ABSTRACT
The concept of punishment presupposes some sort of institutional relationship between the punisher and the punished, where this relationship provides the punisher with the necessary authority to impose harsh treatment. This chapter considers the practice of cancelling just punishment through mercy, pardons and amnesties. There have traditionally been two kinds of answer to the problem of justifying punishment, the consequentialist and the retributivist. The consequentialist answer justifies the harm by reference to the desirable consequences, both for society and for the individual himself. The disagreement between the consequentialist and the retributivist is also revealed in their differing attitudes to two other phenomena: the parole process, and the three strikes policy. The parole system would still need fine-tuning, of course, in case the existence of parole reduces the pre-crime deterrence effect of the sentence. Jean Hampton's influential article, The Moral Education Theory of Punishment, argues against both the consequentialist and retributivist theories.
