Many of us can conceive of penalties that seem disproportionate to the

Many of us can conceive of penalties that seem
disproportionate to the crimes they are intended to
punish. A sentence of probation for a person convicted
of a brutal murder is one example of such an
(5) imbalance. At the other extreme is a sentence of twenty
years in prison for shoplifting. But what is the source
of these commonsense intuitions about the
appropriateness of punishments?

There are two main rationales for punishing
(10) criminals. The first rationale justifies a punishment in
terms of its benefit to society. Society is said to benefit
whenever the fear of punishment deters a person from
committing a crime, or when a convicted criminal is
removed from contact with society at large. The second
(15) rationale is that a punishment is justified by the
severity of the crime, independent of any benefit to
society. This rationale is controversial because some
find it difficult to see how a punishment can be
justified if it brings no societal benefit; without such
(20) benefit, punishment would appear to be little more
than retribution. But from the retributivist point of view, the
question to be asked about punishment is not whether it
is beneficial, but whether it is just—that is, appropriate.

One problem with the social-benefit rationale is
(25) that it is possible that very harsh penalties even for
minor offenses may have great benefit to society. For
example, if shoplifters faced twenty-year jail sentences,
shoplifting might be deterred. Yet something leads us
to say that in such cases the penalty far outweighs the
(30) crime. That is, there appears to be something
intuitively wrong, or unjust, about these punishments.
And it would seem that this intuition can only find
support in a retributive conception of punishment,
under which certain types of punishments are
(35) inherently more appropriate than others. The notion
of appropriateness is absent from the first rationale, which
could conceivably allow for any sort of punishment as
long as it benefits society. Retributive considerations,
on the other hand, allow for proportionality between
(40) punishments and crimes. This is what fuels our notion
of just (as opposed to beneficial) punishment.

However, it can be argued that our intuition of the
injustice of an overly harsh punishment is based on our
sense that such a punishment is more harmful to the
(45) criminal than beneficial to society; and, similarly, that
our intuition that a punishment is just is based on our
sense that this punishment fairly balances societal
benefit against harm to the criminal. In this way the
second rationale can be seen as grounded in the first
(50) and its retributive nature disappears. Thus it seems
that even our so-called intuitive notions of the
appropriateness of punishments have their basis in the
concept of benefit.

1. Which one of the following most accurately states the main point of the passage?

(A) Of the two main rationales for justifying punishing criminals, the retributivist rationale can be shown to be more fundamental, since our sense of the social benefit of punishments can be explained by our intuitions about justice and injustice.
(B) Although social benefit appears to be a reasonable rationale for punishing criminals, the fact that it can justify very harsh penalties for even minor offenses shows its inadequacy and argues for the alternative retributivist rationale.
(C) Because the retributivist rationale for punishing criminals allows for proportionality between punishments and crimes, it is able to support our intuitions that certain penalties are disproportionate to their crimes in a way that the social-benefit rationale cannot.
(D) Because the rationale that punishment is justified by the severity of the crime amounts to no more than retribution, punishment of a criminal can be justified only if it produces a social benefit that outweighs the harm it brings to the criminal.
(E) Although it appears better able to support our intuitions about just and unjust punishment than the social-benefit rationale, the rationale that punishments ought to fit crimes may, in the end, be itself grounded in the concept of benefit.


2. According to the passage, the second rationale for punishing criminals is controversial because it

(A) does not employ the notion of social benefit
(B) allows for disproportionately severe punishments
(C) conflicts with our intuitions about justice
(D) implies that punishment does not deter criminals
(E) arises from intuition rather than logic


3. Based on the passage, the “retributive nature” of the second rationale for punishing criminals (line 50) consists in that rationale’s

(A) equating social benefit with harm to criminals
(B) regarding punishment as justified by the severity of the crime
(C) support for sentences disproportionate to the crimes they punish
(D) belief that any punishment that benefits society is just
(E) favoring harsher sentences over more lenient ones


4. The author states that our intuition of the injustice of an overly harsh punishment may be based on which one of the following notions?

(A) Such punishment brings no benefit to society at large.
(B) Such punishment is potentially harmful to the criminal.
(C) Such punishment benefits society less than it harms the criminal.
(D) Such punishment harms the criminal less than it benefits society.
(E) Such punishment attempts to reconcile social benefit with harm to the criminal.


5. It can be inferred from the passage that the author would be most likely to agree with which one of the following characterizations of the second rationale for punishing criminals?

(A) It is more widely accepted than the first rationale.
(B) It does not have the same potential unfairness as the first rationale.
(C) It justifies more kinds of punishments than the first rationale.
(D) It is used just in those cases where the first rationale violates our intuitions.
(E) It inherently allows more lenient punishment than the first rationale.


6. As expressed in the passage, the author’s attitude toward very harsh penalties for minor offenses is most accurately described as

(A) reluctant approval of the deterrence they offer against crime
(B) mild skepticism that they ultimately benefit society
(C) detached indifference toward their effects on criminals
(D) scholarly neutrality on whether they are justified
(E) implicit disapproval of their moral injustice


7. As described in the second paragraph, the second rationale for punishing criminals is most consistent with which one of the following principles?

(A) The correctness of an action depends not on its consequences but on its inherent fairness.
(B) The correctness of an action depends not on its consequences but on what society deems correct.
(C) The correctness of an action depends partly on its consequences and partly on its inherent fairness.
(D) The correctness of an action depends partly on its consequences and partly on its intuitive rightness.
(E) The correctness of an action depends entirely on its consequences.