The lecture begins with a consideration of the traditional consequentialist account of punishment–-that punishment is justified by its deterrent effect on future crimes. Traditional criticisms of the view are presented, and John Rawls’ two-level justification for punishment is offered as one possible way to avoid such criticisms by bringing together consequentialist and deontological justifications of punishment in a single theory. Next, Professor Gendler reviews some empirical research on punishment intuitions, including data on moral outrage and the “Knobe effect”. The lecture concludes with a brief discussion of how moral luck interacts with intuitions about punishment.

Complete course materials are available at the Open Yale Courses website: http://oyc.yale.edu

This course was recorded in Spring 2011.