Abstract
If we want to provide a justification for legal punishment, then, we must answer two distinct questions: (1) What justifies punishment as a social practice? and (2) What justifies punishing particular persons? The principle of fair play is an especially attractive theory of punishment, I shall agree, because it offers plausible and compelling answers to both these questions. I shall also suggest that there is a third question - How should we punish those who commit crimes? - that fair play cannot answer without help from other sources.
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
4-1993
Publisher Statement
Copyright © 1993 University of Chicago Press. This article first appeared in Ethics 103:3 (1993), 473-488.
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Recommended Citation
Dagger, Richard. "Play Fair with Punishment." Ethics 103, no. 3 (April 1993): 473-88.
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