This document discusses the relationship between reward/punishment and justice. It outlines four types of justice: exchange, distributive, social, and retributive. There are three theories of punishment/reward: retribution, utilitarianism, and restitution. While justice as fittingness is compatible with retributivism, viewing justice only as fittingness does not necessarily mean one must accept retributivism. Justice as fittingness provides a framework to discuss the close association between desert and notions of reward/punishment, but does not commit one to retributivism.

1. Sonila Pich
Course: Ethics_HU4640
11/22/2014

2. 1.Describe and explain the
relationship between reward and
punishment and justice.

3. • Justices – Generally moral rightness, equity,
fairness.There are for types of justices:
exchange justice, which has to do with equal
exchange of remuneration for products or
services; distributive justice, which has to do
with the distribution of good and bad based
upon merit or desert, need and ability, or
according to the equality of human beings;
social justice, which has to do with the
obligation to be just and fair to all members of
society or to society in general; and retributive
justice, which is based upon the “eye for an
eye, tooth for a tooth” philosophy.

4. • Punishment - The act of penalizing someone
for a crime, fault, or misbehavior; a penalty for
wrongdoing.There are three basic theories of
punishment and reward: (1) retribution, or deserts
theory, which states that we ought to give people
what they deserve, regardless of the consequences;
(2) utilitarianism, or results, theory, which states that
we ought to punish or reward only if it brings about
good consequences; and (3) restitution, or
compensation, theory, which states that proper
reward or punishment is valid only when the victim is
compensated for wrongs or harm done to him or her.

5. Reward – Something given or received for
worthy behavior, usually on the basis of merit,
desert (what people deserve), or ability.

6. • Keywords: Justice; punishments;
rewards; fittingness; desert; retributivism
• The relationship between rewards and
punishments and justice is consider whether
justice as fittingness provides a satisfactory
framework within which to discuss the
relationship between justice and the
practices of rewarding and punishing. There
is a close association between desert and the
notions of reward and punishments.

7. Is may appear that to accept justice as
fittingness is to accept that reward and
punishment have a particularly significant role
to play in a just society, and even that to accept
justice as fittingness is to be commuted to
retributivism. While viewing justice as a
fittingness concept is compatible with
retributivism (indeed, retributivism may
presuppose that justice is a fittingness
concept), it is possible to accept justice as
fittingness and reject retributivism.

8. Jovanovich, H. B. (1982). I am heavily indebted to John
Hospers. Human Conduct: An Introduction to the Problems
of Ethics, 2nd end., 306-8.
lbid., 1060. (n.d.).
William Morris, e. H. (1978).The American Heritage
Dictionary. of the English Language, 113.
References