punishment a distinctive form of legal sanction, distinguished first by its painful or unpleasant nature (to the offender), and second by the ground on which the sanction is imposed, which must be because the offender offended against the norms of a society. None of these three attributes is a strictly necessary condition for proper use of the word ‘punishment’. There may be unpleasant consequences visited by nature upon an offender such that he might be said to have been ‘punished enough’; the consequences in a given case may not be unpleasant to a particular offender, as in the punishment of a masochist with his favorite form of self-abuse; and punishment may be imposed for reasons other than offense against society’s norms, as is the case with punishment inflicted in order to deter others from like acts.
The ‘definitional stop’ argument in discussions of punishment seeks to tie punishment analytically to retributivism. Retributivism is the theory that punishment is justified by the moral desert of the offender; on this view, a person who culpably does a wrongful action deserves punishment, and this desert is a sufficient as well as a necessary condition of just punishment. Punishment of the deserving, on this view, is an intrinsic good that does not need to be justified by any other good consequences such punishment may achieve, such as the prevention of crime. Retributivism is not to be confused with the view that punishment satisfies the feelings of vengeful citizens nor with the view that punishment preempts such citizens from taking the law into their own hands by vigilante action – these latter views being utilitarian. Retributivism is also not the view (sometimes called ‘weak’ or ‘negative’ retributivism) that only the deserving are to be punished, for desert on such a view typically operates only as a limiting and not as a justifying condition of punishment. The thesis known as the ‘definitional stop’ says that punishment must be retributive in its justification if it is to be punishment at all. Bad treatment inflicted in order to prevent future crime is not punishment but deserves another name, usually ‘telishment’. The dominant justification of non-retributive punishment (or telishment) is deterrence. The good in whose name the bad of punishing is justified, on this view, is prevention of future criminal acts. If punishment is inflicted to prevent the offender from committing future criminal acts, it is styled ‘specific’ or ‘special’ deterrence; if punishment is inflicted to prevent others from committing future criminal acts, it is styled ‘general’ deterrence. In either case, punishment of an action is justified by the future effect of that punishment in deterring future actors from committing crimes. There is some vagueness in the notion of deterrence because of the different mechanisms by which potential criminals are influenced not to be criminals by the example of punishment: such punishment may achieve its effects through fear or by more benignly educating those would-be criminals out of their criminal desires. See also ETHICS, JUSTICE , PHILOSOPHY OF LAW , TELISHMEN. M.S.M.