ABSTRACT
C. W. K. Mundle, writing in 1954, took the first claim of retributivism to be that “the fact that a person has committed a moral offence provides a sufficient reason for his being made to suffer.” Retributivism is a philosophical theory aimed at providing a moral justification for the practice of punishing criminals. It is widely acknowledged that retributivism, once treated as an irrational vestige of benighted times, has enjoyed so vigorous a revival that it can fairly be regarded as the leading philosophical justification of the institution of criminal punishment. The notion that the criminal’s deserving punishment is sufficient to justify inflicting it on him is central to most versions of retributivism, historical and contemporary. Retributivists frequently argue that their theory is superior to the deterrence theory because, unlike the latter, it avoids “using” people in a morally improper manner.
