Abstract
The general scheme of thinking of justice as equilibrium is applicable not only to a distribution of goods which are sought by men in a society but also to distribution of punishments. There is no reason to think that these two fields of application of justice should be governed by completely different sets of moral principles. If the balance of benefits and burdens is to constitute an essential theoretical framework for social justice, it can be applied both to a distribution of advantages (in order to balance the increased amount of burdens) and of punishments (to balance undeserved benefits gained by the criminal). In both cases, the acts of social justice are responses to those facts and actions which may be described as benefits and burdens. Both fields of social justice can be considered as the proportional relations between inputs and outputs: in the case of distributive justice, the inputs are deserts and needs; in the case of retributive justice, the inputs are crimes.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsPreview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
John Rawls,A Theory of Justice (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972), pp. 314–315.
Ibid, p. 314.
For the opposite view, see Michael D. Bayles, `Character, Purpose, and Criminal Responsibility’, Law and Philosophy 1 (1982), pp. 5–20. Bayles argues that blame and punishment are not directly for acts but for character traits.
Brian Barry, `Reflections on “Justice as Fairness”’, in Hugo A. Bedau, ed., Justice and Equality (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1971), p. 110.
For the findings of a survey which support this assertion, see ibid, pp. 112–113.
Rawls, op. cit, p. 100, my emphasis, footnote omitted.
See Sidney Hook, `In Defense of “Justice” ’, in E. Kiefer and M. K. Munitz, Ethics and Social Justice (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1968), pp. 75–84; for an opposite view, see Walter Kaufmann, `Doubts about Justice’, ibid,pp. 66–73; Edward N. Calm, The Sense of Injustice (New York: New York University Press, 1946), in particular p. 13.
Rawls, op. cit, pp. 310–315.
Ibid, p. 101.
Ibid, p. 102.
Ibid, p. 311.
For a similar theory of punishment, see in particular Herbert Morris, `Persons and Punishment’, in J. Feinberg and H. Gross, eds. Philosophy of Law (Encino: Dickenson, 1975), pp. 572–585, reprinted from Monist 52 (1968); Alan Gewirth, Reason and Morality (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978), pp. 294–299. See also Kurt Baier, The Moral Point of View (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1958), pp. 205–206; Jeffrie G. Murphy, Retribution, Justice and Therapy (Dordrecht D. Reidel, 1979), p. 77; John Finnis, Natural Law and Natural Rights (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980), pp. 263–264.
Richard A. Wasserstrom, `Punishment’, in Philosophy and Social Issues (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1980), pp. 143–144.
George P. Fletcher, Rethinking Criminal Law (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1978), pp. 417–418.
See Alan H. Goldman, `The Paradox of Punishment’, Philosophy and Public Affairs 9 (1979), p. 44.
See Wasserstrom, Punishment,op. cit, p. 145.
Goldman, op. cit, p. 44.
For this argument, see Lisa H. Perkins, `Suggestions for a Justification of a Punishment’, Ethics 81 (1976), pp. 55–61.
Elaine Walster, G. William Walster, Ellen Berscheid, Equity: Theory and Research (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1978), p. 65.
See Nigel Walker, Punishment,danger and stigma (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1980), pp. 130–131.
See Walster, op. cit, pp. 79–81.
Alan H. Goldman, `Toward a New Theory of Punishment’, Law and Philosophy 1 (1982), p. 61; see also Hugo Adam Bedau, `Retribution and the Theory of Punishment’, The Journal of Philosophy 75 (1978), p. 617.
See Gewirth, op. cit, p. 297.
See Andrew von Hirsch, Doing Justice (New York: Hill and Wang, 1976), pp. 144145.
S. I. Benn, R. S. Peters, Social Principles and the Democratic State (London: Allen and Unwin, 1959), p. 175.
Ibid, p. 176. See also S. I. Benn, `Punishment’, in The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. by Paul Edwards (New York: Macmillan, 1967), vol. 7, p. 30.
See pp. 11–14 above.
Anthony M. Quinton, `On Punishment’, in H. B. Acton, ed., The Philosophy of Punishment (London: Macmillan, 1973), pp. 58–59.
See, in particular, essays published in Acton, op. cit
Antony Flew, `The Justification of Punishment’, in Acton, op. cit, p. 93.
