Prof. Mark Tunick tunick@fau.edu

POS 2692 Honors Punishment

Questions on Bentham

After completing the assigned reading in Bentham, try to answer these questions. If you need to, go back to the text and find relevant passages that you missed the first time around. Be sure to read the footnotes.

1. Is the person who acts according to what God wills a good utilitarian, to Bentham?
2. An ascetic is someone who denies material pleasures. Utilitarian critics might argue that the existence of ascetics proves that human beings don't all act like utilitarians by maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain. What is Bentham's response to this criticism?
3. Bentham distinguishes primary and secondary mischiefs of crime, and among the secondary mischiefs he distinguishes danger and alarm: what are these?
4. Does Bentham think we should punish to make the victim feel better? If not, then why should we punish?
5. Bentham lists various cases 'unmeet for punishment':
   1. Would he include the case of the harmless rule-violator that Mabbot's headmaster thinks should be punished?
   2. Would Bentham think we should punish a masochist who enjoyed being punished?
   3. If the victim consented to the crime, should the victimizer be punished?
6. Does Bentham think we should punish people who get intoxicated? Why or why not?
   
7. How would Bentham respond to Kant's argument that it would be wrong to reduce the sentence of a criminal who agrees to undergo useful medical experiments?
8. What counts is the apparent punishment, says Bentham. Does this mean Bentham would agree with faking a punishment instead of really meting it out? And if he did agree, is this the right view to take?
9. What is Bentham's view of the death penalty?
10. What is Bentham's position towards the insanity defense or a defense of 'passion'?