The proportionality principle cannot actually be applied to most crimes

Evidence

There is no established principle for judging what constitutes a proportionate punishment. Moreover, in some cases the proportionality principle cannot be applied (Schauer & Sinnott-Armstrong, 1996; Tollefsen, 2011). … For example, rapists are not punished by being raped, nor are arsonists punished by being set on fire. Nathanson (2012) raises a more serious problem that applies even to murder. The reprehensibility of behavior cannot be judged solely from the behavior. Murder committed in self-defense is judged differently from premeditated murder. Mitigating circumstances alter its reprehensibility. In short, “an eye for an eye” has become a slogan rather than a principle for fitting punishments for crimes. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 1881

Categorization

• SEED: An article angle: the fate of retributive justice — why ‘an eye for an eye’ survives as rhetoric despite being logically unimplementable in practice.
• XREF: Mirrors the chapter’s ongoing theme that moral evaluation requires situating an act in its circumstances — very close to the book’s own argument about moral disengagement mechanisms.