On a Compromised Justification of Punishment

There has been a longstanding battleground on the justification of Punishment with two persistent worriers; Retributivism and Utilitarianism. The endless controversies of philosophers illustrate that both of theories have met the fatal criticisms and neither can provide a proper answer to the question of “Why Punish?”. As a solution، some tried to reconstruct their favorite theory، while some other proposed a compromised answer. Amongst the compromised models، the theory suggested by analytic philosophers seems the most coherent one، which relies upon the “conceptual analysis”. It emphasizes on the separation of different questions and provides rooms for two answers; utility and retribution. I’ll focus and argue against that compromised model as suggested by H. L. Hart and John Rawls.