Comment by LadyCailin
3 years ago
But if I’m a retributivist, why do I want to be less efficient with money and also make MY life worse, just to inflict more punishment on some prisoner? That just genuinely makes no sense. I can understand the logic of wanting to punish them for the sake of it, but I would also want to be efficient about it, and not make my life worse in the process.
You don't want to be "less efficient with money" or "make your life worse". Factors like that don't come into it. Neither does "making society better," "reforming the guilty party," or deterrence. And "inflicting more punishment" isn't the goal either -- that's just cruelty.
The basic point is simple. If a person commits a crime, they should be punished in proportion to the crime. Full stop. Within that simple framework, efficiency is fine, but it shouldn't be the goal.