I liked the article as a historical survey but didn’t gain any new insights from it. There are several reasons we punish in the modern day; retribution is just

I liked the article as a historical survey but didn’t gain any new insights from it. There are several reasons we punish in the modern day; retribution is just one of them: 1. Retribution, to give the victims a sense of justice and avoid potential collateral damage from vengeance and feuds. 2. Compensation, to help make the victim whole, to whatever extent possible. This is related to but subtly different than (1). 3. Segregation, to prevent the perpetrator from victimizing others. 4. Deterrence, to dissuade would-be perpetrators. 5. Rehabilitation, to try to reduce or eliminate the factors that caused the perpetrator to commit the crime. Different people have different opinions on the morality, efficacy and value of the various reasons. Haidt et al have postulated that different worldviews are associated with different factors in people’s moral calculus, so I would not be surprised if, on average, conservatives favor a more retributive punishment system and, on average, liberals favor a more rehabilitative one. But since we all have to live with the same system, we compromise. I don’t think that there is one true approach that is the pinnacle of morality. [ed] fixed formatting of list