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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 is 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 Ref
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.
| 23814 | Every human yearns for an unattainable transcendent good [Weil] |
| 23815 | We cannot equally respect what is unequal, so equal respect needs a shared ground [Weil] |
| 23816 | Attention to a transcendent reality motivates a duty to foster the good of humanity [Weil] |
| 23817 | We need both equality (to attend to human needs) and hierarchy (as a scale of responsibilities) [Weil] |
| 23819 | Deliberate public lying should be punished [Weil] |
| 23818 | We have liberty in the space between nature and accepted authority [Weil] |
| 23821 | Crime should be punished, to bring the perpetrator freely back to morality [Weil] |
| 23823 | Life needs risks to avoid sickly boredom [Weil] |
| 23820 | People need personal and collective property, and a social class lacking property is shameful [Weil] |
| 23822 | We all need to partipate in public tasks, and take some initiative [Weil] |
| 23824 | Where human needs are satisfied we find happiness, friendship and beauty [Weil] |