Ahmad Fallahi
Abstract
In addressing this fundamental question of whether punishment is morally good/just, proponents of retributivism - emphasizing principles such as desert, blameworthiness and proportionality ...
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In addressing this fundamental question of whether punishment is morally good/just, proponents of retributivism - emphasizing principles such as desert, blameworthiness and proportionality - have primarily sought to limit sever and indeterminate punishments, developing elaborating a theory of punishment based on the offender's just deserts, maintaining its moral justification. T his note, employing a descriptive-analytical method, argues that retributivism can only be morally justified if it demonstrates that: the moral worth of acts derives solely from their intrinsic nature (deontic grounding), and duty-compliance carries inherent significance for the individual—or ought to. Beyond this, quite apart from the inherent difficulty in defining good and evil and creating demarcation criteria, it remains unclear how retributivists determine appropriate punishment types as being truly commensurate with crimes committed, and how punishment could guarantee the realization of moral good. he backward-looking approach of retributive justice presupposes the individual as the architect of his own life plan and the author of personal aspirations, construing criminal conduct as the offender’s conscious and free choice—thus deeming them deserving of punishment. This premise faces critique from perspectives emphasizing the deterministic role of coercive social structures in shaping human agency.
