The Search for a Unified Theory of Punishment

Examines whether etributivism and consequentialism can be reconciled within a single coherent framework.

This book examines whether the two dominant paradigms of punishment theory — retributivism and consequentialism — can be reconciled within a single coherent rationale.

It addresses a central problem in criminal law theory and moral philosophy: how punishment can be justified in a way that is both principled and responsive to social consequences.

Through a comparative and analytical approach, the book brings together major attempts to bridge the divide between deontological and consequentialist accounts of punishment. It moves from Kant and Bentham to Hegel’s project of unification, and then to contemporary theorists including Rawls, Roxin, Brooks, Pawlik, Jakobs, Duff, Tadros, and Zaibert. In doing so, it analyses hybrid, limited, and supra-conceptual approaches across Anglo-American and Continental traditions.

The book shows that the classical opposition between retribution and prevention no longer captures the complexity of contemporary punishment theory. Instead, it argues that many competing accounts converge on the idea of punishment as a mechanism of social ordering, while also showing that order cannot be understood merely as something to be maintained or restored. It proposes that any genuinely unifying theory must reconceptualise order as dynamic, contextual, and permeable, while also acknowledging the limits of theoretical unification. The book provides a clear framework for a fragmented debate and offers new perspectives on punishment, legitimacy, and ethics that will be of interest to anyone working in, or with an interest in, criminal law, jurisprudence, penal theory, criminology, and moral and political philosophy.