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Ethics and Values / Unit 5   Ethics 215 short lesson, about 20 seconds

Retributivism

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The idea

Retributivism justifies punishment backward: the guilty deserve penalty proportional to the wrong, and punishing for deterrence alone treats the punished merely as a means.

In practice

Kant's line: respect the criminal as a rational agent who chose, and answer the choice — not a specimen to be managed for others' safety.

Your place on the trail

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