K. E. Baier, `Is Punishment Retributive?’, in Acton, op. cit, p. 133.
K. G. Armstrong, `The Retributivist Hits Back’, in Acton, op. cit, p. 153. Another version of the same question: “Is it ever justified to make an innocent person suffer in the manner usually prescribed for legal offenders… ?”, see Sidney Gendin, `A Plausible Theory of Retribution’, Journal of Value Inquiry 5 (1970), pp. 9–10.
See H. L. A. Hart, Punishment,op. cit, p. 6.
John Kleinig, Punishment and Desert (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1973), p. 13.
Henry Weihofen, `Retribution Is Obsolete’, in C. J. Friedrich, ed., Responsibility: Nomos III (New York: Liberal Arts Press, 1960), p. 118.
Walter Kaufmann, Without Guilt and Justice (New York: Peter H. Wyden, 1973), p. 57.
Ibid, p. 57.
Gerald Gardiner, `The Purposes of Criminal Punishment’, Modern Law Review 21 (1958), pp. 120–121.
See Chapter 1, Section 1.
Weihofen, op. cit, p. 119. But see Graeme R. Newman, Comparative Deviance (New York: Elsevier, 1976) about the significant cross-cultural consensus as to the wrongness of particular offences. For similar findings, see also Joseph E. Scott and Fahad Al Thakeb, `Perceptions of Deviance Cross-Culturally’, in G. R. Newman, ed., Crime and Deviance: A Comparative Perspective (Beverly Hills: Sage Publications, 1980).
Weihofen, op. cit, p. 119.
For evidence of such a consensus, see V. Lee Hamilton and Steve Rytina, `Social Consensus on Norms of Justice: Should the Punishment Fit the Crime?’, American Journal of Sociology 85 (1980), pp. 1117–1144; R. M. Figlio, `The Seriousness of Offenses: an Evaluation by Offenders and Non-Offenders’, Journal of Criminal Law, Criminology and Police Science 58 (1967), pp. 330–337.
Weihofen, op. cit, p. 120.
John P. Conrad, `Where There’s Hope There’s Life’, in David Fogel, Joe Hudson, eds., Justice as Fairness: Perspectives on the Justice Model (Anderson Publishing Co., 1981), pp. 4–5. See also Philip Bean, Punishment: A Philosophical and Criminological Inquiry (Oxford: Martin Robertson, 1981), p. 28.
J. R. Lucas, On Justice (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980), p. 148; A. C. Ewing, The Morality of Punishment (Montclair: Patterson Smith, 1970, 1 st ed. 1929), p. 30.
See Alwynne Smart, `Mercy’, in Acton, op. cit, pp. 212–228.
See pp. 230–231 above.
See note 54, below.
Cundy v. Le Cocq (1884) 13 Q.B.D. 207.
United States v. Balint, 258 U.S. 250 (1922).
Laird v. Dobell (1906) 1 K.B. 131.
See, for example, H. M. Hart, Jr., `The Aims of the Criminal Law’, Law and Contemporary Problems 23 (1958), pp. 422–425; Jerome Hall, General Principles of Criminal Law (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1960, 2nd ed.), ch. 10; Glanville Williams, Criminal Law: The General Part (London: Stevens, 1961, 2nd ed.), pp. 258–261.
This argument is made implicite by Benjamin M. Quigg, Comment, Michigan Law Review 42 (1944), p. 1106.
See Richard Wasserstrom, `Strict Liability in the Criminal Law’, Stanford Law Review 12 (1960), pp. 734–740; see also Note, Law Quarterly Review 74 (1958), pp. 342–343.
George Whitecross Paton, A Textbook of Jurisprudence (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972, 4th ed.), p. 386. It should be noted, however, that this judgment is made by Paton with reference to minor offences only.
Shevlin-Carpenter Co. v. Minn, 218 U.S. 57, 70 (1910).
For a similar argument, see Joel Feinberg,Doing and Deserving (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1970), pp. 223–225; Hyman Gross, A Theory of Criminal Justice (New York: Oxford University Press, 1979), pp. 358–359; see also United States v. Dotterweich, 320 U.S. 277, 281 (1943) (Frankfurter, J.).
See Wasserstrom, Strict Liability… op. cit, p. 744.
Grannis v. Ordean, 234 U.S. 385, 394 (1913). See also Gross, op. cit, pp. 357–358.
Perhaps the leading exponent of views along these lines is Randy Barnett; see ‘Restitution: A New Paradigm of Criminal Justice’, Ethics 87 (1977), pp. 279–301 and `The Justice of Restitution’, American Journal of Jurisprudence 25 (1980), pp. 117–132.
