Alexander Pruss's Blog

It is always unjust to punish without the right kind of authority over those that one punishes. Sometimes that authority may be given to us...

The worst part of being in hell is separation from God. But Jesus did not become separated from God. So how could his suffering atone in pla...

You cannot forgive someone who hasn’t wronged you, and it should follow that likewise you cannot take vengeance on someone who hasn’t wronge...

Here’s an interesting double-counting problem for wrongdoing. Alice stands to inherit a lot of money from a rich uncle in Australia. Bob thi...

Peter van Inwagen argues that because a little less evil would always serve God’s ends just as well, there is no minimum to the amount of ev...

I want to argue that one can at least somewhat reasonably hold this paradoxical thesis: The best retributive justice arguments in favor of...

On one family of theories of the atonement, the harsh treatment that justice called for in the light of our sins is imposed on Christ and th...

Sometimes people are sentenced to “time served”: the time they spent in jail prior to trial is retroactively counted as their sentence. But ...

Start with this argument: Christians ought to forgive all wrongdoing. Forgiving includes foregoing retribution. All ought to forego retrib...

According to Socrates the greatest goods and evils are moral ones. Call this the "Socratic thesis". On the Socratic thesis, ...

Beartooth Butte / USDA/Forest Service Imitation is a kind of reflection, and reflection seems to introduce a new symmetry into the world...

Everything that God does, he does for the sake of some good.  But to be a good is to be a good for  one or more entities.  Thus, everything ...

Consider this valid argument: If you deserve F from me, then F is owed [note 1] by me to you. (Premise) If I owe F to you, ...

Here is an account of retributive punishment. We have a prima facie duty of justice to disrupt wicked plans. Now, a typical wic...