Proportionality in the Philosophy of Punishment: From “Why Punish?” to “How Much?”

Abstract

Recent philosophical writing about punishment has been devoted mainly to the “why punish?” question. While a variety of theories — utilitarian, reciprocity based, and expressive — have been put forward to answer this question, there has been wide agreement among philosophers that the institution of legal punishment should be retained. Proponents of the various theories disagree chiefly why institutionalized punishment is necessary.The philosophical writings have paid comparatively little attention to the criteria for distributing punishments — particularly to the criteria for deciding how much to penalize convicted offenders.