#580: A Quick Note about Retribution

and now for something completely different.

Retributive punishment is the view that imposing some sort of suffering, penalty, or deprivation on a wrongdoer is intrinsically right. There might be other reasons to punish—it expresses condemnation of the act to the offender and society, it has a deterrent effect on future would-be offenders, it channels the outrage at wrongdoing victims or others mi…