Retribution and "just deserts"

In a comment on my post about retribution and morality (in response to his own earlier post), Mark Kleiman draws a distinction between “retribution” and “just deserts”:

“Just deserts” is offender-focused: What ought this person to suffer? The extreme version of this is Kant’s, who says that the offender is owed punishment and that it would be unjust to the offender to forgo it. …



While I am highly sympathetic to the moral claims of victims of violence, I think there are several problems with overly victim-focused justice (and it’s a problem that manifests itself in such popular practices as victim impact statements at sentencing, or prosecutorial speeches describing the victim’s wonderful qualities).

1. Focusing on the “worth” of the victim may lead to grading crimes on the victim’s social standing, popularity, etc. Should the murder of a beloved husband and father, and a valued member of his community, be punished more severely than the murder of a friendless middle-aged bachelor? Unfortunately, a lot of studies show that the “merit” of the victim has an impact on the sentence given to a hypothetical offender, but I think that the criminal’s intent still plays a key part in determining appropriate punishment. Let’s take two hypothetical situations:



Without condoning vigilantism, I think most of us would give the distraught parent a lower sentence than we would the mugger, even though the victim — and the end result — is the same.


3. Victim-focused justice would make the degree of punishment contingent on how forgiving the victim is (or how forgiving his or her relatives are). If a victim chooses to forgive her rapist — because of, say, religious beliefs, or the ideoogical conviction that criminals are really oppressed victims of society — it should have no impact on the rapist’s punishment.




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5 responses to “Retribution and "just deserts"

  1. anniesmom03


    As it turns out, the driver got no jail time.

  2. Cathy Young

    Ouch–what a truly sad story, anniesmom. My condolences on the loss of your friend.

  3. Anonymous




  4. Cathy Young

    Z, excellent point. Clearly a lot of the distinctions we make based on intent also reflect assessments of future dangerousness (and thus considerations of social utility as well as morality). Although I would say that the grieving parent could be seen as dangerous too — what if he finds himself in another situation where his child is threatened, and perhaps goes after the wrong person by mistake?

    And clearly there are cases in which we feel that severe punishment is appropriate even though the crime is very unlikely to be repeated. A few years ago in California, a woman in the middle of a custody battle fatally stabbed her three children and tried to frame her estranged husband for the crime. It is extremely unlikely that she’d ever repeat the offense, but I’m sure most people would nonetheless feel that she deserved a very severe penalty.

  5. Anonymous


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