Punishment as a response to crime

Compare and contrast the arguments of Kant* and Mill* (or alternatively, Kant* and Buddhist ethicists*) regarding the correct approach to, and rationale for, punishment as a response to crime.  Either defend one of these approaches (partly by critiquing the other), or critique both and then say whether a more plausible view could be developed by an indirect utilitarian or consequentialist (using Millian or Buddhist premises to reach a different conclusion) or a contemporary Kantian deontologist (“ “…).

 

 

TOPIC Tips:  There is at least one passage in Kant’s Groundwork that bears on punishment – or at least, on how the criminal himself/herself can and should feel about moral rightness – namely: Ak. 4: 454-455 (at pp. 114-115 of Paton’s text, in Chapter III).  Nearby sections also discuss the related topic of free will.

Readings:For Kant, check the index, under ‘punishment’, in both his Metaphysics of Morals (and/or PP) and his Lectures on Ethics.  Note that the main – but not the only – discussion of capital punishment is in MM at 6: 331-334.  For Mill, see his speech on capital punishment (speech # 92) in Mill’s Collected Works (which is actually just the volume of Public and Parliamentary Speeches), on reserve for this course.  Kant’s Groundwork of the Metaphysic(s) of Morals and Mill’s Utilitarianism are both important background reading for this topic (and for # 4…).

 

Length around 3000 words.

 

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