page_title: Justice
section_title: Theories of retributive justice
hierarchical_section_title: Justice / Theories of retributive justice
caption_attribution_description: English: Statue of Justicia (Justice), by Walter Seymour Allward, outside Supreme Court of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
context_page_description: Justice, in its broadest sense, is the principle that people receive that which they deserve, with the interpretation of what then constitutes "deserving" being impacted upon by numerous fields, with many differing viewpoints and perspectives, including the concepts of moral correctness based on ethics, rationality, law, religion, equity and fairness.
  Consequently, the application of justice differs in every culture. Early theories of justice were set out by the Ancient Greek philosophers Plato in his work The Republic, and Aristotle in his Nicomachean Ethics. Throughout history various theories have been established. Advocates of divine command theory argue that justice issues from God. In the 1600s, theorists like John Locke argued for the theory of natural law. Thinkers in the social contract tradition argued that justice is derived from the mutual agreement of everyone concerned. In the 1800s, utilitarian thinkers including John Stuart Mill argued that justice is based on the best outcomes for the greatest number of people. Theories of distributive justice concern what is to be distributed, between whom they are to be distributed, and what is the proper distribution.
context_section_description: Theories of retributive justice are concerned with punishment for wrongdoing, and need to answer three questions:
  why punish?
  who should be punished?
  what punishment should they receive?
  This section considers the two major accounts of retributive justice, and their answers to these questions. Utilitarian theories look forward to the future consequences of punishment, while retributive theories look back to particular acts of wrongdoing, and attempt to balance them with deserved punishment.
caption: Walter Seymour Allward's Justitia (Justice), outside Supreme Court of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario Canada
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