NCJ Number
83374
Journal
Hofstra Law Review Volume: 9 Issue: 5 Dated: (Summer 1981) Pages: 1501-1523
Date Published
1981
Length
23 pages
Annotation
The ethics of criminal punishment generally and of the death penalty in particular are discussed, with the primary focus on the retributivist justification for criminal punishment and a proposal for a retributivist view of corrections that abolishes capital punishment.
Abstract
The article's first section suggests the central place that a discussion of the ethics of criminal punishment occupies in the constitutional analysis of capital punishment and the reasons a more thorough appreciation of these issues by both abolitionists and retentionists is therefore desirable. The next section briefly considers the principal utilitarian claim for capital punishment, that of deterrence, and argues that it is both an empirically insufficient and theoretically unacceptable justification for the use of capital punishment. Two reasons frequently offered in justification of capital punishment are then reviewed: the channeling of vengeance that would otherwise result in anarchy and the demonstration and vindication of moral norms. While both of these reasons are indicated to be desirable accompaniments of retributive punishment, neither captures the essence of the retributive justification of punishment. The classical Kantian formulation of retributivism is outlined, along with its traditional implication for capital punishment. The only basis of justification for imposing criminal punishment according to retributivism is indicated to be moral desert: that which can be said to have been earned or merited by the willed behavior of a responsible person. Although Kant views capital punishment as a violation of society's affirmation of the worth and dignity of every human being. A total of 100 footnotes are listed.