Rejoinder to Rawls
I WROTE “In Praise of Punishment” because punishment—as distinct from deterrent penalties, incapacitation, or rehabilitation gives criminals what they deserve. In holding people responsible for their deeds and assessing the depravity of character revealed in those deeds, punishment also reminds us why praise is significant: through praise we affirm nobility of character and deed. The impulses to praise what is noble and to punish what is depraves are fundamental to human experience. These impulses are also vital for the health of the polity, since sound character promotes—and in significant part constitutes—the polity’s wellbeing. Contemporary liberalism, 1 maintained, has denigrated the’ importance of character to politics and diminished personal responsibility to the point that it can neither praise nor blame. 1 identified John Rawls as the theorist who best exemplifies these regrettable aspects of contemporary liberalism.
