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    LoyalLoyalJusticeJustice
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    All punishment not derived from necessity is tyrannical — Carmelics
    Home/Justice & Punishment
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    All punishment not derived from necessity is tyrannical

    Justice & PunishmentRights & Liberty
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    1 reason for
    2 reasons against

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
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    • 1.The law is not a mere act of power
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    • 2.Things indifferent in their own nature are not within the province of law
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    • 3.Punishing what need not be prohibited exceeds the legitimate scope of law
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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Punishment can serve legitimate expressive functions—condemning wrongdoing—independent of any consequentialist necessity.
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    • 2.Kantian retributivism holds that punishing the guilty is a categorical duty owed to victims, not contingent on social need.
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    • 3.If punishment is owed as a matter of justice rather than utility, 'necessity' is the wrong criterion for its justification entirely.
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    Reason against 2 of 2
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    • 1.Positive law necessarily reflects conventional social norms, and legislatures have legitimate authority to encode community moral standards.
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    • 2.Devlin's harm-to-social-fabric argument holds that acts threatening moral cohesion warrant legal prohibition even absent direct individual victims.
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    • 3.If social solidarity is a genuine good, then punishing its erosion satisfies a form of necessity Montesquieu's framework fails to accommodate.
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    Topics

    Justice & PunishmentRights & Liberty

    Connections

    1 topic

    Social Contract1 linked

    Related

    Devlin's harm-to-social-fabric argument holds that acts threatening moral cohesi...If punishment is owed as a matter of justice rather than utility, 'necessity' is...If social solidarity is a genuine good, then punishing its erosion satisfies a f...Kantian retributivism holds that punishing the guilty is a categorical duty owed...
    +5 moreShow less
    Positive law necessarily reflects conventional social norms, and legislatures ha...Punishing what need not be prohibited exceeds the legitimate scope of lawPunishment can serve legitimate expressive functions—condemning wrongdoing—indep...The law is not a mere act of powerThings indifferent in their own nature are not within the province of law

    Similar

    Legal punishment is more dramatically coercive and burdensome than oth...78%Saying punishment is intended to inflict pain or suffering suggests th...76%Deterrent punishment is permissible.74%Retributive punishment requires that the subject be responsible for wr...74%

    Source

    AI-extracted1/3 agreementValid
    SEP: montesquieu
    View source passageHide passage
    Liberty also requires that the laws concern only threats to public order and security, since such laws will protect us from harm while leaving us free to do as many other things as possible. Thus, for instance, the laws should not concern offenses against God, since He does not require their protection. They should not prohibit what they do not need to prohibit: "all punishment which is not derived from necessity is tyrannical. The law is not a mere act of power; things in their own nature indif
    Extraction notes

    Validity: Extracted via Max plan + API grounding/validity checks

    Details

    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    3 (1 for, 2 against)
    Edits
    1 edit