Towards a Comprehensive & Morally Justified Theory of Punishment

Abstract

This thesis will start out with a brief overview and discussion of the traditional theories of punishment. The aim of the discussion is to provide insight into the moral quandaries of both the instrumentalist/consequentialist and the deontological/retributivist approaches to punishment. In light of the overall aim in this thesis, to construct and defend a comprehensive and morally justified theory of punishment, it is this discussion of the consequentialist and retributivist approaches to punishment which serves the purpose of outlining the difficulties any new theory of punishment inevitably has to deal with. The subsequent discussion of the meaning of human dignity sheds some light on how to treat offenders as human beings with a ‘basic right to justification’; whereby it is argued that the offender’s human dignity is respected by punishing him for the criminal wrong he is responsible for. At last a brief discussion of restorative justice serves to introduce the theory of restorative retributivism, a theory which adopts and defends the retributivist approach to punishment while attending to consequentialist ideals by means of its structural set-up. Restorative retributivism thereby aims to provide a morally justified response to crime; a theory which acknowledges the moral authority of human rights law not just in order to be properly called ‘comprehensive’, but a theory which necessarily implies a focus on the respect for the human dignity of both offenders and victims to justify its response to crime.