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“The Justification of Punishment”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 February 2009

Antony Flew
Antony Flew
Affiliation:
Kings College, Aberdeen
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I want to discuss philosophically, to glance at the logic of, the parts of this expression “the justification of punishment” and then to draw from this discussion one or two morals for discussions of the justification of punishment. This paper is based on one originally given to the Scots Philosophy Club at its Aberdeen meeting in 1953, as the third part of a symposium on The Justification of Punishment (no inverted commas).

Type
Articles
Information
Philosophy , Volume 29 , Issue 111 , October 1954 , pp. 291 - 307
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 1954

References

page 291 note 1 Logic and Language. (Edited Flew, Antony), Vol. I, pp. 119–20.Google Scholar

page 292 note 1 The Wallet of Kai Lung, Kai Lung's Golden Hours, and Kai Lung Unrolls His Mat.

page 292 note 2 There is, for instance, nothing honorific in saying that this car is a standard model; not ‘custom built’ or bespoke.

page 293 note 1 Cf. e.g. J. C. Flugel, Population, Psychology, and Peace, pp. 70–1. “Another germane example is the stigma of ‘illegitimacy’, and this example illustrates the important fact that the punishment or suffering in question need not necessarily be endured by the culprit” and “There is such a thing as vicarious punishment”.

page 295 note 1 Compare here (a) K. R. Popper's examination of the appropriateness and limitations of the metaphor involved in regarding rogue states as criminals: Open Society, Vol. I, pp. 242 ff. (b) the Nuremberg Trials: a colossal effort to discover what the guilt of the Nazi régime amounted to in terms of the particular guilt of particular Germans. This point I owe, like so much else, to Mabbott, privately, and later to his The State and the Citizen.Google Scholar

page 297 note 1 One of the Aberdeen symposiasts.

page 299 note 1 Significantly, C. W. K. Mundle at Aberdeen and in a revised version of his paper to be published in the Philosophical Quarterly was unable to recognize Mabbott as a fellow retributionist.

page 302 note 1 cf Hume EPM App. III 256.

page 302 note 2 This phrase is borrowed from G. Ryle, “Ordinary Language”, in Philosophical Review, April 1953: an invaluable exposition of the actual views and assumptions of those philosophers who “care what dustmen say”.

page 304 note 1 It is the possibility of such indirect utilitarian arguments which ensures that properly thought out utilitarianisms are self–regulating doctrines. See I. M. Crombie “Social Clockwork” in MacKinnon's, D. M.Christian Faith and Communist Faith (Macmillan 1953), especially pp. 109 f.Google Scholar

page 305 note 1 Perhaps we should emphasize here that, of course, Mill (though not Bentham) was very insistent indeed about the great importance of “secondary principles”, and the proposed reform did not consist in or include anything so monstrous as the suggestion that we should “endeavour to test each individual action directly be the first principle” (p. 22). There is no need to expatiate here, in view of J. O. Urmson's recent powerful attack on these and other popular misconceptions of Mill (Philosophical Quarterly, 1953). But for a grim warning of the results of accepting this suggestion which Mill was not making, see Arthur Koestler's Darkness at Noon, on the Party “travelling without ethical ballast”. Here the self–regulator—see footnote above—was not in use.

page 306 note 1 “Mr. Lyttelton has helped to force through a federation based on the admitted policy of regarding African political opinions as irrelevant” (Observer, 23/8/53).