing the words theories of, theories and/or justice:
“The real trouble about women is that they must always go on trying to adapt themselves to men’s theories of women, as they always have done. When a woman is thoroughly herself, she is being what her type of man wants her to be. When a woman is hysterical it’s because she doesn’t quite know what to be, which pattern to follow, which man’s picture of woman to live up to.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)
“Generalisation is necessary to the advancement of knowledge; but particularly is indispensable to the creations of the imagination. In proportion as men know more and think more they look less at individuals and more at classes. They therefore make better theories and worse poems.”
—Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859)
“A good man will not engage even in a national cause, without examining the justice of it.”
—Samuel Richardson (1689–1761)