Abstract
In Chapter II we argued that punishment inflicted on non-offenders must be qualified as undeserved or unjust. We then went on to claim that there was nothing accidental about this, since punishment is a moral notion whose justifying grounds are contained in its definition. This was spelled out in more detail in the last chapter, where it was claimed that desert considerations were sufficient to justify a person’s suffering punishment, though not sufficient to justify its infliction by just anybody. However, the move undeserved → unjust → unjustified is not as smooth as we have so far made it out to be, and in this chapter we shall endeavour to steer through some of the familiar hazards.
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References
R. Corkey, “Benevolence and Justice”, Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 9 (1959), p. 153.
H. J. McCloskey, “A Non-utilitarian Approach to Punishment”, Inquiry, Vol. VIII (1965), p. 251.
H. J. McCloskey, “Utilitarian and Retributive Punishment”, Journal of Philosophy, Vol. LXIV (1967), pp. 91, 92.
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Alwynne Smart, “Mercy”, Philosophy, Vol. XLIII (1968), pp. 355, 358.
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© 1973 Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, Netherlands
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Kleinig, J. (1973). Desert, Punishment and Justice. In: Punishment and Desert. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-2027-5_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-2027-5_5
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