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The age-old problem of the justification of punishment has classically opposed two remarkably different schools of thought. On the one hand we have the school of thought that justifies punishment by (some of) the alleged consequences that punishment is supposed to generate—consequentialism. And on the other hand we have the school of thought that justifies punishment by the fact that punishment is deserved—retributivism. While the debate is as old as society itself, in its contemporary incarnation, the debate is typically seen, for obvious reasons, as opposing utilitarianism and Kantianism. In a sense, then, this specific debate is part and parcel of the more or less recent history of ideas. That is, insofar as modern utilitarianism is properly seen as the British (or the Anglo-American, perhaps; or as the analytic) approach, and Kant is evidently properly seen as the German (or continental) approach, the debate may seem as one manifestation of this binary general distinction.

DOI: 10.1057/978-1-137-55278-5_8

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