An Approach To The Problems Of Punishment

Abstract

I SHALL develop, in this article, certain distinctions suggested by recent contributions to the philosophical discussion of punishment, which help to clarify the issues involved. Having separated out what I consider the four central philosophical questions, I shall suggest an approach to them, which, while mainly utilitarian, takes due account, I believe, of the retributivist case where it is strongest, and meets the main retributivist objections.

Dos tesis de H.L.A. Hart sobre responsabilidad y castigo: 50 años después

“…Hart reconoció también la influencia de S.I. Benn (1958). 18 Asimismo, Hart agrega algunas otras posibilidades como casos sub-estándar o secundarios de la expresión.…”

Hart on Responsibility

“…I make no effort to describe each of its problems; 6 Although Hart professes to borrow this definition from Stanley Benn and Antony Flew, he does not mention how or why he has altered the original version. Benn, e.g., does not include pain in his definition (see Benn 1958). Reasonable questions might be raised about the metric of punishment -the currency we use to decide whether one instance of punishment is more or less severe than another.…”

Toward a Liberal Theory of Punishment: Locke, Property, and Individualism

“…18 The suffering of pain is generally seen as a necessary condition of punishment. The locus classicus of this thesis is Flew (1954), Benn (1958), and Hart (2008a).…”