 There is something intuitively appealing, if one has retributive intuitions, about the thought that it is better if a wrongdoer—especially one who has committed serious wrongs—lives miserably than if she lives happily. There is something galling, if one feels the retributive impulse, in the thought that she might “get away with it”. Nonetheless, it is important to distinguish the thought that it is good to punish a wrongdoer so that she does not “get away with it”, from the thought that it is better that she suffer than that she live happily, even if the suffering is not inflicted by punishment. The latter thought may draw on the same emotional wellspring as retributivism. But a retributivist—at least one who rejects the fantasy that God inflicts such suffering as a matter of cosmic justice—should not base her conception of retributivism on it.