The Utility of Desert

Abstract

Criminal punishment can be justified on two broad grounds. This chapter describes that society ought to assign criminal punishments on essentially just desert grounds. The authors’ arguments are based on purely utilitarian considerations. The chapter argues that, because it promotes forces that lead to a law-abiding society, a criminal law based on the community&s;s perceptions of just desert is, from a utilitarian perspective, the more effective strategy for reducing crime. The debate over the justification for punishing criminals has been deeply confused, and the confusion has a long and honorable history. Criminal law, in particular, plays a central role in creating and maintaining the social consensus necessary for sustaining moral norms. In fact, in a society as diverse as ours, the criminal law may be the only society-wide mechanism that transcends cultural and ethnic differences. Social scientists have increasingly suspected that the threat of official punishment by the criminal justice system is of modest effect in limiting crime.

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