Honor and Revenge: A Theory of Punishment / by Whitley R.P. Kaufman.

1st ed. 2013.

Dordrecht : Springer Netherlands : Imprint: Springer, 2013.

VIII, 204 p. online resource.

Law and philosophy library. 1572-4395 ; 104.

This book addresses the problem of justifying the institution of criminal punishment. It examines the "paradox of retribution": the fact that we cannot seem to reject the intuition that punishment is morally required, and yet we cannot (even after two thousand years of philosophical debate) find a morally legitimate basis for inflicting harm on wrongdoers. The book comes at a time when a new "abolitionist" movement has arisen, a movement that argues that we should give up the search for justification and accept that punishment is morally unjustifiable and should be discontinued immediately. This book, however, proposes a new approach to the retributive theory of punishment, arguing that it should be understood in its traditional formulation that has been long forgotten or dismissed: that punishment is essentially a defense of the honor of the victim. Properly understood, this can give us the possibility of a legitimate moral justification for the institution of punishment.

www

Springer Nature eBook

Printed edition:
Printed edition:
Printed edition:

SpringerLink electronic monographs.

English

9789400748453

Monographs & Serials
Electronic Resources