By: A. John Simmons (Editor), Marshall Cohen (Editor), Joshua Cohen (Editor), Charles R. Beitz (Editor)

Paperback

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The problem of justifying legal punishment has been at the heart of legal and social philosophy from the very earliest recorded philosophical texts. However, despite several hundred years of debate, philosophers have not reached agreement about how legal punishment can be morally justified. That is the central issue addressed by the contributors to this volume. All of the essays collected here have been published in the highly respected journal "Philosophy & Public Affairs." Taken together, they offer not only significant proposals for improving established theories of punishment and compelling arguments against long-held positions, but also ori-ginal and important answers to the question, "How is punishment to be justified?"

Part I of this collection, "Justifications of Punishment," examines how any practice of punishment can be morally justified. Contributors include Jeffrie G. Murphy, Alan H. Goldman, Warren Quinn, C. S. Nino, and Jean Hampton. The papers in Part II, "Problems of Punishment," address more specific issues arising in established theories. The authors are Martha C. Nussbaum, Michael Davis, and A. John Simmons. In the final section, "Capital Punishment," contributors discuss the justifiability of capital punishment, one of the most debated philosophical topics of this century. Essayists include David A. Conway, Jeffrey H. Reiman, Stephen Nathanson, and Ernest van den Haag.

"Ringside theorists can get more in 'Punishment', a set of strictly philosophical essays ... 'Punishment' ends with a lively exchange about sentencing bias in capital punishment. The Economist

Introduction
Marxism and Retribution	p. 3
The Paradox of Punishment	p. 39
The Right to Threaten and the Right to Punish	p. 47
A Consensual Theory of Punishment	p. 94
The Moral Education Theory of Punishment	p. 112
Equity and Mercy	p. 145
Harm and Retribution	p. 188
Locke and the Right to Punish	p. 219
Capital Punishment and Deterrence: Some Considerations in Dialogue Form	p. 261
Justice, Civilization, and the Death Penalty: Answering van den Haag	p. 274
Does It Matter if the Death Penalty Is Arbitrarily Administered?	p. 308
Refuting Reiman and Nathanson	p. 324
The Contributors	p. 336
Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.

ISBN: 9780691029559
ISBN-10: 0691029555
Series: Philosophy & Public Affairs Readers
Audience: Tertiary; University or College
Format: Paperback
Language: English
Number Of Pages: 360
Published: 14th November 1994
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Dimensions (cm): 20.3 x 12.7  x 2.2
Weight (kg): 0.457