By Ole Martin Moen & Aksel Braanen Sterri

Corporal punishment is punishment by means of infliction of bodily pain. In this chapter we discuss the ethical permissibility of corporal punishment, focusing on the method of judicial caning as this is carried out in Singapore. We compare the overall effects of this type of corporal punishment to incarceration in three domains: the welfare of individual convicts (Section 1), fairness between different categories of convicts (Section 2), and the welfare of society at large (Section 3). We conclude that although there are downsides to corporal punishment that should be taken very seriously, this method of punishment also has a number of upsides. We are mistaken, moreover, if we assume that it is more humane to inflict psychological pain over long stretches of time (as in the case of incarceration) than to inflict intense bodily pain over a very short period of time (as in the case of corporal punishment).

The Oxford Handbook of the Philosophy of Punishment, 2024, 25p.