Abstract

The point of departure of this paper is the need for a coherent normative theory of punishment which could guide and inform our contemporary sentencing practices, on the one hand, and the pervasive sociological scepsis with regard to the practical potential of such an abstract theory, on the other. Starting from a primarily sociological account of the regulatory and expressive functions of criminal punishment and their complex interaction in late modern culture, the paper examines to what extent these functions affect different kinds of respect for human dignity. It argues, furthermore, that the inescapable tension between the regulatory function of criminal punishment and the affirmation of the equal value of each human life, as well as the potential violation of the transcendent status of each individual person through the expressive nature of criminal punishment, could serve as the building blocks for a normative theory of punishment. These building blocks would allow such a theory to be sufficiently anchored in the complex social reality of punishment and sentencing, while at the same time being able to offer an interpretative framework for a set of principles which could normatively guide these practices