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Can Liberals Punish?

Liberalism doubts that a sound theory of politics can be built from a theory of the human good. In pursuit of its authorized ends, the liberal state can establish incentives and disincentives, it can require reparations, and it can restrain dangerous persons. But can liberals punish? By distinguishing punishment from related phenomena and comparing its presuppositions with central tenets of liberalism, I tentatively conclude that they cannot. An analysis of efforts by leading liberal theorists to come to terms with punishment confirms that suspicion: their theories do not authorize punishment or do so at the expense of their more fundamental principles. I conclude that the ability to punish criminal is part of a larger moral experience and capacity that is lost with liberalism's expulsion of the human good from politics, and further, that without reference to the human good, liberalism's central concepts of liberty and equality are left weak and empty.