ABSTRACT
The intention behind the infliction of suffering is recognised by most offenders is also fairly certain, unless they are too young, mentally ill, or subnormal. The crucial difficulty arises when people ask whether the remaining requirement is fulfilled, namely that the amount of suffering shall be appropriate. Unless the retaliatory retributionist is able to claim divine revelation as a source, it seems necessary for him to find a secular standard, and it is hard to see what form this could take, unless perhaps it were the public opinion of the day. The task of deciding whether or to what extent a measure of redress has achieved its aim seems easy. In civil courts the assessment of the sums to be paid as compensation for injury or damages for loss of property is an everyday task. The measure whose efficacy as a general deterrent has been most thoroughly discussed is, of course, the death penalty.
