Single Idea 23821

[catalogued under 25. Social Practice / D. Justice / 3. Punishment / d. Reform of offenders]

Full Idea

The human soul needs punishment and honour. A committer of crime has become exiled from good, and needs to be reintegrated with it through suffering. This aims to bring the soul to recognise freely some day that its infliction was just.

Gist of Idea

Crime should be punished, to bring the perpetrator freely back to morality

Source

Simone Weil (Draft Statement of Human Obligations [1943], p.229)

Book Reference

Weil,Simone: 'An Anthology' [Penguin 1986], p.229


A Reaction

The Scanlon contractualist approach to punishment - that the victim of it accepts its justice. Given her saintly character, Simone had a very tough view of this issue.