Re: Punishment - why?

Mike Davis wrote:

What is the role of 'punishment' in human society? It seesm that many of
our ethical norms relate to the idea that those who break ethical codes
(whether children or adults) should be 'punished'.


To avoid argument and confusion in asking this question I deliberately
**EXCLUDE** other reasons for such sanctions - in particular:-
....
That leaves me (I think) with the simple concept that "those who have
done wrong should suffer" per se.

I would expect atheists to see this to be wrong, and so, I guess, would
Christians. So why does it seem to be inbuilt in human nature that
those who 'do wrong' should suffer?

Yes, I think it's wrong. But it *feels* right, much of the time,
which of course is why it's commonly believed to be right. (Another
instance where the fact that most people believe X isn't very much
evidence for X.)

I suppose evolutionary psychology would be the place to look
for explanations of why it feels that way. It probably goes
something like this:

A policy of proportionate punishment is an effective one
in situations where you've got a bunch of agents interacting
repeatedly with one another. Effective for the individual,
not just for the group.

(Consider Axelrod's famous iterated-prisoner's-dilemma
tournaments, and the success of the "tit for tat" strategy
in them.)

So brain designs that make us favour proportionate punishment
will tend to be evolutionary successes, however they work.

One advantage of this sort of explanation -- though it's not
one that makes it more likely to be *correct* -- is that
accepting it doesn't commit you to thinking that it actually
is right to make people suffer when they do wrong. Whereas,
if e.g. you think that any mysterious but consistent moral
judgement we make is the result of a conscience programmed
by God (I dare say few people believe exactly that), it seems
like you do have to say that whatever God programmed everyone's
conscience to approve is right...

--
Gareth McCaughan
..sig under construc
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