Ethics

Ethics Study Guide

©2018 Achieve Page 78 of 116 Punishment is inflicting harm; it is not really punishment if it is not a deprivation, or does not cause pain or suffering, or have unpleasant consequences. Punishment aims to make a person worse off than he would be without punishment. 2. Punishment can only be used if there is some degree of certainty of past wrongdoing. The person deserves to suffer because he committed an offense. A utilitarian would argue that punishing past wrongs is not sufficient for the moral acceptability of inflicting harm; it should require good consequences for it to be morally acceptable. Lawrence Hinman describes two types of justification for punishment: 1. Backward-looking, i.e., retribution 2. Forward-looking, i.e., deterrence, rehabilitation, reconciliation The core concept of retributivism is that the offender should suffer at least as much as the victim did; lex talionis, or “an eye for an eye.” Opponents argue that this is just revenge by another name. Hinman answers that retribution is more about resetting the moral balance, balancing the scales of justice, protecting the rights of victims, and about changing the offenders. Some retributivists contend that victims have a right to see their perpetrators suffer their punishment. Critics of retributivism ask if punishment is really justified. They state that this can lead to punishments that are cruel and that have no morally good effects. Many who propose a forward-looking view contend that punishment has a deterrent effect on criminals and deters them from committing the same crime, as well as deterring others from Will Kymlicka Will Kymlicka (b. 1962) maintains that unlike men, women are faced with an unfair choice between their family and their careers. He says that men pursue personal security by increasing their employment skills, and women pursue security by increasing their attractiveness to men. Kymlicka states that society systematically favors men, placing women at a disadvantage because they have to pursue what men are interested in. Kymlicka also offers an important solution to the problem of dominance by men. He says the solution is not ending discrimination, but the presence of power. Equality will require equal opportunity for women to pursue male-defined roles and the ability to create female-defined roles. Richard Wasserstrom In 1979, Richard Wasserstrom discussed how skin color or genitals would be of no significance in an ideal society. He argues for judgments to be made without regard to difference, viewing everybody and everything as equivalent. Since judgments cannot be made without a commitment to a value, it is impossible to distinguish between modes of life as more or less worthwhile in this view. 10.5 Punishment and Terrorism Martin Perlmutter proposes that there are two aspects of punishment that are essential: 1.