Desert of What? On Murphy's Reluctant Retributivism Academic Article

abstract

• 2014, Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht. In Punishment and the Moral Emotions, Jeffrie Murphy rejects his earlier, strong endorsements of retributivism. Questioning both our motivations for embracing retributivism and our views about the basis of desert, he now describes himself as a reluctant retributivist. In this essay, I argue that Murphy should reject retributivism altogether. Even if we grant that criminals have negative desert, why should we suppose that it is desert of suffering? I argue that it is possible to defend desert-based theories of punishment that reject this view of the object of desert. I consider, but reject, expressivist versions of such a theory.

authors

• Radzik, Linda

published proceedings

• CRIMINAL LAW AND PHILOSOPHY

author list (cited authors)

• Radzik, L.

citation count

• 1

complete list of authors

• Radzik, Linda

publication date

• March 2017

publisher

• Springer Nature  Publisher

published in

• Criminal Law and Philosophy  Journal

keywords

• Desert
• Expressivism
• Jeffrie
• Murphy
• Punishment
• Retributivism
• Scanlon
• T. M

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

• 10.1007/s11572-014-9356-8

start page

• 161

end page

• 173

volume

• 11

issue

• 1

URL

• http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1007%2Fs11572-014-9356-8