Even More Varieties of Retribution

Abstract

Professor Cottingham's article ‘Varieties of Retribution’ in the Philosophical Quarterly, 1979, 29, 238ff. is discussed, and new varieties of retributivism are outlined and criticised, particularly those proposed by Richard Burgh, Michael Moore and Robert Nozick. The ‘Kantian gap’ between moral censure and the obligation to punish is emphasised. Distinctions are drawn between theories which make punishment a duty and those which make it a right, and also between those based on the notion of a rule and those based on the expression of blame.