> Basically, this boils down to a simple means versus ends debate; "preventative" punishment cares only about results, while the author only cares that the "mea

> Basically, this boils down to a simple means versus ends debate; "preventative" punishment cares only about results, while the author only cares that the "means" (the act) punishment is morally right. Yeah, after thinking about it some more I edited my comment slightly to emphasize the "means versus ends" idea that I think the author is getting at. The part that still bugs me is that the author seems to be taking a middle ground where punishing the innocent is okay in arbitrarily extreme cases, but they don't accept that a consequentialist could just use the same trick to say that punishing family members is wrong.