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    Positive retributivism holds that desert provides an in-p... — Carmelics
    Home/Justice & Punishment
    HistoryEditSee Inverse

    Positive retributivism holds that desert provides an in-principle sufficient reason for punishment, though only in principle.

    Justice & Punishment
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    1 reason for
    2 reasons against

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
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    • 1.An offender's desert provides a reason in favour of punishment: the state should punish those found guilty to the extent that they deserve, because they deserve it.
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    • 2.There are good reasons — to do with the costs, both material and moral, of punishment — why we should not even try to punish all the guilty.
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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
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    • 1.Desert claims presuppose robust metaphysical free will, which hard determinists like Derk Pereboom argue is empirically undermined.
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    • 2.If agents lack the sourcehood required for basic desert, punishment cannot be sufficiently justified by desert alone, even in principle.
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    Reason against 2 of 2
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    • 1.Consequentialists like Bentham hold that suffering is intrinsically bad, making the deliberate infliction of pain require positive justification beyond mere desert.
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    • 2.A reason that is 'sufficient in principle' but routinely overridden by costs is functionally indistinguishable from a prima facie reason, collapsing positive into negative retributivism.
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    Justice & Punishment

    Related

    A reason that is 'sufficient in principle' but routinely overridden by costs is ...An offender's desert provides a reason in favour of punishment: the state should...Consequentialists like Bentham hold that suffering is intrinsically bad, making ...Desert claims presuppose robust metaphysical free will, which hard determinists ...
    +2 moreShow less
    If agents lack the sourcehood required for basic desert, punishment cannot be su...There are good reasons — to do with the costs, both material and moral, of punis...

    Similar

    Yet negative retributivism is offered as the view that desert provides...92%A positive retributivist who thinks that the reasons provided by deser...91%If purposes of punishment are exhausted by prevention rather than dese...88%An offender's desert provides a reason in favour of punishment: the st...86%

    Source

    AI-extracted
    SEP: legal-punishment
    View source passageHide passage
    Theorists have distinguished ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ forms of retributivism. Positive retributivism holds that an offender’s desert provides a reason in favour of punishment; essentially, the state should punish those found guilty of criminal offences to the extent that they deserve, because they deserve it. Penal desert constitutes not just a necessary, but an in-principle sufficient reason for punishment (only in principle, however, since there are good reasons — to do with the costs, both material and moral, of punishment — why we should not even try to punish all the guilty). Negative re...

    Details

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