UC Berkeley

The widespread practice of state punishment is somewhat puzzling from a moral point of view. Why should the state devote its limited resources to harming its own citizens? For that matter, why is the state even morally permitted to punish? After all, punishment deprives criminals of goods to which people are normally entitled, such as their liberty and property.

Traditional justifications of punishment do not satisfactorily account for the reason the state has to punish serious crime. Deterrence theory justifies punishment on the grounds that it reduces crime in society. Retributivism justifies punishment on the grounds that it inflicts deserved suffering on criminals. Both views are susceptible to counterexamples. Punishment intuitively seems justified in cases where it does not appreciably deter crime: where, for example, someone has committed a hate crime in the past in order to achieve a political goal that no one in society views as achievable anymore. Punishment also intuitively seems justified in cases where it does not inflict suffering: where, for example, someone does not suffer through his community service.

I offer an alternative view: the reactive theory of punishment. According to this theory, punishment is justified because the act of punishment expresses indignation that appropriately blames criminals for serious wrongdoing. In developing the account, I draw on P.F. Strawson's idea that when we feel the reactive sentiments of resentment, indignation, and guilt, we hold those whom we feel them toward responsible for their actions. From Joel Feinberg I take the insight that where political institutions reflect the citizens' will, punishment gives expression to the emotional reactions deemed appropriate by members of that community.

I argue that the same values that make blame morally important also give the state reason to express blame through punishment. Feeling the reactive sentiments when people have been wronged shows that we value the victims of wrongdoing in a morally significant respect. These emotions are partially constituted by the judgment that the person who has been mistreated is owed moral consideration. By establishing and maintaining egalitarian institutions that express indignation in response to serious crimes, a society demonstrates that it takes seriously the idea that all its citizens have rights about whose violation it would be appropriate to get emotionally exercised. In order to signal to all members of the community the value of those who have been victimized, the form that blame takes must be accessible to everyone in society as expressive of an unambiguously high degree of blame. Punishment is well-suited for this role because it denies goods that we all recognize to be important. I contend that this public blaming function gives us reason to punish in all cases in which punishment is intuitively justified.

Setting aside the question of why the state has reason to punish, the reactive theory also provides a better answer than deterrence theory or retributivism to the question of why punishment is morally permissible. The state is not normally permitted to violate rights just because doing so has social benefits, and it is hard to rationally defend the idea that somehow it is intrinsically good that wrongdoers suffer. I argue that punishment is permissible because we are justified in treating people in ways that would otherwise be impermissible when that treatment expresses a proportionate degree of blame. It is clear in the interpersonal context that the targets of appropriate blame lose their standing to complain about the loss of social goods. For instance, someone who has recklessly betrayed your trust cannot reasonably object to your proportionate expression of resentment on the grounds that it would cause him distress and the loss of social regard. State punishment is continuous with these interpersonal responses on the reactive theory. Those who commit serious crimes do not have the standing to object to deprivations of goods to which they are normally entitled when those deprivations are expressive of the community's appropriately high degree of indignation.