Retribution Controversy: The Retributivist Philosophy Of Punishment

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The retributivist philosophy of punishment looked at in an abstract sense, isolated from normative systems of justice, raises a multitude of concerns regarding the morality of its practice. Retribution is controversial due to the factor that it doesn't look at punishment in terms of rehabilitation, but rather in the terms that a criminal action requires a reaction that involves punishment. Within retribution justice is not served whilst considering actions, circumstance, and consequences all together, instead simply considering the actions or possible crime that were committed.

These components of retribution trigger within most people a sense that retribution can not be a just or moral practice of punishment, seeing that it negates righteousness, …show more content…

Likewise it is integral for members of society in addition to justice to have a genuine obligation to be fair, compassionate, and righteous in order to be complete moral agents. Being that these feelings of righteousness are commonplace, the controversy of retribution lies within the philosophy that regardless of circumstance a crime warrants a particular punishment, and it is rigid and unmoving. Retribution is blind to the magnitude of an individual's crime, focusing on the simple fact that a crime was committed and must be balanced with a predetermined …show more content…

The line between what is criminal and what is a preference of values is blurred. Garland and Duff argue in their introduction to Thinking about Punishment that "decision-makers will always face normative conflicts which cannot be generally resolved or settled in advance." This argument about the overall justice system seems even more integral to argue when such a rigid and definitive philosophy of punishment such as retribution is being presented. Although most of humankind has an intuition of actions that are generally good or bad, wrong or right, retribution relies too heavily on those administering the punishment to be distinctly correct about all their assumptions of the right way people are supposed to live their

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