I am concerned here with whether that principle, as it is written, justifies depriving people of benefits of the same kind (or any commensurate kind) which they have unnecessarily, unjustifiably, and inexcusably deprived others from having, or of benefits in any way derived from inexcusable wrongdoing.  If not, is there any other justification for the belief people should not be permitted to benefit from inexcusable wrongdoing or from having inexcusably and unjustifiably deprived others of comparable benefits?  If not, is the belief itself simply intuitively or basically right? Or is it even a correct or reasonable prima facie belief/principle at all?

It seems to me that it is reasonable that creating the most good, least harm, or greatest balance of good over harm for the greatest number of deserving people is a correct prima facie principle, and is actually obligatory when it also meets the other conditions in the principle, of being fair to everyone, not risking of unnecessary harm, etc.  For shorthand, let me call it the principle of the obligation to do the most deserved and fairly distributed good.  I also believe it entails doing no unnecessary undeserved harm to anyone (along, with the rest of the principle of doing no unfair harm or putting them at unfair risk, etc.) since doing unnecessary and undeserved harm is not doing the most deserved good or the least harm.  In other words, one could do less harm by doing nothing unnecessarily bad to another person, and it is not unfair to expect someone to do nothing harmful.  That is why there is more of an obligation to refrain from harm than to have to do positive good, if doing positive good might be taxing or costly or even unfair to expect of an agent.  Doing nothing unnecessarily harmful has no cost of one's time or energy and is not unfair to expect of people.  However, I am not sure whether the prima facie requirement to do the most deserved and fairly distributed good entails minimizing, reducing, or eliminating the most undeserved good of the sorts in question; i.e., good that is undeserved because it is good that one has unjustifiably and inexcusably deprived or prevented others from having, or good which one has derived from inexcusable wrongdoing of any sort.

Now, I do not believe that we have an obligation to prevent innocent people from having good which is not strictly deserved, 'deserved' in the sense of having been earned in some way.  If someone is lucky and has good fortune come his/her way through no particular desert or merit of their own, there can be circumstances where that is acceptable, I believe, particularly if it does not take something away from someone deserving of it or who needs it far more than the person who gets it by luck and who could be, and should be, given it instead.  Suppose for example that someone recovers miraculously and spontaneously from a serious illness, simply because of good luck, not because of some healthful regimen s/he devised for her/himself.  That is a good thing even if others were to die from the disease -- others perhaps who are equally good people or maybe even better people.  Mother Nature is not under the obligation to do the most deserved good fairly distributed, though it might be nice if she were, and if it led to much poetic justice and if it meant karma is true and a real, natural thing.  But the requirement to do the most deserved good fairly distributed certainly does not entail punishing or executing people who have miraculously survived diseases or accidental injuries other people did not, at least as long as they did not cause the accident.  I do not think that being in a non-negligent accident which costs someone loss of kidney function obligates one to donate a kidney to him/her.  It might be that negligently causing the accident could potentially obligate one to do that.  But even if negligence might bring about such an obligation, the problem is that some negligent acts are more culpable or blameworthy, less excusable, understandable, or forgivable, and/or perhaps more irresponsible than others.  Some are instead more accidental or understandable in a way that could have happened to anyone even though in hindsight they were wrongly risky.  For example, suppose that eating a sandwich while driving, or listening to the car radio causes one to lose focus on the road ahead for just a second or two at just the wrong time, should that require giving up a kidney to the accident victim?  If there is a clear cut answer to that, I don't know what it is.

But the question I am interested in here is whether the obligation to do the most deserved good, fairly distributed, entails depriving someone of good they deprived others of but which is not the specific good they are then enjoying for themselves instead, as in the job example above or as in being allowed to live and have some joys even though one has unnecessarily, unjustifiably, and inexcusably deprived another of his or her life and any possibility then of having such joys?  I do not believe the principle of minimizing undeserved good in such cases can be derived from the principle of maximizing deserved good.  Whether it can be derived from that coupled with the specific notions of fairness given as qualifying conditions in the principle or not, I also do not know.  It seems to me to be right and fair to deprive someone of goods commensurate with those they unjustifiably and inexcusably deprived someone else.  But I am not confident the principle in red above -- my general ethical principle -- as articulated, implies that.  If not, then if it is right to reduce, minimize, or eliminate undeserved good of a sort one has unjustifiably and inexcusably deprived others of, that needs to be added to the principle.  My concern is that is an ad hoc principle just to justify punishment, particularly capital punishment.  I just wish I had a better basis for it than some sort of intuition coupled with examples such as the food, television, and job example.  And I may now have; see the "Additional Thoughts About All This" below.

A corollary problem is how much should be taken away from someone who has deprived others of something to which they have the right.  What should the penalty (or more precisely, what should the value of the penalty) for any wrongdoing be?  In football, for example, offensive infractions of the rules result in loss of the yardage gained (and any points gained), but also generally a loss of additional yardage, sometimes (though in rare cases, also loss of down or the 'mulligan' and 'do-over' of the play). For some egregious and harmful infractions, a player may be ejected and/or fined, possibly not allowed to play in other specified games or part of the current or next season.   So if you steal my car, and we recoup the car and pay for the police, how much more of a penalty is right to inflict on you.  And does my general ethical principle imply it is right to inflict any additional penalty on you?  However, in basketball currently, there are some fouls that merely stop play and let the offensive team inbound the ball with no penalty on the defensive team other than adding to the personal and team foul count that may eventually lead to a punitive reward for the team fouled, but does not give any reward for that particular foul.  There is no real immediate penalty for early fouls in basketball game.  It is tantamount to something like being caught shoplifting and just being allowed to return the merchandise or pay for it with merely a warning placed on your 'record'.

Of course, insofar as punishment is meant to be a deterrent as well as a penalty or cost for wrongdoing, it needs to be severe enough to make the wrongdoing not worth trying, which is not always easy or possible, if the perpetrator's goal is more important to him/her than the penalty.  That can particularly be the case for undeserved punishment or for extortion to force someone into a wrong act their morality will not let them commit, even at the price of your punishment.  In football, for example, an offensive lineman might tackle a defender intent on violently hitting the quarterback in a way that might cause serious injury.  Losing 15 yards to save the season or career of a valuable quarterback is worth it.  And in some cases, the penalty is not only a 'slap on the wrist' and thus generally an insufficient deterrent or retributive cost/penalty, it may not inflict any real pain or suffering at all.  In football, for example, if time is running out and the team with the ball is ahead by more than two points, it can be reasonable to take an intentional safety on a play that runs out the clock, since giving the other team two points preserves and seals the victory for the team taking the safety.  In real life, for someone living on the streets in terrible conditions, prison may be an improvement of their quality of life, so the penalty for their committing a crime may actually, for their circumstances, be a reward, just as the safety would be in the football case.  What is really being asked here is what the actual punishment should be, not just what the prescribed penalty should be -- in cases where the penalty may not be an actual punishment (or deterrent) and may be instead a reward and incentive. 

And, of course, in some situations there is always the chance of not being caught doing the act that is punishable, whether in sports or in life.  It is not only the severity of punishment but its certainty, that matters.  But for here, I am concerned with how to determine the proper severity and whether it can be derived or not from my general ethical principle or whether an additional principle (or additional components of the principle above) is necessary.   At this point I do not know the answer.  I am inclined to think that 'doing the most good for the most deserving people most fairly and reasonably distributed...' tends to imply in some way doing harm to evil or undeserving people, but I would be happier if I had a better, more direct argument for the logic or reasonableness of that.