 The point is not to say that this first justificatory strategy fails. It is to say that it does not obviously succeed. The notion of retributive justice would be on sounder footing if this justification were supplemented by a theoretical justification for punitive hard treatment that ties it to a more general set of principles of justice. Doing so would help dispel doubts that retributive intuitions are the crabbed judgments of a squinty, vengeful, or cruel soul.