Punishment
In Punishment: The Supposed Justifications, Honderich surveys and analyses 14 traditional, backward-looking reasons for the justification of punishment by the state. Most have to do with desert or retribution, others with annulment or consent. All are found to be weak or worse. Honderich then argues that the strong tradition of punishment must have in it some real content or argument. This is found to be that punishment is justified by giving satisfaction to grievance-desires—doing no more than satisfying them. This, Honderich concludes, is the reality of retributivism, but it cannot be an effective justification of punishment. The Utilitarian prevention theory of punishment is also rejected, because it justifies certain victimizations. Mixed theories of punishment, drawing on backward-looking considerations as well as the notion of prevention, sometimes in terms of the reform of offenders, are also found to be untenable. Robert Nozick's theory in particular is examined. Honderich's conclusion is that the long-running problem of the justification of punishment is now dead. Its justification must be in terms of its consequences—in discouraging and licensing certain kinds of behaviour. The live issue is determining what these are. Honderich's answer has to do with the Principle of Humanity. Punishment is or would be justified when it rationally takes forward the humanization of our societies. He argues, on the basis of this, that most punishments are in fact wrong.
Read more about this topic: Ted Honderich
Famous quotes containing the word punishment:
“All in all, punishment hardens and renders people more insensible; it concentrates; it increases the feeling of estrangement; it strengthens the power of resistance.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“Confession is always weakness. The grave soul keeps its own secrets, and takes its own punishment in silence.”
—Dorothy Dix (1861–1951)
“The Laws of Nature are just, but terrible. There is no weak mercy in them. Cause and consequence are inseparable and inevitable. The elements have no forbearance. The fire burns, the water drowns, the air consumes, the earth buries. And perhaps it would be well for our race if the punishment of crimes against the Laws of Man were as inevitable as the punishment of crimes against the Laws of Nature—were Man as unerring in his judgments as Nature.”
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882)