A Popular Objection Against Deterrence-Based Punishment Analysis

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Question 1: A popular objection against deterrence-based legal punishment is that it would justify punishing the innocent, an objection that critics of the theory consider to be decisive. The first element of this objection is clarifying the definition of punishment so that it can successfully be incurred on innocents. From there, the weight of the argument falls on how our moral judgments against punishing the innocent are a priori and universal rather than an empirical observation on this world. This aims to refute an anticipated reply to the fundamental concept of this argument, this being that punishing the innocent is immoral regardless of its utilitarian effect, up to a certain extent at least. However, this does not succeed at being a decisive rejection of the theory. …show more content…

This is relevant as there are utilitarians that rebutted this objection by defining punishment as an infliction of evil on an offender (Primoratz 51). In situations where there is a deliberate decision to “punish” somebody known by the judge to be innocent--that is to an inflict an evil on somebody that, if he were guilty, would be considered punishment, the utilitarian has sufficient grounds to deny this is punishment because the man is not an offender and therefore say this scenario as a consequence of the utilitarian view of punishment (52). Primoratz views this as “poor consolation” as while it might not strictly be a consequence of a utilitarian view of punishment, it is an implication of the ethical consequences of utilitarianism in general, meaning the argument still strikes at fundamental base of utilitarianism, which truly determines whether the doctrine should be taken seriously

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