A purely consequentialist account of punishment can lead to injustices such as the deliberate punishment of the innocent or excessively harsh punishment of the guilty.

We should not assume, however, that there is only one question of justification, which can receive just one answer. As Hart famously pointed out (Hart 1968: 1–27), we must distinguish at least three justificatory issues. First, what compelling reason is there to create and maintain a system of punishment: what good can it achieve, what duty can it fulfil, what moral demand can it satisfy? (Hart termed this the question of punishment's ‘general justifying aim’, although the term may be misleading in that talk of ‘aims’ may seem to privilege a consequentialist answer to the question, whereas the...