 Communicative retributivism is another variation on retributivism, this time embracing skepticism that the hard treatment element of punishment is itself deserved. What is left then is the thought that censure is deserved for wrongdoing, but that hard treatment is at best justified either instrumentally, for deterrence or incapacitation, or to give meaning to the censure (see Duff 2001: 29–30, 97; Tadros 2011: ch. 5). Insofar as retributive justifications for the hard treatment element of punishment seem inadequate—see  section 5—this  may be the best default position for retributivists.