Theory of criminal law examines the legitimacy of state punishment and its connection to justice. While many jurists since the twentieth century have rejected the concept of justice due to its vagueness and preemptive arguments, Professor Shing-I Liu emphasizes the importance of distributive justice in limiting punishment. This treatise aims to historically reorder justice and penal theory and interpret their relationship in a contemporary context. It examines, thus, the relationship between retribution theory and justice, particularly by comparing Aristotle, Kant, and Hegel. It emphasizes the importance of distributive justice and the principle of equality for criminal law theory and interprets punishment as the correction of abuses of liberty.