These, then, are some of the objections that have been urged against the Retributive theory of punishment. In my view they are all mistaken—either because they are based on confusions about what the theory is, or else because they spring from erroneous moral judgments. One charge, that the proponents of the theory are sadists or have a vested religious interest in it, I shall not deal with. For all I know it could even be true, but it seems irrelevant to the present discussion; philosophers, of all people, should surely be above using the ploy of analysing a man's motives instead of meeting his arguments. As for the objection that the theory is out of date, i.e. unfashionable, this seems so ludicrous philosophically that I would not have mentioned it at all if it were not for the unfortunate fact that it is the most common objection of all. I shall certainly not bother with it any further, giving the reader credit for being free from what Belloc called "The degrading slavery of being a child of one's times".
(K. G. Armstrong, "The Retributivist Hits Back," Mind, n.s., 70 [October 1961]: 471-90, at 472 [boldface added])
Note from KBJ: Think of all the conservative arguments that progressives "reply" to not by investigating the truth of the argument's premises or the validity of the inferences but by analyzing the arguer's motives. Conservatives who argue that affirmative-action programs are unjust are said to be racists. (If the conservatives in question are black, they are "self-loathing.") Conservatives who believe that Roe v. Wade (1973) was wrongly decided are said to be misogynists. Conservatives who argue that the federal government should enforce immigration laws are said to be nativists, xenophobes, or racists. Conservatives who argue that the war in Iraq was justified are said to be warmongers, militarists, or fascists. Conservatives who oppose homosexual "marriage" are said to be homophobes. Conservatives who are patriotic are said to be jingoists. Conservatives who support capital punishment are said to be bloodthirsty. Conservatives who believe that religion has a rightful place in the public square are said to be theocrats. It goes on and on, ad nauseam. The great untold story of the past few decades is how and why progressives lost the ability to engage in rational argumentation. My theory, informally confirmed by experience, is that it has to do with their dominance of academia. Many progressives have walled themselves off from criticism. They spend their days nodding in agreement with their colleagues, making fun of conservatives, and enforcing political correctness. Meanwhile, their minds rot.
