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PrescriptiveMoral

Making an example of an offender

On the axis: The meaning of punishment · the offender

Punishing to deter is using one man to frighten others: does only the penalty deserved for what he did treat him as a responsible person, rather than as a means?

Philosophers' positions

Kant

80
10
10
0
Justification

Punishment is demanded by justice itself, as retribution proportionate to the crime (juridical law of retaliation), never as a mere means of social utility: punishing someone to deter others would treat him as a means. This is classical retributivism.

Metaphysics of Morals, Doctrine of Right, §49 E

Hegel

Major
90
5
5
0
Justification

Crime negates right; punishment is the negation of that negation, which annuls the crime and restores right. Deterrence treats the criminal like a dog threatened with a stick; retributivism, by contrast, honors him as a rational being, for his punishment is contained in his very deed and constitutes his own right. The measure is not literal like-for-like, but the equivalence of value between crime and punishment.

Elements of the Philosophy of Right, §90-103 (§99 negation of the negation, §100 the criminal honored, §99 Add. the stick and the dog)

Anchors: Kant · Hegel