Should corporal punishment be allowed?

Corporal violence is never administered evenhandedly

Question: Should corporal punishment be allowed?
Position‹2 of 3›: No, corporal punishment is bad
Argument‹3 of 6›: Corporal violence is never administered evenhandedly

A punishment must be immune from societal influences and be administered evenhandedly.

The argument

This argument objects to corporal punishment on grounds of administration rather than of severity. Its claim is that the practice cannot in fact be applied evenly, and that a punishment which cannot be applied evenly should not be applied at all. The unevenness is traced to norms rather than to rules. Societal and cultural expectations around gender shape how much physical punishment is considered appropriate for whom, with the result that boys are always on the receiving end of harsher corporal punishments than girls. The disparity does not arise from any written provision specifying different treatment; it arises from the discretion of whoever administers the punishment, exercised against a background of assumptions about toughness and tolerance. That is precisely why it is intractable. A rule can be amended, but the expectations that govern how a physical penalty is delivered operate beneath the rule and persist regardless of what the rule says. From there the argument generalises into a test for any punishment system: if it cannot be administered evenly across all demographics, it should not be used. The reason offered is not only fairness to the individual punished but the standing of the system itself. Where a punishment method does not fall on all offenders equally, the public can see that the penalty attaching to an offence depends on who committed it. Confidence in the legal system rests on the expectation that like cases are treated alike, so a visibly unequal penalty erodes trust and undermines the rules-based order that gives punishment its authority in the first place. Because corporal punishment is never administered evenhandedly and cannot be made so, the conclusion follows that it is bad and should not be used.

Context

A legal system can only be effective when the public trusts the system to administer punishment evenhandedly. Corporal punishment is not administered evenhandedly due to societal influences. Therefore, corporal punishment leads to reduced public trust in the legal system.

Premises

[P1]Because of gendered societal and cultural norms, boys consistently receive harsher corporal punishments, so the practice is never applied evenly across all demographics. [P2] A punishment method that cannot be administered evenly erodes public trust in the legal system and undermines the rules-based order. [C] Because corporal violence is never administered evenhandedly, corporal punishment is bad.

Counter-arguments

Corporal punishment is meted out evenly. A study in the US found that 67% of mothers and 68% of fathers slapped or spanked their children as a punishment and there was no apparent gender difference between boys and girls.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P2] Corporal punishment can be administered evenhandedly.