Crime and punishment

Michael Lacewingenquiries@alevelphilosophy.co

.uk

Punishment

• Punishment is not revenge– Revenge is a reaction of a victim, and

inflicted by someone who has no formal authority

– Punishment is administered by someone impartial, representing a legal authority

• How can we justify punishment, which involves depriving someone of a good?

Utilitarianism

• Bentham: ‘all punishment in itself is evil’– The decrease in happiness must be

outweighed by some other increase• Justification must therefore look

‘forwards’ to the consequences of punishment

Three benefits

• Deterrence– Internal: the criminal doesn’t reoffend– External: others do not offend

• Social protection– The criminal is prevented from

harming others• Reform/rehabilitation

– The criminal no longer desires to commit crime

Punishing crime

• If consequences are the only justification– we can ‘punish’ someone before they

commit the crime– we can ‘punish’ someone who hasn’t

committed a crime• But both of these are unjust

– To justify punishment, we must ‘look backward’ to the crime

Proportionality

• Extremely severe punishments may create better deterrents– But such punishment is unjust –

punishments must be proportional

Mill’s response

• Punishment is about justice, which is about rights– Punishment is required when rights

have been violated– But we have the right not to be

punished for what we haven’t done• Proportional punishments will

promote greater happiness in the longer term

Retribution

• Kant and Aristotle argue that criminals deserve punishment– Punishment is justice in rectification –

setting right an injustice, to ensure that each person gets what they are ‘due’

• Aristotle: justice as balancing the scales, removing an unfair advantage

Scales of justice?

• Do all crimes give the criminal an advantage? Do punishments remove this advantage?– Murder and life imprisonment

• Talk of gain and loss doesn’t focus on victim, rather than justice itself

• What is good about justice (in relation to eudaimonia)?– Practice of punishment is needed to develop

virtue (consequences)– Individual punishments justified deontologically

Kant’s formula of humanity

• Utilitarian justifications of punishment treat the criminal as a means to an end (less crime)– We must offer criminals rational, moral

grounds for repentance, rather than try to deter them or remove their freedom

– Criminals have the right to decide how to live

• To treat someone as an end is to hold them responsible for their choices– Punishment is not ‘training’

Holding responsible

• In committing a crime, the criminal has indicated they are willing for their maxim to be universalised– The punishment involves treating them as

they have chosen to be treated– Not always a literal re-enactment of the

crime, but the removal of freedom for the removal of freedom

• Obj: this just makes the world less happy – what is the point if punishment is not a deterrent?