Honor and Revenge: A Theory of Punishment

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.

Chapter One: The Problem of Punishment. - Chapter Two: Punishment as Crime Prevention. - Chapter Three: Can Retributive Punishment Be Justified? . - Chapter Four: The Mixed Theory of Punishment. - Chapter Five: Retribution and Revenge. - Chapter Six: What Is The Purpose of Retribution? . - Chapter Seven: Making Sense of Honor. - Chapter Eight: Is Punishment Justified? . - Index.