Corporal punishment causes long-term psychological harm

The argument

The objection here is not that corporal punishment hurts at the moment it is administered but that the harm outlasts the event by decades. Research indicates that people who have been subjected to corporal punishment are more likely to suffer from anxiety disorders, depression and addiction problems. These are not transient reactions. Such mental disorders often stay with the afflicted for their entire lives, which means the cost of the punishment is still being paid long after the behaviour it was meant to correct has been forgotten by everyone involved. That duration is what generates the proportionality objection. Punishment is normally justified by a rough correspondence between what was done and what follows from it: a minor transgression warrants a minor consequence, and a consequence that vastly exceeds the offence is not discipline but something else. Corporal punishment cannot be calibrated in that way, because the lasting psychological effect does not scale with the seriousness of the infraction. The blow is proportionate to the adult's judgement in the moment; the anxiety disorder that may follow is not proportionate to anything. The example makes the mismatch plain. If a child is beaten for swearing, the punishment can cause lifelong damage. Swearing is a trivial transgression, corrected in most households by a word, while lifelong damage is among the most severe outcomes any disciplinary measure could produce. No account of fair punishment can reconcile the two, and the person imposing it has no way of knowing in advance which children will carry the consequence and which will not. Because corporal punishment causes long-term psychological harm that is rarely proportionate to the transgression it answers, proponents argue, it is bad.

Context

Corporal punishments cause mental scars that never heal. This can affect a person for life: making the punishment disproportionate to the original transgression.

Premises

Counter-arguments

The argument that the punishment needs to fit the crime is not necessarily an argument against corporal punishment. Prisons also contribute to mental disorders, including depression, yet we accept this punishment as necessary for a number of crimes and digressions. Just because corporal punishment contributes to mental illness does not mean it should be prohibited; it just means that it should perhaps be reserved for more serious digressions.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P3] It depends on the crime. There are plenty of crimes where corporal punishment, even with its mental illness risks, does fit the crime. [Rejecting P4] Prison also leads to mental health problems but we accept this as an acceptable form of punishment.