"What Do Criminals Deserve?"

The title of this post is the title of this new book chapter authored by Douglas Husak now available via SSRN. Here is the abstract:

I attempt to specify the precise role played by desert in a justification of state punishment.  To this end, I contrast the questions that must be resolved from those that need not be addressed at all or cannot be answered to anyone's satisfaction.  I argue that much can be learned about the justification of state punishment by focusing on situations in which persons react appropriately to culpable wrongdoing perpetrated by non-state actors.  I conclude that the greatest difficulty for desert theorists is to explain why the deprivations and stigma legitimately inflicted by victims should take the form of hard treatment and censure imposed by the state.  I offer a few inconclusive suggestions about how this latter problem might be solved.