Punishment

[Dhampir]

I have wondered off and on about the notion of punishment. Punishment is a penalty imposed for wrongdoing, a consequence meted out intentionally where none might otherwise have occurred, for instance if a child climbed on the roof of his house, after being told not to, a parent might impose a punishment of some sort if that child does not fall off the roof in order to prevent that eventuality from coming to pass.

 

A person that shoots someone will be incarcerated to prevent him or her from doing so again, as well as to force a reconsideration of their actions. It also has the effect of preventing an eventuality, such as an angry mob rising up to 'purge' that person from their society, due to fear and the aforementioned anger over their actions.

 

In another thread, the death penalty is viewed as a form of punishment, the stance I took was that it was the eventuality of those actions that warranted it, beyond what punishment can do. I was thinking that since the idea of punishment is conceived of as a means of teaching a lesson, that is, changing a behavior or course of action, could there not be a better way? Is there, or could there ever be a way to regulate society without the need for it?

[Llwellyn]

Punishment is for the sake of amendment. This is the reason of punishment; this is why justice requires that the wicked shall not go unpunished—that they, through the eye-opening power of pain, may come to see and do justice, may be brought to desire and make all possible amends, and so become just. Such punishment concerns justice in the deepest degree.

 

Repentance, restitution, confession, prayer for forgiveness, righteous dealing thereafter, is the sole possible, the only true make-up for evil.

 

When the man says, ‘I did wrong; I hate myself and my deed; I cannot endure to think that I did it!’ then, I say, is amendment is begun. When a man acknowledges the right he denied before; when he says to the wrong, ‘I abjure, I loathe you; I see now what you are; I could not see it before because I would not; forgive me; make me clean, or let me die!’ then justice has conquered—and not till then.

 

Justice then requires that evil should be put an end to; and where punishment can do anything to this end, where it can help the wronger to know what he has been guilty of, where it can soften his heart to see his pride and wrong and cruelty, justice requires that punishment shall not be spared. George MacDonald on punishment.