Utilitarianism
Definition
The view that an act or a rule is justified by its consequences, so punishment is justified only insofar as it produces enough good, chiefly less future crime, to outweigh the suffering it causes.
Related terms
- Communicative Theory
- Antony Duff's account of punishment as a message addressed to the offender, calling them to answer for the wrong and to reconcile...
- General Justifying Aim
- H.L.A. Hart's term for the reason a society is entitled to maintain a system of punishment at all, which Hart answered in...
- Just Deserts
- A retributivist sentencing principle, revived by Andrew von Hirsch in the 1970s, holding that the severity of a punishment should be set...
- Proportionality
- The legal principle, central to European human rights law and to many constitutional systems, that any interference with a fundamental right must...
- Retributivism
- The view that punishment is justified because the offender deserves it for the wrong done, independent of any future benefit the punishment...