“Bad guys deserve to
suffer.” This is a blunt slogan, but it captures the essence of a deeply
familiar notion: people who have committed culpable wrongs deserve their lives
to go worse as a result. Why do they deserve it? Perhaps because it’s not fair
for the lives of wrongdoers to go well when the lives of the innocent have gone
poorly – punishment levels the playing field. Whatever the reason,
“retributivists” – those who believe in retribution – argue that the punishment
of criminals is intrinsically valuable; it is valuable in and of itself, rather than
valuable because of its good consequences (for example, preventing future
crime).
If you are a
retributivist, you might support the death penalty because you think that
certain or all murderers (and perhaps other criminals) deserve to suffer death
for their crimes. Depending on how you think about death, however, you might
oppose the death penalty on the grounds that it is disproportionately harsh –
perhaps you think that no matter what someone has done, she does not deserve to
die for it.
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