The Survival of Retributivism in our Modern Knowledge-based World

• Author: Jaan Ginter
• Pages: 100-106

100 JURIDICA INTERNATIONAL 25/2017

Jaan Ginter

Professor of Criminology

University of Tartu

The Survival of Retributivism

in our Modern

Knowledge-based World

In retributivism, one strives to justify criminal punishment simply by referring to the punishment as the

consequence that the criminal plainly deserves and arguing that there is no need to present any utilitarian

justif‌i cations for applying punishments. At present, more and more research results are mounting up that

suggest various objective circumstances as causes for predisposition of certain persons to commit crimes,

and some research suggests that there are several treatments that may in some cases be more suitably

employed instead of criminal punishments. With this paper, I undertake to appraise whether these novel

approaches leave any room for retributivist ideas.

1. The long and venerable history

of retributivist thinking

As long as societies have held that certain actions by members of society should be averted and have pun-

ished their members for these actions, societies also have tried to f‌i nd means of rationalising the accordant

intentional causing of psychological, physical, and material losses to members thereof. For example, the

Code of Hammurabi, which dates back to the eighteenth century BC, of‌f ers a fundamentally retributivist

view:

196. If a man put out the eye of another man, his eye shall be put out.

197. If he break another man’s bone, his bone shall be broken.*1

We can f‌i nd many references to retributivism in the Torah and the Old Testament. For example, in the Old

Testament, the third book of the Pentateuch, Leviticus, states that ‘[w]hoever takes a human life shall surely

be put to death. Whoever takes an animal’s life shall make it good, life for life. If anyone injures his neigh-

bor, as he has done it shall be done to him, fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth; whatever injury

he has given a person shall be given to him. Whoever kills an animal shall make it good, and whoever kills

a person shall be put to death’ (24: 17–21).*2 And the second book of the Pentateuch, Exodus, states: ‘But if

 Yale Law School’s Avalon Project. Translation of the Code of Hammurabi, available at http://avalon.law.yale.edu/ancient/

hamframe.asp (most recently accessed on ..).

 Leviticus , English Standard Version, available at http://biblehub.com/esv/m/leviticus/.htm (most recently accessed

on ..).

https://doi.org/10.12697/JI.2017.25.11