PT105.S3.P2.Q11 > Analytics

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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.

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Question · Where do our intuitions about the appropriateness of punishments come from?

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Potential Answer · Two rationales for punishment

First Rationale · Social-benefit

Punishment is justified because society benefits from deterring would be criminals.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Actual Answer / Main Point · The retributivist intuitions are grounded in social-benefit rationale

Passage Style

Single position

11.

The author states that our █████████ ██ ███ █████████ ██ ██ ██████ █████ ██████████ ███ ██ █████ ██ █████ ███ ██ ███ █████████ ████████

Question Type

Meaning in context (of word, phrase, or idea)

Structure

The author tells us what this intuition is based on at the beginning of P4: “it can be argued that our intuition of the injustice of an overly harsh punishment is based on our sense that such a punishment is more harmful to the criminal than beneficial to society.”

Such punishment brings ██ ███████ ██ ███████ ██ ██████

Unsupported, too strong. The author states that overly harsh punishment is more harmful to the criminal than beneficial to society; this doesn’t imply that the punishment brings “no” benefit to society.

Such punishment is ███████████ ███████ ██ ███ █████████

The mere possibility of harm to the criminal isn’t why we think these punishments are unjust. It’s the fact that the harm to the criminal outweighs the benefit to society.

Such punishment benefits ███████ ████ ████ ██ █████ ███ █████████

Supported.

84%

Such punishment harms ███ ████████ ████ ████ ██ ████████ ████████

Anti-supported; the issue is that overly harsh punishment harms the criminal more than it benefits society.

Such punishment attempts ██ █████████ ██████ ███████ ████ ████ ██ ███ █████████

Not supported; the issue is that overly harsh punishment harms the criminal more than it benefits society. Attempts to “reconcile” benefit with harm are not why we view overly harsh punishment as intuitively unjust.

PrepTest 105 - Section 3 - Passage 2 - Question 11

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