I really enjoyed today's class! Though somewhat confusingly tangential, the class as a whole really seemed to dig into this issue and it got the ball rolling in my head.
I think the question needs to be asked: Is punishment unjust? More to the point, is our current penal system morally justifiable; is it a legitimate system?
What justifies the infliction of punishment on people? Today in class, the general consensus seemed to be that to define a human based on a singular action would be a mistake, for an isolated action cannot be reasonably considered a/the summation of the individual. However, punishment occurs in reaction to singular actions nonetheless. Punishing people certainly needs some semblance of justification for it is something almost always harmful or unpleasant for the recipient. Imprisonment, for example, causes physical discomfort, psychological suffering, and general unhappiness along with a variety of other disadvantages (i.e. impairment of employment opportunities and social life). Deliberately inflicting suffering on people is at least prima facie immoral, and needs some special justification. It is true that in some cases the recipient does not find the punishment painful, or even welcomes it – for example, some offenders might find prison a refuge against the intolerable pressures of the outside world. And sometimes when we punish we are not trying to cause suffering: for example, when the punishment is mainly aimed at reforming the offender, or at ensuring that victims are benefited by reparation. But even in these cases, punishment is still something imposed: it is an intrusion on the liberty of the person punished, which also needs to be justified.
