Desert and Punishment

Quite reasonably concerned about identifying limits on punishment, Rob asks the challenging and important question:  Assuming a desert-based theory of punishment, "what sort of punishment does Couey not deserve?"  Stepping back from the question (just for a moment), I want to emphasize that my primarily points in this conversation have been that moral desert is a necessary condition for punishment -- i.e., that punishment is not justified without moral desert -- and that moral desert constrains the kinds and severity of punishments that may be justly imposed.  "Because he needs to be rehabilitated" is, in other words, an unacceptable answer to the question, "why is our political community morally authorized to punish this person?"

Now, back to Rob's hard question.  He says, "[i]f retribution is equated with desert, it seems that the permissible scope of punishments is boundless."  I think I disagree.  That desert functions as a justification for, and a constraint upon, punishment does not mean -- does it? -- that it is the only constraint.  I take Rob's point that it is hard to think of punishments that, say, the serial-child-murderer does not "deserve", but I think there will -- or should -- always be reasons (e.g., the brutalizing effect that imposing punishments, even "deserved" punishments, could have), moral and prudential, for not "maxing out" punishments.  The fact (at least, I think it is a fact) that someone like Couey deserves serious punishment does not mean that our treatment of him is unconstrained by morality.

Rick