Abstract

Fair play theories of punishment locate the permissibility or desirability of legal punishment in its ability to restore relations of fairness between lawbreakers and other members of society. This chapter discusses the chief objection leveled against such views, which is that many crimes do not yield any benefit for the offender and thus do not create unfair advantages of the sort punishment is supposedly to correct. Duus-Otterström argues that, while this objection squarely hits traditional versions of the fair play theory that emphasize benefits deriving from committing crime, it is less persuasive against versions that emphasize losses inflicted by crime or the offender’s lack of entitlement to the benefits of the legal order.