The Moral Loss Theory of Punishment

Abstract

In “The Permissibility of Punishment”, Daniel McDermott offered an original version of retributive theory of punishment. According to McDermott, a wrongdoer, through his wrongdoing, denied the victim valuable moral goods which he is entitled to. Corrective justice requires, therefore, the wrongdoer to forfeit his rights to his own moral goods to the victim, and this forfeiture of rights makes punishment permissible. I wish to critically assess McDermott’s theory in my paper. I will argue that, while McDermott’s theory represents an improvement over some existing retributive theories, it should nonetheless be rejected because (1) moral goods are not valuable to a person; (2) even assuming that moral goods are valuable to the victim, there is no reason to believe that corrective justice requires the wrongdoer to forfeit his rights to his moral goods to the victim; (3) even assuming that the wrongdoer is required to forfeit his rights to his moral goods to the victim, punishment is still not justified.