Self-study
P1
Many of us can conceive of penalties that seem disproportionate to the crimes they are intended to punish. ███
Intro Topic ·
Concept of punishment that fits the crime
Examples ·
of disproportionate punishment
Probation for murder is too light and long prison sentence for shoplifting is too severe.
Question ·
Where do our intuitions about the appropriateness of punishments come from?
P2
█████ ███ ███ ████ ██████████ ███ █████████ ██████████ ███
Potential Answer ·
Two rationales for punishment
First Rationale ·
Social-benefit
Punishment is justified because society benefits from deterring would be criminals.
Second (Controversial) Rationale ·
Retribution
Punishment is not justified by benefit to society. Instead, punishment is justified by the severity of the crime; what is appropriate or just.
P3
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Problem ·
with social-benefit rationale
The societal benefit of deterrence can sometimes justify punishments that intuitively feel too severe. Example of shoplifter punishment.
Solution ·
retribution is the better rationale
The concept of appropriateness (absent in social-benefit rationale) is what accounts for the intuition of proportionality in punishment. It's not about beneficial punishment. It's about just punishment.
P4
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Critique of and Alternate Solution ·
Intuition can be justified with social-benefit rationale
The retributivist notions of appropriateness, proportionality, and justice can be reframed as balancing benefit to society against cost to the individual.
Actual Answer / Main Point ·
The retributivist intuitions are grounded in social-benefit rationale
Passage Style
Single position
12.
It can be inferred from ███ ███████ ████ ███ ██████ █████ ██ ████ ██████ ██ █████ ████ █████ ███ ██ ███ █████████ █████████████████ ██ ███ ██████ █████████ ███ █████████ ██████████
a
It is more ██████ ████████ ████ ███ █████ ██████████
There’s no support for the second rationale being “more widely accepted” than the first. Although the author does note that the second rationale can support intuitions against overly harsh punishments, this doesn’t imply anything about the level of acceptance of the retributive rationale. How many people accept it compared to the number that accept social-benefit rationale? We don’t know.
b
It does not ████ ███ ████ █████████ ██████████ ██ ███ █████ ██████████
c
It justifies more █████ ██ ███████████ ████ ███ █████ ██████████
No support for “more kinds of punishments.” “Kinds” of punishments involves the different ways in which people are punished — jail, fine, sex-offender registry, execution etc. The passage doesn’t suggest that the second rationale justifies a greater number of different kinds of punishment than the first rationale.
d
It is used ████ ██ █████ █████ █████ ███ █████ █████████ ████████ ███ ███████████
Not supported. The second rationale can justify the intuition that certain punishments are overly harsh; but this doesn’t imply that the second rationale is used only in these cases. One can apply the second rationale to more moderate punishments or even those punishments that barely cause any harm to a criminal. The second rationale might be used to support punishments that don’t go against our intuitions.
e
It inherently allows ████ ███████ ██████████ ████ ███ █████ ██████████
Not supported, because the first rationale can allow for punishment that is equally lenient, as long as social benefit justifies lenient punishment. Although the first rationale allows for harsher punishment than the second (because the first rationale doesn’t consider proportionality), that doesn’t imply the first rationale can’t also allow equally lenient punishment as the first. In other words, the first rationale might have a wider range of allowable punishment. But within that range could be equally lenient punishments as the second rationale.