Nozick on Retributive Punishment
I must have already mentioned the 4 theories of punishment, corresponding to the 4 temperaments: retribution (Guardian), deterrence (Rational), rehabilitation (Idealist), and condemnation or protection of society (Artisan). Nozick focuses on the first of these and notes correctly that it involves a rebellion against or flouting the correct values or, put simply, the good. Punishment puts the offender in his place and reestablishes the proper hierarchy or order of the universe with the good triumphant and evil thwarted and despised.
“If we punish acts only that stem from some or another character defect, then it appears that the crucial component is the defect of character. Why, then, do we need an action to precipitate punishment, why not simply punish the character defect which is there, even if it is unexercised?” asks Nozick. (Philosophical Explanations, 383ff) Obviously, because we can never know of the defect, unless it is expressed in action. But God, for example, sees us for what we are and can try to correct the defect even if no vicious act has as yet sprung from it. Further, here our author seems to have switched to rehabilitation. Why punish an unactualized character defect other than to improve the person? (E.g., you need only threaten to punish to deter.)
“Consider next a person who (before capture) sincerely repents of his wrongful act and, on his own, makes amends to the victims, goes off and does extraordinary good deeds — works in a leper colony or whatever — from a desire to add good to the world. Does such a person now deserve to be punished, should he be punished? Again, retributivists feel uneasy in saying so.” (385) Here Nozick fails to realize that repentance is itself self-inflicted penance. It is a punishment that the wrongdoer brings upon himself. This is because repenting entails rejecting a part of yourself, an evil part but one you still love, because otherwise you would not have done according to it. And that is painful. Regardless of his desire to change, the criminal still wants to continue his wicked activities, but he temporarily enslaves himself to the true good, such that only after some time has passed during which he exercises strenuous effort of resistance to temptation will good rather than evil deeds become his second nature.