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Inverse View
It is not the case that If desert grounds an obligation rather than merely a permission to punish, instrumental benefits become sufficient but not necessary for justification.
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Reasons For
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Reason for
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1.
Pure desert-based punishment without instrumental justification risks severe harm to innocents if system errors occur without corrective incentive.
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2.
Societies that abandon consequentialist constraints on punishment historically enable disproportionate, cruel practices lacking accountability mechanism.
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3.
The claim conflates justification's grounding with justification's sufficiency—desert may ground obligation but still require instrumental limits for permissibility.
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Reasons Against
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Reason against
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1.
Desert is fundamentally a backward-looking concept based on moral responsibility, independent of future consequences or utilities.
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2.
If instrumental benefits were necessary for punishment, those who deserve it but produce no deterrent effect would escape justified punishment.
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3.
Retributive justice requires proportional response to wrongdoing as a matter of moral principle, regardless of social benefit.
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