Retributive Justice (ePub)

Seminar paper from the year 2009 in the subject Psychology - Social Psychology, grade: 1,3, University of Cologne (Institut für Wirtschafts- und Sozialpsychologie), course: Psychologie der Gerechtigkeit, language: English, abstract: It might seem like putting the cart before the horse: Unlike distributional justice, retributive justice does not deal with how to set up justice, but how to smooth out injustice. But actually every stick has two ends. So does the "cart" justice.
Justice is done, when everybody gets his just deserts. And while just deserts refer to rewards on the one end - the end of distributive justice, they refer to punishment at the other end - the end of retributive justice.
The issue of retributive justice arises after a wrongdoing like a crime has occurred and addresses the task of imposing an adequate sanction to the wrongdoer. Thus retribution is rather linked to reconstitute justice than to constitute it.

But how exactly should the horse push? To say, how should justice be reconstituted? Giving the offender his just deserts seems to be a facile task. But what are just deserts? What are just deserts for somebody evading taxes - thereby stealing money from the state - compared to somebody stealing the savings of an old woman? What are just deserts for somebody mali-ciously burning the house of his ex-wife compared to somebody setting a house on fire be-cause he has fallen asleep while smoking? What are just deserts for a killing soldier compared to a killing civilian? Or what are just deserts for a husband burgling a pharmacy to get some exorbitant expensive medicine for his wife? And even if we individually know the answers to those questions: Would our answers be the same as the answers of our neighbor, our wife, or our best friend? And would they be the same in Germany and in the USA, Russia or Somalia?

Many scientists have looked upon the issue. But while philosophers and jurists focus on normative questions, psychologists focus on descriptions. They do not make implications on what should be just, but about what humans experience to be just.