A Philosophical Approach to Crime and Punishment

There are many ways to reason through the correct course of action involving human punishment for crime. Crime is considered negative in society, a breach in the way one should behave. The problems arise when the time comes to punish a criminal. There are disagreements over the severity of a crime, the mentality of the criminal, and the correct penalty that should result from that crime among other things. Kant and the Utilitarian perspective on crime and punishment do not coincide. Both philosophical viewpoints seem convincing in their own right, but not without flaws. One is simply the better way to reason through the issue at hand as it relates to society as a whole. Immanuel Kant has a few fundamental ideas about how society should think and behave. Among his ideas is the way to deal with crime and approach punishment. Kant believed in the idea of Retributivism. He felt that one should pay for the crime that they committed in a way equivalent to the crime. Since he so heavily valued the concept of human dignity, he believed that crime was either a personal or public offense to the laws of society. Personal being a crime committed against one individual, public being a crime against society as a whole. The punishment inflicted depends on the crime, but Kant was a proponent of the death penalty in crimes of murder. In order to grasp Kant’s idea about crime and punishment it is important to understand his philosophical views in general. Kant has three main guidelines in which he forms his ideas. Firstly, humans are to act in such a way that would will their action to be a universal law of nature. In other words, treat others as one would like to be treated in return. Second, act in such a way that the action treats humanity as an end in itself and never a means. Humans should be seen as goals, not ways to fulfill those goals. Lastly, act as though one is legislating by their actions within a kingdom of ends. This follows from the preceding two guidelines.