ABSTRACT
The gravity of my criticism was not simply that von Hirsch uses the terms ordinal and cardinal in a way that is contrary to the standard scientific usage, but rather that his usage differs from the way that other philosophers writing about punishment use the terms (as well as all those who use them in the related fields of criminology, sociology, economics, and in the literature on comparative assessment of utility, well-being and living standards). Von Hirsch's examples of legitimately redefining words like charm and spin illustrate the appropriation of ordinary words for use in a technical field, but von Hirsch himself has done something quite different. He has taken two established technical terms, already used in the punishment debates, and changed their meanings. This is not helpful.
