Honor and revenge : a theory of punishment

Author(s)
    • Kaufman, Whitley R. P.
Bibliographic Information

Honor and revenge : a theory of punishment

Whitley R.P. Kaufman

(Law and philosophy library, v. 104)

Springer, c2013

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Note

Includes bibliographical references (p. 193-199) and index

Description and Table of Contents

Description

This book addresses the problem of justifying the institution of criminal punishment. It examines the "paradox of retribution": the fact that we cannot seem to reject the intuition that punishment is morally required, and yet we cannot (even after two thousand years of philosophical debate) find a morally legitimate basis for inflicting harm on wrongdoers. The book comes at a time when a new "abolitionist" movement has arisen, a movement that argues that we should give up the search for justification and accept that punishment is morally unjustifiable and should be discontinued immediately. This book, however, proposes a new approach to the retributive theory of punishment, arguing that it should be understood in its traditional formulation that has been long forgotten or dismissed: that punishment is essentially a defense of the honor of the victim. Properly understood, this can give us the possibility of a legitimate moral justification for the institution of punishment.

Table of Contents

Chapter One: The Problem of Punishment.- Chapter Two: Punishment as Crime Prevention.- Chapter Three: Can Retributive Punishment Be Justified?.- Chapter Four: The Mixed Theory of Punishment.- Chapter Five: Retribution and Revenge.- Chapter Six: What Is The Purpose of Retribution?.- Chapter Seven: Making Sense of Honor.- Chapter Eight: Is Punishment Justified?.- Index.

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