1. Pojman defines punishment as an evil (to punish is to inflict harm, unpleasantness or suffering and not necessarily pain) inflected by a person in a position of authority upon another person who is judged to have violated a rule. And then he breaks the following statement down which then come with questions of morality. Two of the questions that he raises are “ Under what conditions is it right to cause harm or inflict suffering?” And “Should we punish everyone who commits a moral offense?
2. The leading theories of punishment are Retributivist, Utilitarian and Rehablitationist.
Retributivist theory focuses on the nature of the crime and punishes based on what has already happened. Kant, C.S. Lewis and Herbert Morris were believers of …show more content…
Sees punishment as a temporary suppressant, and because we are all human beings with free will, punishment is not a successful deterrent. However, this theory is seen to reduce moral problems to medical problems. I believe that Rehablitationist theory when concerning capital punishment, would morally oppose it. The death penalty is the most extreme form of punishment, and since this theory sees punishment as a short term resolution to the issue of crime, it could be argued that the death penalty is the state’s way of attempting to permanently deal with the issue. With this said, there are still serial murderers and capital punishment isn’t working as a deterrence. The underlining statement of the Rehabilitative theory is there will always be these types of criminals because we humans have free will to do as we wish, no matter how crude our systems of punishment are. Moving away from the death penalty and instead of working with criminals to rehabilitate them either to be a better member of society or even within the prison walls is the more moral way to go about the issue of repeat offenders. Even the worst of criminals are still human, and who are we to take a human life
2. The leading theories of punishment are Retributivist, Utilitarian and Rehablitationist.
Retributivist theory focuses on the nature of the crime and punishes based on what has already happened. Kant, C.S. Lewis and Herbert Morris were believers of …show more content…
Sees punishment as a temporary suppressant, and because we are all human beings with free will, punishment is not a successful deterrent. However, this theory is seen to reduce moral problems to medical problems. I believe that Rehablitationist theory when concerning capital punishment, would morally oppose it. The death penalty is the most extreme form of punishment, and since this theory sees punishment as a short term resolution to the issue of crime, it could be argued that the death penalty is the state’s way of attempting to permanently deal with the issue. With this said, there are still serial murderers and capital punishment isn’t working as a deterrence. The underlining statement of the Rehabilitative theory is there will always be these types of criminals because we humans have free will to do as we wish, no matter how crude our systems of punishment are. Moving away from the death penalty and instead of working with criminals to rehabilitate them either to be a better member of society or even within the prison walls is the more moral way to go about the issue of repeat offenders. Even the worst of criminals are still human, and who are we to take a human life