The fundamental question in connexion with retributive punishment is whether a combination of two evils, viz., wrong-doing and pain, can be a more desirable state of affairs than one of these evils, viz., wrong-doing, without the other. The general answer is that there is no logical impossibility in this because the value of a whole depends largely on the relations between its constituents as well as on the natures of the constituents themselves. And the contention of the believers in retributive punishment is that there is a certain appropriateness of pain to wrong-doing which, unless the pain be altogether excessive in duration and intensity, makes the whole state of affairs less bad than it would be if the wrong-doing were unpunished.
(C. D. Broad, Five Types of Ethical Theory [London and Henley: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1930], 204-5)
Note from KBJ: To a utilitarian, punishment is, at best, a necessary evil. To a retributivist, it is a positive good.
