ABSTRACT
Philosophical Justifications for Punishment Punishment is the application of painful stimuli in response to some norm violation
committed by the person being punished. Because punishment typically involves the
state doing deliberate harm to individuals in the name of the people, philosophers
consider it a practice in need of strong moral justification. The traditional justifications of
punishment-deterrence, incapacitation, rehabilitation-reintegration, and retribution-
ebb and flow in popularity according to the ideology of the times. Moral philosophers
refer to the first four justifications as “consequentialist,” meaning that punishment is
justified by the consequences assumed to come from it; that is, punishment is a means to
an end. Retribution is the only nonconsequentialist position because it justifies
punishment based on its intrinsic moral worth, regardless of any benefits that may flow
from its application (Wood, 2010a).
