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Punishment and It's Purpose

In: Philosophy and Psychology

Submitted By jjjooossshhh
Words 1864
Pages 8
J. Fletcher
March 25, 2014
Punishment and Its Purpose

As long as intelligent beings have existed, there have been wrongdoings and retaliation of some sorts for those wrongdoings. As human beings came together and formed tribes, villages, towns, cities, etc., the society within each of those set rules and a standard of fairness in punishment, for all to live by, which is based on what they felt was the best consequences possible. Punishment comes in two forms: Retribution (backward-looking) and rehabilitation (forward-looking). In giving out punishment, we should always strive for what can bring the greatest good and least bad for a society. Forward looking punishment presents the greatest good and least bad for a society. Therefore forward looking punishment should be the preferred method of punishment. Before we explore this idea further, we must solidify what it means when we say punishment. One situation that we could safely label as punishment is a case of a person sent to prison by a government for a crime of breaking a law or rule set by society. On the opposite side, we could take a person that goes about life in a lawful manner, never being incarcerated, as a clear case of non-punishment. Now suppose we take this situation: If someone murders an innocent person, and then is immediately struck by a bolt of lightning, have they been punished? Without entertaining any theories of karma, punishment by a deity, or anything outside of time & space, I suppose this could qualify as some sort of punishment. However, take an innocent person that is struck by lightning. We would likely now consider this a chance occurrence. This makes the criminal being “punished” by lightning very suspect. For punishment to truly take place, I would argue that the person must be deserving of it and it must be administered by a higher societal authority, guided by law. A

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