Why Punishment?
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Summary
The author's theme is the purpose of punishment—in other words, what is the meaning of punishment? Which acts should be punished? These are questions the punished should consider and the punisher should consider. On these questions, the author examines the important philosophical positions related to them.
According to the author's analysis, neither the retributive claims of Kant and Hegel nor the deterrence theories of the utilitarians can withstand rational scrutiny. Instead, the author offers his own distinctive view: a theory of penal deterrence grounded in the interests of ordinary citizens.
The book's argument is concise and clear; the author treats a highly controversial and tense topic between philosophy and law in a generally accessible style.
Editor's review
Who it's for
A good fit for
- Law students interested in the philosophical foundations of punishment
- General readers who want an accessible introduction to problems in legal philosophy
- Speculative readers concerned with the legitimacy of social institutions and fond of asking why
- Anyone who needs a short introductory book on the debate between retributivism and deterrence
Not a good fit for
- Exam-oriented readers looking for a systematic criminal law textbook or case analysis
- Casual readers who want only light stories and are unwilling to follow an argument
- Practitioners who need concrete guidance on judicial practice
Reading tips
- First read the author's examination of retributivism and deterrence, then revisit whether your intuitive position has been shaken
- After each chapter, write down the author's core rebuttal in one sentence to test whether you have truly understood it
- Read alongside an introduction to legal philosophy to place the philosophical positions mentioned back into the history of thought
- After finishing, try using a real controversial punishment case to test whether the author's deterrence theory can explain it
About the publisher
Peking University Press is a comprehensive university press whose publishing areas cover classical literature, popular science, social culture, world history, Western philosophy, and culture. Its catalogue contains 6,031 titles, with representative books including A Dream of Red Mansions, Relativity: The Special and General Theory (15th Edition) (with Einstein's classic papers on unified field theory and other topics), Elements, Conics, The Aristocratic Families of the Eastern Jin, The Philosophy of Mythology (Volume I), The Philosophy of Mythology (Volume II), and The Origin of Continents and Oceans. Representative authors include Cao Xueqin, Zhou Ruchang, Albert Einstein, Euclid, Apollonius, Tian Yuqing, Schelling, and Xian Gang. The press has developed distinctive strengths in classical Chinese literature and in the translation of Western philosophical classics, while also covering scientific classics and social and cultural studies. As public information is limited, this description is based only on the books in the catalogue and offers no further extrapolation.
Contents
- 版权信息
- 导读 刑罚哲学：法哲学的一块“飞地”？
- 导论
- 第一章 惩罚的基本论述
- 一、我们如何理解“惩罚”？
- 二、惩罚的三种基本类型
- 三、为何惩罚需要论证
- 第二章 用于报应的惩罚？
- 一、康德的“同态复仇原则”
- 二、黑格尔的“法权侵害的消除”
- 三、菲尼斯的“公正秩序的重建”
- 四、报应论的失败
- 第三章 用于预防的惩罚？
- 一、特殊预防
- 二、功利主义的一般预防
- 第四章 基于公民利益的惩罚
- 一、对报应的需求
- 二、对预防的要求
- 三、惩罚的种类和严重程度
- 四、必要的责任能力
- 第五章 何种行为值得被惩罚？
- 一、道德违反？
- 二、利益侵害？
- 三、损害？
- 结论 为何不要预防？
- 参考文献
- 译后记 我们需要何种刑罚目的理论？
FAQ
Do I need a background in philosophy or law to understand this book?
Which theory of punishment does the author ultimately support?
Is this short book suitable for classroom discussion or reading groups?
Comments
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About the author
Norbert Horst, a German legal philosopher born in 1937, has long focused on fundamental questions in the philosophy of law, ethics, and political philosophy. One of his works is held in this collection, Why Punishment?, classified under social sciences. Based on the publicly available material alone, details of his life remain quite limited: there is not enough to trace a full academic career or to describe his teachers and appointments in any detail, so it is more appropriate here to approach his writing through his work. The title Why Punishment? suggests that he tends to discuss the grounds, justification, and limits of punishment as fundamental questions rather than dwelling on surface descriptions of particular institutions. Such an approach usually requires the author to keep a tension between philosophical argument and legal practice, asking both why punishment is permissible and where it should stop. For Chinese readers, his work offers an entry point into German legal-philosophical debate and helps foster a more self-aware theoretical perspective on the issue of punishment.
Wang Fangkai, a Doctor of Laws, is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, mainly engaged in research on criminal law and the translation of German legal works. His works are mostly concentrated in the fields of criminal law and social sciences, with three titles in the collection: Annotated Criminal Law Handbook, Introduction to Medical Criminal Law, and Why Punishment?. He translated Introduction to Medical Criminal Law by Professor Hilgendorf of the University of Würzburg, Germany, focusing in his translation on frontier issues of medical criminal law such as medical intervention, euthanasia, and organ transplantation, which demonstrates sustained attention to German legal literature and a rigorous approach to translation. As public information is limited, his detailed biography remains incomplete, but readers may understand his research orientation and writing style through the above works.
