suffering so that the offender pays his "debt", and this in turn reinforces the validity of the norms-and-rules. Social justice is thus restored. Retribution has been defined as social sanction, but "social sanction" is far from being identical with retribution. There are a great number of negative sanctions which are not retributive, since they are not punishments exacted due to norms-and-rules being infringed. Dismissal from a job for being a "security risk" is undeniably a sanction, but not a retributive one. Likewise, a person may be quarantined as a health risk. Preventive sanctions are by defini? tion not retributive, irrespective of whether their aim is to prevent crime or to safeguard against some other harm. They rest on the principle of utility, and have absolutely nothing to do with justice, even when applied justly (to every person who belongs to the same cluster e.g. the cluster constituting a "security risk"). Social sanctions instigated because of lack in excellence (a particular kind of excellence) are in most cases neither preventive nor retributive. They are not preventive because the sanction is a response to a failure to properly follow par? ticular rules. They are not retributive because no wrong requiring "restoration" has been com? mitted. The ethico-political concept of justice has always dealt with sanctions, negative sanctions included, and with the specific problem of retribution. However, there is no trace in it of