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Ethics and Values / Unit 8   Ethics 374 short lesson, about 20 seconds

The Deterrence Case

Captions available

The idea

The deterrence case for punishment: penalties are justified by the harms they prevent — crimes deterred, the dangerous restrained, the correctable reformed.

In practice

The theory prices sentences like guardrails: high enough to turn the next offender, no higher than the public's protection requires.

Your place on the trail

Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.

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