Thanks for the analysis of Marx's article. And I agree that retributive accounts of punishment are not about reducing recidivism. But I part company when you introduce the 9/11 families into the discussion. I don't mean to be callous, but it's not about them. The reason for endorsing the retributive account that give is not that it's good for the victims, or satisfies atavistic urges. Radicals should endorse it because it is impersonal, universal and (with all the caveats that you introduced in your post about Marx on capital punishment) objective. These are all good things. They are especially important in a society that we have no control over. Once you accept that it's about the victims, what's to stop (e.g.) harsher sentences for offences against articulate middle class people who can express their pain better? I know that this is not what you're advocating, and I acknowledge your concern for due process. But your argument is weakened by appeal to 9/11 families. I look forward to your further thoughts on retributivism, but the classical bourgeois universalists like Hegel and Kant are a hard act to follow. --James James Greenstein --- andie nachgeborenen wrote: It's not the point of the retributive theory that punishment reduces crime or stops people from recidivism -- though I agree with those goals, and I would balance them against retribution. I wouldn't insist on retribution no matter what. But I don't think you, or for that mater the 9-11 families, would ignore these goals. Maybe they would not want Afghanistan flattened -- I certainly didn't -- but that's not retribution. That's not even vengeance. It's blind rage. Don't tell me, however, that they wouldn't -- or you wouldn't -- want bin Ladin and his gang brought to justice -- arrested, tried fairly, and jailed. Even though the likelihood that would stop anyone but them from committing terrorist acts is zero. I don't believe you, or Ted, or Like, or anyone who isn't a saint who says they don't care about punishing the guilty. Not merely stopping them. And not overpunishing them either.