Well the obvious first answer is that you are not supposed to "punish" children, you are supposed to discipline them.

The second answer is that, from the perspective of rehabilitative justice, both punishments have the same goal: to change future behavior.

Apart from that, how do you conclude that children are always wholly innocent, and criminals are always depraved and evil? Are "innocent" and "evil" even meaningful attributes to apply to a person in their entirety?

Well the obvious first answer is that you are not supposed to "punish" children, you are supposed to discipline them. — Echarmion

How does one discipline? Punishment no?

The second answer is that, from the perspective of rehabilitative justice, both punishments have the same goal: to change future behavior.

Apart from that, how do you conclude that children are always wholly innocent, and criminals are always depraved and evil? Are "innocent" and "evil" even meaningful attributes to apply to a person in their entirety? — Echarmion

I'm speaking in general terms which suffices for the discussion. Children are innocent in that they're ignorant of morals and lack evil motives. Criminals are adults with knowledge of morals and act with evil motives.

But "children" is a very wide term. A 3-year-old might be ignorant of morals. But what about someone who is 8? 12?

If you define punishment as "any negative outcome", then sure discipline often includes punishment. But the main goal with children is to teach them, and so you will select different methods.

You can make the argument that rehabilitative justice treats criminals like children, that is actually one of the core criticisms against it, though the reasoning is a bit different. There is, however, also the theory of punitive justice which holds that criminals should be punished only according to their personal guilt, not to change their behavior. The punishment then takes on a very different character.

But "children" is a very wide term. A 3-year-old might be ignorant of morals. But what about someone who is 8? 12? — Echarmion

Do I need to make what a child means precise for the discussion? I simply refer to the child-innocence association which is a generally accepted notion, isn't it?

If you define punishment as "any negative outcome", then sure discipline often includes punishment. But the main goal with children is to teach them, and so you will select different methods.

You can make the argument that rehabilitative justice treats criminals like children, that is actually one of the core criticisms against it, though the reasoning is a bit different. There is, however, also the theory of punitive justice which holds that criminals should be punished only according to their personal guilt, not to change their behavior. The punishment then takes on a very different character. — Echarmion

My only concern is why the same treatment (punishment) is used for two contradictory problems (childhood innocence and evil criminals).

It's not the same kind of punishment, though. We lock up criminals in hopes that they will no longer be able to harm others.

The best kind of discipline for children involves some sort of logical consequence. Like, if you keep using your stuffed bear to hit your sister, I'm taking your stuffed bear away. I had a friend whose daughter (13) basically refused to remember to turn the lights off in her room when she wasn't there, so the friend took all the light bulbs out for a while.

The desired result is the same: we want criminals and children to behave in accordance with our rules.

Also, I think your description of children as innocent is accurate, but a bit incomplete. They are innocent in the sense that they are not morally responsible for their actions, but they do come pre-programmed to test boundaries and experiment just what will happen if rules are broken.

My only concern is why the same treatment (punishment) is used for two contradictory problems (childhood innocence and evil criminals). — TheMadFool

Also, I think your description of children as innocent is accurate, but a bit incomplete. They are innocent in the sense that they are not morally responsible for their actions, but they do come pre-programmed to test boundaries and experiment just what will happen if rules are broken. — NKBJ

We tell the children what they ought not do, and when they break those boundaries they are punished. In this sense, they are not innocent. But there's a reverse paradox here. For adults ignorance (and this means unaware of, rather than ignoring) of the law is no defence. For an adult, one's innocence of the laws, and naivety, may render that person guilty, and subject to punishment.

Why do you think we pay the monk and the bandit in the same coin?

shouldn't innocence be treated differently than guilt?

As you said and I did mention it, it's a matter of degrees isn't it? Milder punishment for the innocent (children) and severe for the guilty (criminals).

Yet, I can't shake the feeling that something's wrong.

Punishment is meted out to children and criminals who cross the moral line.

Are children bad?

Are criminals innocent?

Perhaps there is an overlap between innocence and moral depravity. If there is then we need to examine this situation more carefully. We could be mistaken about our moral education methods.

Are children bad? — TheMadFool

Yes, they can be. The problem is that you are trying to make an unjustified generalization. "All children are innocent, and all criminals are guilty".

Yes, they can be. The problem is that you are trying to make an unjustified generalization. "All children are innocent, and all criminals are guilty". — Metaphysician Undercover

But I'm only doing that because punishment is a generalization. Also, what's wrong with the generalization? Bad, evil children are in the minority aren't they?

Are children bad? — TheMadFool

Children are the hardest population to work with because of underdeveloped social reasoning. They tend to be selfish little people. The parent and other adults have to instill some boundaries and values, though it doesn't have to be done in some draconian way. In effect, children come out looking like little criminals, and you have to curb these tendencies early enough that it becomes habit, and then it is just assimilated as part of their personality. Adults are supposed to have already been through this enculturation process. Thus, where a kid hits someone over some argument, it is frowned upon, and a consequence ensues by an authority figure. But an adult hits someone over an argument, it may be grounds for assault and battery.

Adults committing crimes are not innocent in that we attribute to them the ability to understand consequences. We discipline children to teach them what consequences are.

Yes, in theory ignorance of the law is not protection thereof. However, we do allow for extenuating circumstances. (The legal system is flawed, biased, and corrupt, so I'm talking ideally here.) If it's clear from someone's upbringing that they were never taught right and wrong, that gets taken into account. If we found a person raised by wolves and upin integration in society he committed a crime, the courts would likely be lenient.

Personally, I don't agree with punishment for either population, but I do think logical consequences need to be enforced. If you hurt people, you need to be kept away from people and rehabilitated. If you spend all your allowance on sweets, you'll miss going to the movies with your friends.

In the case of adults, it's for society's good that we need to take action.

In the case of children, it's for their own good. If they never learn the simple, easy consequences at home, when they grow up and make choices, they might make poor ones with worse, harsher consequences.

Of course, my position is to spare children the drudgeries and punishment of existence by not having them in the first place, but that is a completely separate question than how to raise them once they are born.

They tend to be selfish little people. — schopenhauer1

That is such an oversimplification.
They can be incredibly empathetic and even more so than adults.

They are people, and as such are complex individuals with unique ideas and tendencies.

That is such an oversimplification.
They can be incredibly empathetic and even more so than adults.

They are people, and as such are complex individuals with unique ideas and tendencies. — NKBJ

Granted. Children can be empathetic, but on the whole their tendencies tend to be on the "me, now" scale. Patience, self-control, etc. has to be taught over time. Kids whose tendencies weren't curbed and allowed to just manifest, for the most part, don't learn later either or have a much harder time at learning it, progressing into worse behavior over time.

Agreed. Though impatience is different than selfishness.

Selfish in thinking that the world revolves around their needs only. I guess egoistic maybe. Impatience is a large component but it is also simply not having the experience in the world, nor the synapse connections to posit a developed theory of mind (that other people have motives too and may also want stuff, etc. etc.).

Yes, in theory ignorance of the law is not protection thereof. However, we do allow for extenuating circumstances. (The legal system is flawed, biased, and corrupt, so I'm talking ideally here.) If it's clear from someone's upbringing that they were never taught right and wrong, that gets taken into account. If we found a person raised by wolves and upin integration in society he committed a crime, the courts would likely be lenient. — NKBJ

I think that this type of mitigation is actually very minor, and minimal. If you go to a foreign country, and break some laws because you were not brought up that way, I think you need some serious political influence to get favourable treatment. In some cases they might even set you up for harsher punishment as a deterrence to other foreigners being so stupid.

Do you have any sources for those claims, or are you just speculating?

It's hard to say for sure, but I think they seem selfish at times only because they are reliant on adults' lives revolving around them to some extent.

I did read though that around 6 months of age babies can follow adult gazes, which leads most psychologists to reason that at this point they definitely have some awareness of your awareness. And my own little one was giving kisses when someone was sad or hurt as early as 10 months. (Personal anecdote, I know, but I gotta brag.)

But, yeah, underdeveloped and inconsistent for sure.

Just speaking from experience.

Uh oh! We got an international criminal in our midst :razz:

I see what you mean but do you think it's sound reasoning to treat both innocent children and guilty criminals with the same ''medicine'' (punishment)?

Doesn't it look like children need a different method of moral guidance? Or, the other way round, do criminals need to treated in another way?

It seems paradoxical that we have the same recourse to polar opposite situations (innocence and guilt).

Children do not get punished because they are innocent, you would be punishing a kid for being guilty of something just like you would a criminal. Likewise, you would not punish an innocent adult either. You have missed a distinction between general instances and specific instances and conflated the two differently in your argument, as a result your logic skips a beat. There is no paradox.
Also, I think the reasons for punishment differ greatly between kids and adults, with kids its part of teaching them the rules and for criminals its about them breaking the rules having already known better.

Children do not get punished because they are innocent, you would be punishing a kid for being guilty of something just like you would a criminal. Likewise, you would not punish an innocent adult either. You have missed a distinction between general instances and specific instances and conflated the two differently in your argument, as a result your logic skips a beat. There is no paradox.
Also, I think the reasons for punishment differ greatly between kids and adults, with kids its part of teaching them the rules and for criminals its about them breaking the rules having already known better. — DingoJones

Well, if there's no paradox then there must be no difference between innocence and guilt as both are being dealt with in the same way via punishment. Do you agree?

All I mean to suggest is that we need a different mode of teaching morals to children. Either that or do something different to criminals. I prefer the former as I think punishing a criminal is the best and the worst option we have.

But, we do have a different mode of teaching morals to children. We don't hand out fines or throw them into jail. You are incorrectly assuming that "punishment" is entirely described as "negative consequence". Not all consequences are the same, nor do they follow the same logic. Again punitive justice is qualitatively different from rehabilitative justice.

Well, if there's no paradox then there must be no difference between innocence and guilt as both are being dealt with in the same way via punishment. Do you agree? — TheMadFool

No, We do not punish the innocent, there is no paradox.

No, We do not punish the innocent, there is no paradox. — DingoJones

Likewise Nature, just like Justice, is blind.

No one is innocent and no one is guilty but shit happens. Elephants and Orcas are born into the circus. Bulls go to slaughter. Both (the innocent and the guilty) can suffer the absurd outcomes of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, according to existential requirements of arbitrating apes.

But, we do have a different mode of teaching morals to children. We don't hand out fines or throw them into jail. You are incorrectly assuming that "punishment" is entirely described as "negative consequence". Not all consequences are the same, nor do they follow the same logic. Again punitive justice is qualitatively different from rehabilitative justice. — Echarmion

No, We do not punish the innocent, there is no paradox. — DingoJones

Yes. There's a difference of degrees. Mild punishment for children and relatively severe for criminals. The severity of the punishment distinguishes the innocent wrongdoer from the malicious criminal.

Perhaps if I talk about reward and personality it'll make better sense.

We reward the good and punish the bad.

We reward goodness more than we reward the bad.

We punish the bad more than we punish the good.

No person is either entirely good or entirely bad.

So, we need both punishment and reward, anf these should be graded accordingly, to deal with people, innocent, guilty and everyone in between.

Let's try looking at it from the point of view of authority. Here are the premises. We are all human beings alike, child and adult. There are standards which distinguish good and bad. There are people with authority to enforce the standards. Good may be rewarded, bad may be punished.

Do we agree that there is a difference of authority between the adults and the children? The law enforcement agency has authority over parents, while the parents have authority over the children. The parents are free to choose their standards of good and bad, and the method of enforcement, to the point that they do not step outside the law.

Notice that there is an element of freedom, which the parents have, to raise their children and manage their families in the way that the parents think will work the best for them. Some societies value freedom, and seek to increase individual freedoms in these family matters to maximize the individual's own power of choice.

You seem to be arguing that the freedom of parents to cooperate amongst themselves, and raise their children the way that they think is the best way, ought to be more strictly regulated by the authority of the laws. Is this what you are arguing?

You seem to be arguing that the freedom of parents to cooperate amongst themselves, and raise their children the way that they think is the best way, ought to be more strictly regulated by the authority of the laws. Is this what you are arguing? — Metaphysician Undercover

Not really. I was just surprised to find out that there is, despite creativity being our forte, only one method, punishment, that we employ to guide people onto the right moral path.

Of course we have a reward system in place to but punishment is more effective in imparting moral lessons. Think of it. Quite odd isn't it that there's no reward for good behavior in terms of a legal sense. Yes, you get recognition, admiration, even fame, like Mother Teresa or Bill Gates, but we're under no legal obligation to praise, admire or the like such people.

If it was that people were moved more by reward than punishment it would have been the law that we should do good and praise, admire, respect the good.

Therefore, it's punishment that works better in moral education.

If so, why are innocent children and criminal adults ''educated'' in the same way through punishment? They're on the opposite ends of the spectrum of morality. It's like both God and the Devil were in hell. We forgot heaven!