Retributivist View Of Punishment

1813 Words4 Pages

Boluwatife Rasheed Abudu
“Critically assess the view that unless punishment is a response to moral fault, it is unjustified.”
ABSTRACT
There are two major schools of thought that agree that punishment can be justified. The utilitarians believe punishment can be justified exclusively by its consequences and its long-term usefulness to the society, while the deontologists are of the view that the justification for punishment is based upon retributive grounds. There is an unpopular third school which attempts to reconcile both grounds. This thought school believes that punishment is justified when it is both useful and deserved. I for one believe in the retributivist view that punishment is justified when it is deserved. For the purpose of addressing this essay question however, the distinction ought to be made as to whether or not punishment is justified when it responds to a moral fault, or as a social concept which justifies regulated state restraint of individuals. Both are retributivist views. This paper will aim to discuss in detail what moral retributivism entails, and juxtapose it with legal retributivism, with the conclusion …show more content…

Every retributivist believes in the elemental notion that:
“criminal behaviour constitute(s) a violation of the moral or natural order and having offended that order, requires payment of some

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