Philosophy of punishment: Normative models and construction principles of legal systems

Abstract

The paper attempts to examine a philosophy of punishment in the normative perspective and to penetrate the structure of the fundamental premises and theses of retributivism. Punishment concepts are discussed in relation to two contexts and types of expressions formulated in the philosophy of punishment – normative and descriptive. The former are a matter of axiology and normative models, whereas the latter constitute a description of existing systems of criminal responsibility. The considerations are centred on a retributive model. The model of retributivism involves normative premises and consists in seeing these premises not as unconditionally binding directives, but as optimization rules, a kind of prima facie duty. These are mainly the quasi-legal duties of the state considered from the point of view of criminal policy. Retributivism can be seen as a set of norms (rules) for constructing legal system. The core of the paper consists in outlining such a concept. The inspiration for it was provided above all by the ideas of the Polish legal theory, R. Dworkin, W. D. Ross and R. Alexy, and modern retributivists.