James F. Doyle, `Justice and Legal Punishment’, in Acton, op. cit, p. 164.
Morris, op. cit, p. 573.
Ibid, p. 577.
Ibid, p. 579.
Quinton, op. cit, p. 57.
Gardner argues that in the American criminal law there are instances of waiver of `the right to be punished’; for example, an offender may accept an executive pardon (see Martin R. Gardner, `The Right to be Punished — A Suggested Constitutional Theory’, Rutgers Law Review 33 (1981), pp. 852–853). However, it should be noted that in this situation it is not up to the offender to exercise this waiver. Rather, the availability of the waiver depends on whether or not he is offered this option.
Ronald Dworkin, Taking Rights Seriously (London: Duckworth, 1978), pp. 92 and 191–192.
Ibid, p. 139.
Immanuel Kant, The Philosophy of Law,trans. by W. Hastie (Edinburgh: T. Clark, 1887), p. 196.
Morris, op. cit, p. 574.
See also Goldman, The Paradox…, op. cit, pp. 54–55.
Lord Denning quoted by H. L. A. Hart, Law,Liberty and Morality (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1963), p. 65.
H. M. Hart, The Aims…, op. cit,p. 405.
Neil MacCormick, H.L.A. Hart (London: Edward Arnold, 1981), p. 141.
For such a definitional suggestion, see in particular Feinberg, op. cit, ch. 5; H. M. Hart, The Aims…, op. cit, pp. 404–405; MacCormick, Legal Right…, op. cit, pp. 30–31.
See MacCormick, Legal Right…,op. cit, p. 32.
Feinberg, op. cit, p. 114. See also Sir Walter Moberly, The Ethics of Punishment (Hamden: Anchor Books), pp. 217–225.
See Hart, Law…,op. cit, pp. 65–66; Walker, op. cit, pp. 32–33.
MacCormick, Legal Right…, op. cit, pp. 242–243.
See Feinberg, op. cit, p. 98; H. M. Hart, The Aims…,op. cit, p. 405.
H. J. McCloskey, `A Non-Utilitarian Approach to Punishment’, in Gertrude Ezorsky, ed., Philosophical Perspectives on Punishment (New York: State University of New York Press, 1972), p. 122.
Johannes Andenaes, Punishment and Deterrence (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1974), pp. 7–8.
McCloskey, op. cit, p. 124. See also Igor Primorac, ‘Utilitarianism and punishment of the innocent’, Rivista Internazionale di Filosofia del Diritto 57 (1980), pp. 582–625.
See J. J. C. Smart, `Utilitarianism and Criminal Justice’, Bulletin of the Australian Society of Legal Philosophy, Special Issue (1981), pp. 16–17. See also T. L. Sprigge, `A Utilitarian Reply to Dr. McCloskey’, Inquiry 8 (1965), pp. 272–279.
McCloskey, op. cit, p. 125. See also Michael Lesnoff, `The Justifications of Punishment’, Philosophical Quarterly 21 (1971), p. 142.
Ewing, op. cit, p. 80.
See von Hirsch, op. cit, pp. 11–16. See also Abraham S. Blumberg, Criminal Justice: Issues and Ironies (New York: New Viewpoints, 1979, 2nd ed.), pp. 327–331.
See, in particular, Morris, op. cit
Weihofen, op. cit, p. 120.
Ibid, p. 120.
Evgenii Pashukanis, Selected Writings on Marxism and Law, ed. by P. Beirne and R. Sharlet (London: Academic Press, 1980), p. 121.
See Herbert L. Packer, The Limits of the Criminal Sanction (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1968), p. 67; D. J. Galligan, `The return to retribution in penal theory’, in C. F. H. Tapper, ed., Crime, Proof and Punishment (London: Butterworths, 1981), pp. 158–163.
John Rawls, `Two Concepts of Rules’, in Acton, op. cit, pp. 107–108. See also Benn and Peters, op. cit, p. 175; H. L. A. Hart,Punishment…,op. cit, pp. 1–13.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1985 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Sadurski, W. (1985). Punishment and the Theory of Justice. In: Giving Desert Its Due. Law and Philosophy Library, vol 2. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-7706-9_9
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-7706-9_9
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-90-481-8412-5
Online ISBN: 978-94-015-7706-9
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive