Punishment

This paper responds to continuing commentary on Velmans (2002a) “How could conscious experiences affect brains,” a target article for a special issue of JCS. I focus on the final question dealt with by the target article: how free will relates to preconscious and conscious mental processing, and I develop the case for preconscious free will.  Although “preconscious free will” might appear to be a contradiction in terms, it is consistent with the scientific evidence and provides a parsimonious way to reconcile the commonsense view that voluntary acts are freely chosen with the evidence that conscious wishes and decisions are determined by preconscious processing in the mind/brain.  I consider alternative interpretations of how “conscious free will” might operate by Libet and by Mangan and respond to doubts about the extent to which the operations of mind are revealed in consciousness, raised by Claxton and Bouratinos. In reconciling commonsense attributions of freedom and responsibility with the findings of science, preconscious free will can be shown to have practical consequences for adjudications in law.

Coercive parent-child interaction models posit that an escalating cycle of negative, bidirectional interchanges influences the development of boys' externalizing problems and caregivers' maladaptive parenting over time. However, longitudinal studies examining this hypothesis have been unable to rule out the possibility that between-individual factors account for bidirectional associations between child externalizing problems and maladaptive parenting. Using a longitudinal sample of boys (N = 503) repeatedly assessed eight times across 6-month intervals in childhood (in a range between 6 and 13 years), the current study is the first to use novel within-individual change (fixed effects) models to examine whether parents tend to increase their use of maladaptive parenting strategies following an increase in their son's externalizing problems, or vice versa. These bidirectional associations were examined using multiple facets of externalizing problems (i.e., interpersonal ca...

What motivates a person's desire to punish actors who commit intentional, counternormative harms? Two possible answers are a just deserts motive or a desire to incarcerate the actor so that he cannot be a further danger to society. Research participants in two experiments assigned punishments to actors whose offenses were varied with respect to the moral seriousness of the offense and the likelihood that the perpetrator would commit similar future offenses. Respondents increased the punishment as the seriousness of the offense increased, but their sentences were not affected by variations in the likelihood of committing future offenses, suggesting that just deserts was the primary sentencing motive. Only in a case in which a brain tumor was identified as the cause of an actor's violent action, a case that does not fit the standard prototype of a crime intentionally committed, did respondents show a desire to incarcerate the actor in order to prevent future harms rather than assigning a just deserts based punishment.

In a recent article in this journal Brandon Warmke argues against my account of forgiveness. I here offer answers to his objections, and suggest ways in which I think he has misinterpreted my views. This exchange with Warmke also gives me the opportunity to insist on my general thesis that it is advisable to study punishment and forgiveness together. It is precisely the conceptual proximity of these two phenomena which make my account of forgiveness uncommon, and which make it more promising than other accounts.

Red Zones is an original investigation, through quantitative and qualitative data, into the frequency, causes, and consequences of spatiotemporal conditions of release at bail, probation, and conditional sentences. Using an interdisciplinary lens, Marie-Eve Sylvestre (a legal scholar), Nicholas Blomley (a geography scholar), and Céline Bellot (a social work scholar) tell the story of a criminal justice system which has methodically taken control over and regulated peoples' time and space, leading to both the suppression of individual auto-determination and the erosion of the Canadian system of rights. Resisting the seemingly "normalizing" effect of the widespread use of conditions in the current justice system, the authors uncover the broad implications these conditions have on bodies, identities, society, and the rule of law. An obvious contribution of this book is its analysis of an unprecedented and extremely rich data collection (comprised of nearly 95,000 court cases from Montreal and Vancouver) and its quantitative analysis, provided in Part II of the book. Through quantitative data, the authors depict the frequency and types of geographic conditions of release imposed at bail, on probation, and on other conditional sentences, as well as the people most likely to be subjected to them, and the effects of those conditions. The book therefore fills a significant gap in the literature, which is important given that on a yearly basis around 120,000 people in Canada live under court imposed conditions (about three times more than the number of people in prisons). 1 These numbers do not include the many people who are on bail with conditions. Yet, with a few exceptions, most Canadian literature on sentencing and punishment revolves around incarceration. 2 Sylvestre, Blomley, and Bellot sound the alarm on the hidden dangers of using conditions of release to respond to the harms of incarceration. Beyond the original and much needed data, the value of Red Zones also resides in the clarity with which it reveals that conditions of release are not an alternative to incarceration. Rather, prison and conditions are "on the same carceral continuum" (120-24). Marginalized people are overrepresented at all stages of the penal system. They often end up in the system because of the criminalization of their vulnerabilities. The numerous and oftentimes arbitrary conditions placed on individuals criminalizes behaviours 1

The purpose of this experiment was to establish discriminative control of responding by an antecedent stimulus using differential punishment because the results of past studies on this topic have been mixed. Three adults with mental retardation who exhibited stereotypy not maintained by social consequences (i.e., automatic reinforcement) participated. For each subject, stereotypy occurred frequently in the presence of a stimulus correlated with nonpunishment of stereotypy and rarely, if ever, in the presence of a stimulus correlated with punishment of stereotypy. Latency measures showed that the antecedent stimulus correlated with punishment served as the discriminative stimulus for the suppression of stereotypy. These results are important insofar as they show that discriminative control by an antecedent stimulus develops with punishment, and because it sometimes may be desirable to establish such control of socially inappropriate behavior.

Mandatory and preferred arrest policies may be resulting in a backlash for victims who are arrested along with their batterers. Little prior research has explored why officers engage in dual arrests. The current study examines the rationales employed by officers to justify dual arrests in a preferred arrest jurisdiction. Content analysis of thought protocols of police officers (n = 24) who reported they would arrest both parties was undertaken. Officers justified arrest of both parties, citing that such was required by law and the desire to force both parties to obtain counseling for their relationship. Implications for policy development are examined.

Hay una serie de cuestiones básicas para la vida en sociedad que, a nuestro entender, no son suficientemente discutidas, y por eso desde Encrucijadas hemos entendido imprescindible dedicar un número al respecto. Son cuestiones relacionadas con la delincuencia (¿qué es delito? ¿quiénes lo deciden? ¿cómo prevenirlo? ¿qué orden amenaza?), pero también con la constitución de grupos, con la moralidad y su expresión, con las formas de ejercer autoridad y poder y con un sistema que tiende a proteger más a los grupos dominantes, contribuyendo así, y no sólo garantizando, a la dominación social. Se trata de ámbitos relacionados con el castigo, el control, las instituciones y las políticas penales, así como las representaciones que las acompañan.

Objective: This study examines the relationship between parental self-confidence, warmth, and involvement, and corporal punishment in families of children with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Method: The diagnosis of ADHD was established through clinical interviews with the parents, children, and teachers, according the criteria in DSM-IV-TR. This diagnosis was also established by having the parents complete the Conners' Parent Rating Scale, and the teachers complete the Conners' Teacher Rating Scale. Two groups of Iranian parents, one group with children who have ADHD (N = 130) and a control group (N = 120), completed questionnaires measuring parental self-confidence and parenting styles. Results: Parents of children with ADHD were found to have lower self-confidence and less warmth and involvement with their children, and used corporal punishment significantly more than the parents of control children.

This study compares two dimensions of parentingdemotional bonding and controldas perceived by adolescents living in three countries: Canada (province of Québec), France, and Italy. A cross-sectional sample was composed of 1256 adolescents who filled out a selfreport questionnaire. Multiple Correspondence Analyses provided a graphic synthesis of cross-cultural results. Results indicate that parents are perceived as highly emotionally bonded, yet the perception of parental control produced two contrasting models. Canadian adolescents perceive less control and disciplinary actions from parents, and more tolerance. Conversely, Italian adolescents perceive more requirements and rules, and stricter disciplinary actions, while French adolescents' perceptions fall between the two. Results also suggested a gradual decrease in the perception of parental control between the ages of 11 and

Pathological gambling (PG) is associated with maladaptive perseverative behavior, but the underlying mechanism and neural circuitry is not completely clear. Here, the hypothesis was tested that PG is characterized by response perseveration and abnormalities in reward and/or punishment sensitivity in the ventral frontostriatal circuit. Executive functioning was assessed to verify if these effects are independent of the dorsal frontostriatal circuit. A group of smokers was also included to examine whether impairments in PG generalize to substance use disorders. Response perseveration and reward/punishment sensitivity were measured with a probabilistic reversallearning task, in which subjects could win and lose money. Executive functioning was measured with a planning task, the Tower of London. Performance and fMRI data were acquired in 19 problem gamblers, 19 smokers, and 19 healthy controls. Problem gamblers showed severe response perseveration, associated with reduced activation of right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex in response to both monetary gain and loss. Results did not fully generalize to smokers. Planning performance and related activation of the dorsal frontostriatal circuit were intact in both problem gamblers and smokers. PG is related to response perseveration and diminished reward and punishment sensitivity as indicated by hypoactivation of the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex when money is gained and lost. Moreover, intact planning abilities and normal dorsal frontostriatal responsiveness indicate that this deficit is not due to impaired executive functioning. Response perseveration and ventral prefrontal hyporesponsiveness to monetary loss may be markers for maladaptive behavior seen in chemical and nonchemical addictions.

The concept of mentalization seeks to understand the transformation processes of physical quantity into psychical quality through the emergence, development and organization of mental representations. Often discussed in relation to the functioning of both the id and the ego, it is here proposed that the degree of mentalization also determines the level of functioning and maturity of the hostile, self-punitive superego. Luquet's description of four layers of thought (primary mental representations, metaprimary thinking, metaconscious intuitive thinking, conscious verbal thought) serves as a guide to explore issues of the forms of thinking involved in punitive superego activity. Technical implications are also examined to suggest that three steps can be differentiated in the developing capacity to represent the superego and to become conscious of its workings. The first objective is to help the ego observe its own activity, in the face of a still, unobserved hostile endopsychic agent (Gray, 1994). The second step is to meet the form and intentions of this agent, to facilitate its mental representation and elaboration. Achievement of the final step implies a growing capacity to take some responsibility for this hostile inner agent, once its activity is comparatively more available to self-observation.

The inability thesis holds that one’s culture determines behavior and can make one unable to comply with the law and therefore less deserving of punishment. Opponents of the thesis reject the view that humans are made physically unable to act certain ways by their cultural upbringing. The article seeks to help evaluate the inability thesis by pointing to a literature in cultural psychology and anthropology presenting empirical evidence of the influence of culture on behavior, and offering conceptual analysis of the concept of determinism and its connection to moral culpability. Without conceding that culture never determines behavior, I argue that opponents of the inability thesis err in drawing a moral implication from this premise. What matters in formulating moral judgments about punishment are not the possibility but the reasonability of complying with the law. Cultural influences may make an action reasonable that without similar cultural influences would be unreasonable.

The paper examines three central problems involving punitive social control in recent decades: first, the steady increase in the number of incarcerated people (the phenomenon of great confinement), with special emphasis on the Brazilian case; second, the way criminology interprets contemporary confinement (New Penology); and finally, the lack of a (dogmatic) criminal law theory on the reality of mass incarceration. Incarceration data are presented here as premises in order to inquire about the relations between the (normative-philosophical) theories regarding the justification of punishment and the (empirical) phenomena of mass incarceration. The questions behind the current reflection are therefore about what role criminal theories play in the expansion or contraction of the power to punish (potestas puniendi) and the explanations the justification models offer to the problem of hyper-punishment.

This article, which is based on and expands on an amicus brief the authors submitted to the United States Supreme Court, first provides the moral argument in favor of the insanity defense. It considers and rejects the most important moral counterargument and suggests that jurisdictions have considerable leeway in deciding what test best meets their legal and moral policies. The article then discusses why the two primary alternatives to the insanity defense, the negation of mens rea and considering mental disorder at sentencing, are insufficient to achieve the goal of responding justly to severely mentally disordered offenders. The last section considers and rejects standard practical arguments in favor of abolishing the insanity defense.

Using data collected over a 1-year period on a stratified random sample of 368 parents with children studying in nurseries (mean age=3.97years), this study assessed the predictive effects of parental corporal punishment, parental psychological aggression, preschoolers' altruism, and preschoolers' forgiveness on preschoolers' anxiety symptoms in Hong Kong, China. Results of hierarchical regression analyses showed that parental psychological aggression, preschoolers' altruism and preschoolers' forgiveness at Time 1 significantly predicted preschoolers' anxiety at Time 2, when controlling for the initial level of preschoolers' anxiety and important demographic variables that co-vary with preschoolers' anxiety. Moreover, preschoolers' altruism moderated the predictive effect of parental psychological aggression on preschoolers' anxiety symptoms. The study has several significant contributions. First, the study supports the predictive effect of par...

In his insightful and powerfully argued book The Stubborn System of Moral Responsibility, Bruce Waller takes on a novel task. Rather than directly arguing for the abolition of moral responsibility (as many have done, and as Waller himself has done admirably elsewhere39), Waller’s primary aim in this book is to diagnose the stubborn persistence of the belief in moral responsibility. Why does the belief in moral responsibility remain so deeply entrenched, even among philosophers who recognize and have thought carefully about threats to it—threats like the possibility of causal determinism, the pervasiveness of moral luck, and the limits of human reason? In this essay, I will focus on challenging one aspect of Waller’s answer—his appeal to the powerful cultural forces that keep the moral responsibility system in place. Waller makes a compelling and empirically informed case that individualistic neoliberal societies (like ours) remain committed to moral responsibility in part because of the drive to blame and punish individual wrongdoers. Waller contrasts our society with social democratic societies that he argues have moved (at least to some degree) away from the moral responsibility system, with positive results. However, I will argue that there is a viable alternative explanation—that rather than having moved away from moral responsibility, social democratic societies instead possess a robust moral responsibility system that is, in certain key respects, simply different from ours. I will support the plausibility of this claim in part by arguing for the possibility of a moral responsibility system that eschews punishment entirely.

The paper can be read here, along with the rest of the papers and responses from Bruce Waller: https://syndicate.network/symposia/philosophy/the-stubborn-system-of-moral-responsibility/#moral-responsibility-without-punishment

Recent research suggests that individuals reward honesty more than they punish deception. Five experiments showed that different patterns of rewards and punishments emerge for North American and East Asian cultures. Experiment 1 demonstrated that Americans rewarded more than they punished, whereas East Asians rewarded and punished in equivalent amounts. Experiments 2 and 3 revealed that these divergent patterns by culture could be explained by greater social mobility experienced by Americans. Experiments 4 and 5 examined how certain consequences of social mobility, approach-avoidance behavioral motivations and trust and felt obligation, can lead to disparate reward and punishment decisions within the two cultures. Moreover, Experiment 4 revealed that Americans exhibited stronger evaluative reactions toward deception but stronger behavioral intentions toward honesty; East Asians did not exhibit this evaluative-behavioral asymmetry. The crosscultural implications for understanding rewards and punishments in an increasingly globalized world are discussed.

This study evaluated the effects of a fine mist of water applied to the face contingent upon self-injurious behavior (SIB) exhibited by profoundly retarded persons. In Experiment 1, results of individual reversal designs showed substantial reductions in a variety of SIB's (mouthing, hand biting, skin tearing, and head banging) for seven participants. In Experiment 2, two participants who frequently bit their hands were each observed in two different settings. Following initial baselines in each setting, a series of manipulations was undertaken to compare the effects of mild verbal punishment ("No") with those of a combined treatment ("No" plus mist procedure). Results in one setting indicated that "No" suppressed SIB only after it was first paired with the water mist. Data also suggested that, once acquired, the punishing properties of "No" could be extended to a second setting in which the mist was never applied, and that these effects could be generalized across therapists. Results of these experiments indicate that the water mist procedure may be an effective alternative to traditional punishment techniques. Although conclusions regarding generalization are limited due to the brevity of the maintenance conditions, the data suggest that treatment gains may be transferred to more acceptable forms of social punishment and reinforcement.

"Public opinion surveys have long documented public criticism of ‘lenient’ sentencers. There are two principal perceptions contributing to negative attitudes: a lack of community input and the view that sentencers determine sentence according to their own views. This study embeds an experimental design within a representative survey of respondents in England and Wales (n = 1,004), supplemented by laboratory-based work (n = 230) and focus groups. Results demonstrated that the public is ill-informed about both the magistracy and the sentencing guidelines. In addition, providing information about sentencing changed public attitudes to sentencing and reduced public
punitiveness. Respondents were less critical of disposals and less punitive in their own sentence recommendations when they had been given context about the structure of sentencing."

The aim of this review was to collate and summarise the self-report data regarding anomalies in sensitivity to reward and punishment in eating disorders (ED) with use of a meta-analysis where possible. Electronic databases were searched to December 2008. Studies were required to have a non-eating disorder healthy control group and include at least one self-report measure of sensitivity to reward or punishment in an eating disorder population. Findings were very heterogeneous and inconsistencies between studies and measures were highlighted. In general, patients with anorexia nervosa (restricting type) were less sensitive to reward than healthy controls, whereas patients with bulimia nervosa and anorexia nervosa (binge/purge) type were more sensitive. All ED groups report higher sensitivity to punishment than healthy controls. Individuals with eating disorders differ from healthy controls in measures of reward and punishment sensitivity as measured using the Temperament and Character Inventory, Tridimensional Personality Questionnaire and BIS/BAS scales, but further work is required as there is some heterogeneity in the data. Generating more research using behavioural measures may increase understanding of the findings.

[Tanıtım Yazısı]

Cezanın derhal adalet taleplerimize musallat olan mahrem bir bulaşıcılığı vardır. Ve bunun olağanlığı hakkında vaaz vermeye hazır güçlü bir mutabakat... Oysa, nasıl oluyor da ceza yoluyla adaletin yerine geldiğini düşünebiliyoruz? Cezayı kendine has bir tahakküm tarzına dönüştüren ve siyasal formla ilişkili kılan şey nedir? Onu hukukun adaletine bağlayan köken hakkındaki suskunluk ahdi, yani cezaya dair bütün o geveze söylemler tarafından örtbas edilmek istenen şey.. Bu kitap, işte tam da bu suskunluk ahdine saldırıyor.

Özkan Agtaş, siyaset kuramı ve hukuk felsefesi başta olmak üzere ilgili diğer alanlarda serbestçe dolaşarak yürüttüğü teorik tartışmayı, Batının hukuksal-siyasal düzeninde vuku bulan dönüşümlerin içerisine yerleştiriyor. Günümüze dair çözümlemelerde, suç ile siyaset arasındaki eşiğin bulanıklaştığına işaret eden Agtaş, bunu "istisnayı kural haline getiren sürecin hedefindeki şeyin, yani siyasallaşma imkânlarını gasbetmenin ve siyasal alanı kapatmanın" yollarından biri olarak yorumluyor. Politika-sonrası çağın tazyiklerinden azade olmayan cezalandırıcı makinenin ise, adalet kavramına göndermede bulunma yükünden kurtulmuş salt bir tahakküm uygulamasına dönüşerek güçlendiğini söylüyor.

Kitabın, hukukun içerisine çekilmiş hayata dair de bir sözü var: "Jurisprudenz'de tanık olduğumuz insanlık halinden kurtulmamız gerekecektir, zira ondan türetilebilecek hakiki bir öznellik türü bulunmuyor. Kendine isnat edilen o ilksel suçluluk halinin karşısına, yeniye muktedir dehanın mevcudiyetini çıkarmak... Nihayetinde bu görev, her türlü ahlaki ve hukuki yargıdan önce gelen bir yaratıcı gücü ve yasal olmaktan çok siyasal adlara sahip olmayı gerektiren bir özneleşme ânını hayat bulmaya çağırmaktadır."

Логвиненко, Є. С. Покарання в праві держав Стародавнього світу: моногр. / Є. С. Логвиненко, І. А. Логвиненко. - Харків : ФОП Панов А.М., 2019. - 252 с. - ISBN 978-617-7722-94-5.Монографія присвячена комплексному історико-правовому дослідженню становлення та розвитку інституту покарання в праві країн Стародавнього світу, виявленню закономірностей та особливостей цього процесу. Автори показали характерні риси становлення інституту покарань та їхні особливості в окремих державах Стародавнього Сходу та Східного Середземномор’я часів античності. Здійснено порівняльно-правовий аналіз призначення та застосування покарань у різних регіонах та окремих державах у давній час. Книга розрахована на істориків, правознавців, викладачів та студентів, усіх, хто цікавиться історію права країн Стародавнього світу.The monograph is focused on the comprehensive historical and legal study of the formation and development of the institution of punishment within the law of the ancient world countries; on re...

Examined a cognitive-behavioral pathway by which depressive symptoms in mothers and fathers increase risk for later child externalizing problem behavior via parents' appraisals of child behavior and physical discipline. Participants were 245 children (118 girls) at risk for school-age conduct problems, and their parents and teachers. Children were approximately 3 years old at Time 1 (T1) and 5 ½ years old at Time 2 (T2). At T1, mothers and fathers reported their depressive symptoms, perceptions of their child's reciprocal affection and responsiveness, frequency of physical punishment, and child externalizing problems. Mothers, fathers, and teachers provided ratings of externalizing behavior at T2. Structural equation modeling revealed that parents' negative attributions mediated positive relations between their depressive symptoms and frequency of physical punishment for both fathers and mothers. More frequent physical punishment, in turn, predicted increased child externalizing behavior at T2. In future research, transactional mechanisms underlying effects of clinical depression on child conduct problems should be explored at multiple stages of development. For parents showing depressive symptoms, restructuring distorted perceptions about their children's behavior may be an important component of intervention programs.

There are many ways to destroy a person, but the simplest and most devastating way must be solitary confinement.  Deprived of meaningful human contact, otherwise healthy prisoners literally come unhinged.  Many experience symptoms such as intense anxiety and paranoia, uncontrollable trembling, confusion, hallucinations and other perceptual distortions.  Some prisoners describe their experience in solitary confinement as a form of living death.  Harry Hawser, a poet and inmate at Eastern State Penitentiary in the 1840s, called his cell “a living tomb.” Angela Tucker, an African-American woman held in supermax confinement in the 1980s, said: “It’s like living in a black hole.” Jeremy Pinson, a prisoner at Florence ADX (Administrative Maximum Facility), said, “You feel as if the world has ended but you somehow survived.” What does it mean to recognize, as the effect of a standard and increasingly widespread method of incarceration, the possibility of a suffering that blurs the distinction between life and death?  What must subjectivity be like in order for this to be possible?  Who are we, such that we can be unhinged from ourselves by being separated from others?

Abstract
In the United States and in Western Europe there is a big number of investigations  which  focus  on  the  way  in  which  the  criminal  system  punishes women accused of murder. Although with nuances, these works underline that,  generally  speaking,  the  judiciary  shows  a  paternalist  attitude  toward women. In Latin America, the investigations on punishment of women are certainly scarcer. This article aims to be a contribution to this field of study by offering an analysis about Argentina. In the first place, we will present a brief bibliographic review in order to systematize the most relevant investigations (and hypotheses) on the way in which the judiciary punishes women accused of these crimes, paying special attention to those works produced in Latin America and the Caribbean. Secondly, we will employ the most recent penitentiary  census  to  analyse  and  compare  the  punishments  set  both  for women and men condemned for murder in Argentina. This will enable us to investigate whether the defendant’s gender biases the punishments set by judges, the way in which this occurs and, therefore, if the paternalist hypothesis can be useful for contexts like the Argentinean one

Resumen
Estados Unidos y Europa occidental concentran un gran volumen de investigaciones sobre la forma en que el sistema penal castiga mujeres acusadas de asesinato. Aunque con matices, estos trabajos sostienen que, en líneas generales, el sistema de justicia muestra un trato paternalista hacia las mujeres. Por su parte, en Latinoamérica, las investigaciones sobre la penalización de mujeres imputadas por asesinato son ciertamente más escasas. El presente trabajo se propone como una contribución a este campo de estudios ofreciendo un análisis sobre Argentina. En primer lugar, presentaremos una breve revisión bibliográfica que permita sistematizar las investigaciones (e hipótesis) más relevantes sobre la forma en que la administración de justicia castiga mujeres acusadas de estos crímenes, prestando particular atención a las producciones para Latinoamérica y el Caribe. En segundo término, sirviéndonos de la información del último censo penitenciario del país, analizaremos y compararemos las penas fijadas para mujeres y varones condenados por asesinato en la República Argentina. Esto nos permitirá investigar si el género del acusado por estos crímenes influye en las condenas impuestas por los jueces, de qué modo lo hace y, por lo tanto, si la hipótesis paternalista puede ser útil para dar cuenta de contextos como el argentino.

A popular strategy to justify liability to punishment or defensive harm appeals to the idea of forfeiture, namely the idea that by acting in certain ways we lose some of our moral rights. I argue that this strategy gives rise to a dilemma. Theories that aim to justify liability to punishment or defensive harm by relying exclusively on forfeiture are incomplete because conceptually, the notion cannot do significant justificatory work unless we invoke some more fundamental moral principle to give substance to it (Incompleteness Objection).  However, once we do that, the notion becomes redundant and can be dispensed with at the level of justification (Redundancy Objection). This is not to say that forfeiture should be banned from philosophical discourse.  Two valuable roles are played by it: first, the notion performs an important heuristic function, in that it marks the difference between two distinct ways of justifying the infliction of harm; second, the notion works as an intermediate conclusion in arguments that ground the permissibility of inflicting harm in suitably fundamental moral notions, thereby facilitating discussion among those who disagree about what these notions are.  These functions are by no means trivial, but they should not be confused with the justificatory role often attributed to forfeiture.

The concept of punishment is one of the most important concepts of Plato´s philosophy, which is achievable through dialectic, using the ordinary concept of punishment. By denying the basis of revenge view of punishment in his own time, Plato establishes his philosophy of punishment on basis of rehabilitation of the criminal. The criminal, Plato says, is primarily a man who is ignorant of the good and the evil and a sick man who suffers from instability of his rational faculty, i.e. his reason cannot take his anger and his lust under its control. Thus the punishment must make the criminal aware of the true good and the true evil, and like a painful treatment endues him the ability to control his anger and lust. So, logically, there are two possibilities: we must either fortify the superior power, i.e. the reason, or we must debilitate the inferior power i.e. anger and lust. Consequently, the Platonic punishment would be executed in two ways: on is to fortify the reason by means of education; the other is to lower the power of the inferior desires. The first is containing the wide realm of education, while the second includes the wide range of weakness; Therefore, Platonic punishment includes a range, from education to weakness, containing practical exercises, restriction, coercion and even murder. Finally, with categorizing and character recognition of the criminal, Plato determines the rehabilitative method and goal of the punishment.

Approaching rewards and avoiding punishments are core principles that govern the adaptation of behavior to the environment. The machine learning literature has proposed formal algorithms to account for how agents adapt their decisions to optimize outcomes. In principle, these reinforcement learning models could be equally applied to positive and negative outcomes, ie, rewards and punishments. Yet many neuroscience studies have suggested that reward and punishment learning might be underpinned by distinct brain systems. Reward learning has been shown to recruit midbrain dopaminergic nuclei and ventral pre-frontostriatal circuits. The picture is less clear regarding the existence and anatomy of an opponent system: several hypotheses have been formulated for the neural implementation of punishment learning. In this chapter, we review the evidence for and against each hypothesis, focusing on human studies that compare the effects of neural perturbation, following drug administration and/or pathological conditions , on reward and punishment learning. Good and evil, reward and punishment, are the only motives to a rational creature: these are the spur and reins whereby all mankind are set on work, and guided. These famous words by John Locke suggest that rewards and punishments are not on a continuum from positive to negative: they pertain to distinct categories of events that we can imagine or experience. Indeed rewards and punishments trigger different kinds of subjective feelings (such as pleasure versus pain or desire versus dread) and elicit different types of behaviors (approach versus avoidance or invigoration versus inhibition). These considerations might suggest the idea that rewards and punishments are processed by different parts of the brain. In this chapter we examine this idea in the context of reinforcement learning, a computational process that could in principle apply equally to rewards and punishments. We start by summarizing the computational principles underlying reinforcement learning (Box 23.1 and Fig. 23.1) and by describing typical tasks that implement a comparison between reward and punishment learning (Box 23.2 and Fig. 23.2). Then we expose the current hypotheses about the possible implementation of reward and punishment learning systems in the brain (Fig. 23.3). Last, BOX 23.1 The first reinforcement learning (RL) models come from the behaviorist tradition, in the form of mathematical laws describing learning curves [82] or formal descriptions of associative conditioning [2]. Subsequently, in the 1980s, computational investigation of RL received a significant boost when it grabbed the attention of machine learning scholars, who were aiming at developing algorithms for goal-oriented artificial agents [1]. In the Continued 291 Decision Neuroscience

Accumulating evidence suggests that folktales in some societies are characterized by a culturally constructed underlying emotional structure, or Cultural Emotion Schema. In this paper we argue that Matsigenka illness narratives and folk stories share an underlying emotion schema, in which death and suffering result from conflicts between strong-willed individuals prompting anger and aggression. Analysis of illness narratives collected by Izquierdo in the Matsigenka community of Kamisea in the Peruvian Amazon between 1996 and 1999 reveals a common pattern in which envy and frustration lead to the belief in sorcery as the main cause of illness and death. This pattern contrasts with the typical stories of a previous generation collected by the Johnsons among the Matsigenka of Shimaa and other Matsigenka researchers, where sorcery beliefs were virtually absent. Our argument is that important changes in ecology, community, politics, and religion have led to a systematic rise in feelings of envy and frustration, and that these have increased the likelihood that sorcery accusations will occur. We explore the likelihood that such beliefs increase as egalitarian peoples become more crowded into settlements where they are likely to experience greater inequality, more competition for resources and increased societal and personal stress.

Objectives: This study examined whether mothers' experience of violence was a risk factor for physical punishment. Methods: Data were derived from the nationally representative 2000 Peru Demographic and Family Health Survey. Participants were 12,601 currently married women who were living with biological children aged 0-17 years and were responsible for disciplining the children. A multinomial logit model was used to determine the probabilities of using no physical punishment, slapping/spanking only, beating only, and both slapping/spanking and beating to discipline children. Results: The study found that childhood history of physical punishment, a greater variety of intimate partner emotional violence and experience of intimate partner physical violence increased significantly a mother's probability of using physical punishment with her children, even after controlling for confounding factors. A mother's history of physical violence victimization by someone other than the current partner was also a significant factor for beating children as opposed to using non-physical forms of punishment. Conclusions: Mothers were at substantially increased risk of using physical punishment if they were victims of parental physical violence in childhood, intimate partner violence in the current union, and physical violence by someone other than the current partner. Practice implications: Increased public education is needed of the negative consequences of intimate partner emotional and physical violence victimization for mothers' childrearing strategies. There is a need to integrate intimate partner violence into child welfare programs and develop effective screening mechanisms for maternal violence victimization and child maltreatment.

The not criminally responsible (NCR) designation is undergoing significant legislative changes that will see a greater focus on public safety and information for victims as well as the creation of a 'high risk' status. The NCR designation has an inconsistent history in Canada that highlights the complexity of straddling therapeutic and punitive frameworks. This latest development in NCR's formulation is a punitive response to the perceived clamour by the general public for safety and security and a loss of faith in the psy sciences ability to treat and manage mentally ill accused. In turn, the NCR designation has taken up the punitive rhetoric despite it being framed outside the system of punishment