ABSTRACT

The greater the wrongfulness of a crime, the greater its punishment. This positive retributivist position could easily justify capital punishment as seen by Kant: the murderer deserves death on account of the gravity of his crime. One attempt to demonstrate how retributivists might reject capital punishment is offered by Daniel McDermott. He argues that retributivists should hold that any punishment they would accept is morally legitimate, and that the punishing institution ought to be morally legitimate as well. Capital punishment might then be a legitimate sanction for murder, all things considered, but its legitimacy as a penal option also rests on the legitimacy of the punishing institution. McDermott’s and Nathanson’s opposition to capital punishment did not stem from a concern over the genuine desert of those convicted of murder. The critic might then respond that the author's view fails to account for the fact that people regularly permit those sentenced to death opportunities for appeals.