Punishment for the Greater Good

Over ten million people are incarcerated throughout the world, even though punishment theorists have struggled for centuries to morally justify the practice. Theorists usually address criminal justice under abstract, idealized conditions that assume away real-world uncertainty. We don't have time, however, to wait for a perfect moral theory, and the history of philosophy suggests we will never find it. Punishment for the Greater Good examines the justification of punishment in the here and now, recognizing that we lack certainty about matters of both fact and value. Retributivists believe offenders deserve punishment because of their wrongdoing. They treat deserved punishment as intrinsically valuable. Kolber argues that retributivism is too incomplete as a theory to address punishment at present, and the widely popular notion of proportional punishment at its core is both elusive and often undesirable. Rather than seeking retribution, we should reduce total societal suffering by deterring crime, incapacitating dangerous people, and hopefully rehabilitating them. Though this consequentialist approach has fallen out of favor in recent decades, Kolber argues that it is better suited to addressing punishment in the here and now than the approach commonly taken by retributivists. If consequentialism successfully justifies punishment, then contrary to some carceral abolitionists, at least some incarceration under some conditions is justified today. While we will rarely know how to punish for the greatest good, we can, when necessary, seek to punish for the greater good.

Over the years, Adam Kolber has amassed powerful criticisms against retribution as a theory of punishment. Now he makes his boldest attack yet in Punishment for the Greater Good. Kolber's writing is lucid and engaging - a perfect introduction not only to punishment theory but to philosophical theorizing more generally. Readers from fields as diverse as law, philosophy, criminology, sociology, and political science will benefit from reading this book. Best of all, Kolber provides a larger framework within which to understand the vital debates about criminal justice reform that are going on in the United States and the world. Not everyone will agree with Kolber's arguments, but no one should ignore them., Adam Kolber's good sense and sensitivity to the import of simple examples is on display in this wonderful book. It is essential reading for anyone puzzled by the concept of proportionality and interested in what could justify our excessive punishment practices., In an era in which most criminal law theorists are retributivists, Kolber defends a consequentialist approach to crime and criminals. Even if one is ultimately unconvinced by Kolber's defense and his attacks on retributivism and deontological morality, one will come away from the book with a clear idea of the arguments to which they must respond., Adam Kolber is one of the leading penal theorists. In this magnificent work he provides an original and thoughtful defense of a consequentialist approach to punishment. The style is lucid and elegant. This is a must-read not only for those who have become used to the dominance of retributivist thinking in modern penal theory, but for anyone with an interest in the philosophy of punishment.

Adam Kolber is Professor of Law at Brooklyn Law School where he writes and teaches in criminal law, jurisprudence, and neurolaw. He was a visiting fellow at Princeton University's Center for Human Values and NYU Law School's Center for Research in Crime and Justice. He has clerked for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, practiced law at Davis Polk & Wardwell, and worked as a business ethics consultant at PricewaterhouseCoopers. Professor Kolber graduated Order of the Coif from Stanford Law School and summa cum laude from Princeton University where he won the Class of 1879 Prize in Ethics.