Andie wrote:" you're not going to change the impulse to
harm those that harm you, the best you can do is
channel it. Arguments don't help. It's too deeply
rooted. Ignoring that leaves it unchanneled and liable
to burst into mere revenge of the sort you decry here.
So from a utilitarian standpoint, you ought to be a
moderate retributivist. "

This is rather pessimistic for me. No doubt we all have plenty of backward impulses, but socialisation means that we learn to control them. Leave the utilitarian standpoint to the people who run society.  I think that we can make arguments that do help.

The point of law was that it socialised justice; instead of mob vengence, there was public punishment.  For me, the underlying principle is that crime is treated as an offence against society, not against an individual victim. It is in the interest of society that people who hold society in contempt should be punished.  But at risk of being a bit perverse, I'd say that the offenders benefit too, because they can repay their debt and re-enter society.

The lock-them-up-forever school of conservative nastiness shares more with the liberal therapeutic ethos than it admits in that it generally focuses on the harm done to victims - e.g. having relatives of the victime present at executions. And liberal reformism today too often converges with conservative nastiness when it espouses never-ending therapeutic intervention to change the ways of criminal 'types'.

Andie: "Finally, I have a somewhat novel argument for
retributivism, but I have to work it up some more
before it is ready for public presentation."

I look forward to it.

--James Greenstein