Kant‘s theory of criminal Right was already criticized by his contemporaries. His manner of speaking of the „blood debt“ and his rehabilitation of the jus talionis were considered a relapse into the Middle Ages. he essay tries to show against this the reasons that Kant had in order to discharge the principle of retaliation: the dominant theory of punishment as a deterrent (in Pufendorf, Wolf, Beccaria and many other representatives of the criminal political Enlightenment) leads to increase the punishment arbitrarily (...) and to threaten with tougher penalties, because only in this way the purpose of deterrence can be achieved. Kant, however, thinks that the degree of the punishment must be appropriated to the weight of the crime. Such a consistency between crime and punishment is only guaranteed within the frame of the jus talionis. (shrink)