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    LoyalLoyalJusticeJustice
    Made withinDC&Austin
    Statements
    321,452
    Perspectives
    108,905
    Topics
    42
    Home/Original/inverse
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    Inverse View

    It is not the case that The line between negative retributivism and retributivism that posits a weak positive reason to punish may seem unimportant.

    ?Set your confidence on the premises below to see your aggregate.

    Reasons For

    2 perspectives
    Reason for 1 of 2
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    • 1.Negative retributivism treats desert as a side-constraint, never as a reason to punish, while positive retributivism treats desert as a genuine pro tanto reason to punish.
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    • 2.This structural difference produces divergent verdicts when instrumental reasons are absent: negative retributivism forbids punishment while positive retributivism permits or requires it.
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    • 3.A distinction that generates different normative verdicts in real cases is philosophically important, regardless of how often those cases arise.
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    Reason for 2 of 2
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    • 1.Kant's retributivism holds that failing to punish the guilty wrongs them by denying respect for their rational agency, making the positive reason to punish a matter of dignity, not mere consequence.
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    • 2.This Kantian positive duty to punish cannot be assimilated to negative retributivism's purely instrumental justification without distorting the deontological structure that grounds the entire theory.
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    • 3.The conflation of weak positive and negative retributivism thus obscures the foundational moral disagreement about whether justice itself demands punishment.
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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
    ?
    • 1.A negative retributivist holds that the justification for punishment must come completely from its instrumental value.
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    • 2.A positive retributivist who thinks that the reasons provided by desert are relatively weak may say that most of what justifies punishment comes from the same instrumental bases.
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    • 3.For both, a full justification of punishment will be 'mixed', appealing to both retributive and consequentialist ideas.
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