Crime and Justice Theories

Crime is bad because it disrupts the social order by violating the rights of others, undermining mutual respect and cooperation essential for a functioning society.

Punishment aims to restore justice by holding wrongdoers accountable, reasserting social norms, and deterring future offenses.

A framework that addresses crime by focusing on repairing harm and restoring relationships, instead of solely punishing the offender.

Restorative justice aims to achieve healing for victims, accountability for offenders, and rebuilding community trust.

Restorative justice achieves its aims through dialogue between victims, offenders, and communities, allowing victims to express their needs and offenders to take responsibility for their actions.

According to Zehr, victims frequently need healing from the harm caused, support and resources to recover, an understanding of the offense, and a chance to share their experiences.

Facilitated encounters are structured meetings where victims and offenders can communicate directly with the help of a trained mediator, allowing victims to express their needs and offenders to acknowledge their responsibility.

Facilitated encounters can help victims by allowing them to express their needs and feelings, receive apologies from the offender, gain a better understanding of the offense, and begin their healing process.

The theory that punishment should be proportional to the severity of the crime, based on the idea that offenders deserve to be punished for their actions.

Structured meetings between victims and offenders, guided by a neutral facilitator to promote communication and healing.

A criticism of the utilitarian theory of punishment that focuses on potential for overly harsh punishments, even if they don't match the crime.

A criticism of the retributive theory of punishment focusing on its potential to ignore individual circumstances and rehabilitation.

The idea that punishment should deter future crime, rehabilitate offenders, or protect society.

The four needs identified by Zehr as essential for victims of crime: truth, validation, accountability, and safety.

The idea that we should act according to principles that could be universalized.

The idea that we should treat others as ends in themselves, not merely as means to an end.

Lichtenberg's argument against life sentences, based on the idea that they remove the possibility of rehabilitation and redemption.

Kant's argument that retributive punishment is justified because criminals violate moral law, and punishment respects their moral agency by affirming justice.

A thought experiment about the need for punishment even when further harm is unlikely.

Utilitarianism assesses the value of punishment based on its practical outcomes, such as deterring future crimes or rehabilitating the offender.

In the shipwreck scenario, retributivism would argue that the murderer should be punished because they deserve it, regardless of the rescue effort. Utilitarianism, on the other hand, would question the value of punishment if it's not useful in preventing future harm or deterring future crimes.

Noonan's criterion for personhood states that personhood begins at conception when the fetus develops the potential for feeling pain or having conscious awareness.

Noonan's view does not allow abortion in cases of rape because he believes that the fetus, from conception, has moral status equal to that of a person, regardless of how it was conceived.

Thomson argues that abortion does not infringe on the fetus's right to life because the right to life does not entail the right to use someone else's body to sustain life.

Thomson uses the violinist example to illustrate that even though the violinist has a right to life, they do not have the right to use your body to sustain it. Therefore, a woman is not obligated to remain pregnant against her will, even if the fetus has a right to life.

Warren argues that Thomson's analogy is flawed because it involves an adult woman's body, while a fetus is not a person with moral rights until it develops certain cognitive capacities.

Warren distinguishes between two definitions of 'human being': being biologically human (genetic humanity) and having cognitive abilities like consciousness and reasoning (personhood).

Warren argues that the fetus is not a person because it lacks cognitive characteristics such as consciousness, reasoning, and the ability to communicate. Since a fetus lacks these traits, it does not have the same moral status as a person.

Marquis criticizes pro-life views like Noonan's, arguing that they ignore the harm caused by restricting abortion which disregards a woman's autonomy and imposes an undue burden on her.

Marquis argues that abortion is morally wrong because it deprives the fetus of a 'future like ours' - a future filled with experiences, relationships, and opportunities. He believes the potential for future life is what makes killing wrong, regardless of whether the fetus is considered a person.

A fetus's potential for future life makes killing it morally wrong, but this potential must be weighed against the woman's right to choose.