@article { , title = {Public Reason and the Justification of Punishment}, abstract = {Chad Flanders has argued that retributivism is inconsistent with John Rawls’s core notion of public reason, which sets out those considerations on which legitimate exercises of state power can be based. Flanders asserts that retributivism is grounded in claims about which people can reasonably disagree and are thus not suitable grounds for public policy. This essay contends that Rawls’s notion of public reason does not provide a basis for rejecting retributivist justifications of punishment. I argue that Flanders’s interpretation of public reason is too exclusionary: on it, public reason would rule out any prominent rationale for punishment. On what I contend is a better interpretation of public reason, whether retributivism would be ruled out as a rationale for punishment depends on whether a retributivist account can be constructed from shared political commitments in a liberal democracy. Some prominent versions of retributivism meet this requirement and so are consistent with public reason.}, doi = {10.1080/0731129X.2022.2102838}, eissn = {1937-5948}, issn = {0731-129X}, issue = {2}, journal = {Criminal Justice Ethics}, note = {Full Terms \& Conditions of access and use can be found at Criminal Justice Ethics ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rcre20 To cite this article: Zachary Hoskins (2022): Public Reason and the Justification of Punishment, Criminal Justice Ethics, To link to this article: https:// UK Limited, trading as Taylor \& Francis Group on behalf of John Jay College of Criminal Justice of The City University of New York Submit your article to this journal View related articles View Crossmark data ARTICLE}, pages = {121-141}, publicationstatus = {Published}, publisher = {Informa UK Limited}, url = {https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/9902433}, volume = {41}, keyword = {Law}, year = {2022}, author = {Hoskins, Zachary} }