1. Michael Lacewing enquiries@alevelphilosophy.co.uk
Crime and punishment
Michael Lacewing

2. Punishment Punishment is not revenge
Revenge is a reaction of a victim, and inflicted by someone who has no formal authority
Punishment is administered by someone impartial, representing a legal authority
How can we justify punishment, which involves depriving someone of a good?

3. Utilitarianism Bentham: ‘all punishment in itself is evil’
The decrease in happiness must be outweighed by some other increase
Justification must therefore look ‘forwards’ to the consequences of punishment

4. Three benefits Deterrence Social protection Reform/rehabilitation
Internal: the criminal doesn’t reoffend
External: others do not offend
Social protection
The criminal is prevented from harming others
Reform/rehabilitation
The criminal no longer desires to commit crime

5. Punishing crime If consequences are the only justification
we can ‘punish’ someone before they commit the crime
we can ‘punish’ someone who hasn’t committed a crime
But both of these are unjust
To justify punishment, we must ‘look backward’ to the crime

6. Proportionality
Extremely severe punishments may create better deterrents
But such punishment is unjust – punishments must be proportional

7. Mill’s response Punishment is about justice, which is about rights
Punishment is required when rights have been violated
But we have the right not to be punished for what we haven’t done
Proportional punishments will promote greater happiness in the longer term

8. Retribution Kant and Aristotle argue that criminals deserve punishment
Punishment is justice in rectification – setting right an injustice, to ensure that each person gets what they are ‘due’
Aristotle: justice as balancing the scales, removing an unfair advantage

9. Scales of justice?
Do all crimes give the criminal an advantage? Do punishments remove this advantage?
Murder and life imprisonment
Talk of gain and loss doesn’t focus on victim, rather than justice itself
What is good about justice (in relation to eudaimonia)?
Practice of punishment is needed to develop virtue (consequences)
Individual punishments justified deontologically

10. Kant’s formula of humanity
Utilitarian justifications of punishment treat the criminal as a means to an end (less crime)
We must offer criminals rational, moral grounds for repentance, rather than try to deter them or remove their freedom
Criminals have the right to decide how to live
To treat someone as an end is to hold them responsible for their choices
Punishment is not ‘training’

11. Holding responsible
In committing a crime, the criminal has indicated they are willing for their maxim to be universalised
The punishment involves treating them as they have chosen to be treated
Not always a literal re-enactment of the crime, but the removal of freedom for the removal of freedom
Obj: this just makes the world less happy – what is the point if punishment is not a deterrent?