The Problems of Empirically-Informed Arguments for and against Retributivism

Valerij Zisman*, Paul Rehren

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

In recent years, a number of philosophers and social scientists have argued in favor of or against retributive theories of criminal punishment based on empirical findings about folk punitive judgment and decision-making. In this paper, we will argue that these arguments do not succeed. We will raise two objections. First, there are serious gaps between the empirical findings these authors cite and the descriptive premises these findings are meant to support. Second, in many cases, the existing research does not support the specific empirical claims that feature in these arguments. Specifically, a large part of the existing psychological research and some philosophers claim that people are mainly driven by retributive motives. We will show that a large portion of the empirical research is not designed in a way to specifically test this claim, and to the extent that some studies are able to investigate this claim, we show that the evidence suggests that people are motivated by a variety of concerns, including consequentialist motives. We discuss possible responses and implications for the philosophy of criminal punishment, and provide suggestions for improved study designs.

Original languageEnglish
JournalReview of Philosophy and Psychology
DOIs
Publication statusE-pub ahead of print - 19 Nov 2024

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2024.

Funding

Open Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL. Paul Rehren's research was funded by the ERC-funded project "The Enemy of the Good. Towards a Theory of Moral Progress" (grant number: 851043)

FundersFunder number
Projekt DEAL
ERC-funded project851043

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