This is mostly a history of punishment in western society. There’s nothing wrong with that; it’s interesting. It answers the question in the title mostly by asking what, from today’s perspective, are the rational uses of punishment?

But it doesn’t get much at why we do this in the first place. Why do adults punish children? Why do so many people belong to religions with strict and explicit punishment dogmas (e.g., going to hell for offending a higher power). It doesn’t provide a rhetorical or moral framework for differentiating punishment from abuse or torture. I think these are more interesting questions, although perhaps not fair to expect from a historian.

Clearly punishment is satisfying to us. Revenge stories are as old as literature, and widely celebrated. I think that in a large society it’s an obsolete and harmful impulse. The article references Plato’s views: “Plato discussed punishment in terms of learning virtue and deterring future acts rather than just in terms of taking vengeance for the past, which he dismissed as a primitive, animalistic motive.”

It’s interesting to me how long it takes for views like this to take hold and create a more just society, and how easy it is for cultures to backslide. Revenge is a powerful impulse.