What is the consequentialist theory of punishment?

What is the consequentialist theory of punishment?

Consequentialist accounts contend that punishment is justified as a means to securing some valuable end—typically crime reduction, by deterring, incapacitating, or reforming offenders. Retributivism, by contrast, holds that punishment is an intrinsically appropriate (because deserved) response to criminal wrongdoing.

What is Kant’s view on punishment?

Kant advocated two principles regarding how punishment should be administered. (1) People should be punished simply because they have committed crimes, and for no other reason. (2) Punishment should be proportionate to the crime. Notice that utilitarianism does not endorse either of these principles.

What ethical theory supports the death penalty?

A number of solid ethical theories have been proposed by scholars and philosophers over the years. This paper will make use of one of the most widely applied ethical theories, which is utilitarianism, to demonstrate that the death penalty is indeed justified.

What are the 4 basic philosophies of punishment?

The four philosophy of punishment are retribution, incapacitation, deterrence, rehabilitation, and or restoration these are the major type specifying punishment for the criminal justice system to frighten future criminal conduct.

What is ethical punishment?

The primary aim of punishment is to hold offenders accountable for crimes by inflicting burdens that are roughly equal in harm to those inflicted on their victims. The state is thought to be ethically obligated to punish offenders because of the nature of the wrongful act and not for any other reasons.

What’s wrong with capital punishment?

The death penalty is a waste of taxpayer funds and has no public safety benefit. The vast majority of law enforcement professionals surveyed agree that capital punishment does not deter violent crime; a survey of police chiefs nationwide found they rank the death penalty lowest among ways to reduce violent crime.

Which is the best description of a consequentialist theory of punishment?

We can now move on to look at the arguments he offers against consequentialist theories of punishment. As I said at the outset, a consequentialist theory of punishment is any theory that aims to justify an punitive act, practice or institution by referring to its likely consequences.

What does it mean to be a consequentialist?

The complexity of consequentialism means that a consequentialist could say ‘in theory, you should kill the innocent person, but that would never happen in real life.’

What are the three main claims of punishment?

One claim is that punishment reduces crime, and hence the resulting harms. Another is that punishment functions to rehabilitate offenders. A third claim is that punishment (or some forms of punishment) can serve to make restitution to victims, and a fourth is that it can strengthen social values.

What are the seven qualities of a punishment?

With that clarified, the Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy defines punishment as having seven qualities. The first of these is that it is an authorized act, not an incidental or accidental harm.