Ethics and Values / Unit 8 Ethics 375 short lesson, about 20 seconds
The Desert Case
Captions available
The idea
The desert case for punishment: the guilty deserve proportional penalty as an intrinsically fitting response to wrongdoing — forward benefits neither needed nor sufficient.
In practice
Kant's inheritance: punish because the crime merited it, or admit the sentence uses the sentenced. Desert answers to the past alone.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
Something wrong in this lesson? Flag it · Sources for Ethics and Values