Retributivism Gone Mad: Shakespeare’s “Measure for Measure”

Measure for Measure is ostensibly a comedy (no one dies, and the main penalties at the play’s end are, hilariously, requiring marriage), but it is a much darker comedy than any other Shakespeare wrote written after Hamlet, retaining features of that play’s moral nihilism. Its nihilism takes the form of a criticism of the claims of strong retributivism as a basis for criminal justice, namely, that it is necessary and sufficient for punishment that there be a moral wrong, and the nature of punishment is to be determined by the nature of the wrong (thus, death for killing). The play focusses on the criminalization of two forms of consensual sex: the commercial sex business of Mistress Overdone and Pompey, her servant, and the non-commercial loving sex of Claudio with Juliet, now pregnant, who shortly intend to marry. The play questions the first comically, the second tragically. The article explores the play’s indictment of strong retributivism, and charts a path to an alternative, namely, restorative justice.