The Role of Reward and Punishment in Society
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In our society these days it is considered wrong to hit a child. Parents, teachers and educators are taught not to use physical force against children. Why is that?

As we grow up we constantly learn. We learn new skills, we learn proper behavior, and we learn to adopt the right perspective and attitude towards events in our lives. This extensive learning process, which is more important to children than to adults must be goaded. This means that children will not fully exploit their learning potential on their own; we must guide them through the process and sometimes do something to prod them back on the right course. Whatever action we take, we do so for the benefit of the children and insofar as the child is unhappy and disapproving of our action, it is their shortsightedness that leads them to believe that we are acting against their interests. When they grow up, they will realize that our actions during their childhood turned out to have been constructive. If they never come to that realization, then our actions turn out not to have had the proper effect because if the child never comes to consider our action beneficial to them then it is not beneficial to them.

For example: A gold-rusher in 1847 is leaving his relatively secure city life behind and is embarking on the Oregon trail with little provisions. He endures all the hardships of the journey west with the hopes of finding gold and getting rich quickly. If he finds gold and gets rich, then the hardship was all worthwhile; if he doesn't find gold and he doesn't get rich, then the journey was not worthwhile regardless of how we as historians or observers view it. Even if we now say that his journey has turned out to be a benefit to society in general, it is abundantly clear that it was no benefit to the person undergoing the hardships back then unless he found gold and if he could "reverse" his westward journey he would. Likewise, a child must himself come to realize when he grows up that his early "hardships" in the form of punishments and goading have turned out to be beneficial. Otherwise, those action are not beneficial to him regardless of what we think (from an ideal point of view).

Some examples where punishment is clearly wrong according to these criteria.

* The child is not smart enough to learn the desired behavior. Since he won't change anyway, the action turns out to have been in vain. If a person does not recognize the value of gold then you cannot convince him to make the journey westward and the journey cannot possibly be beneficial to him.

* The child could learn the very same behavior through more benign means. Why endure a painful westward journey to find gold if you can find gold in your backyard?

* The child remains resentful about his adverse circumstances for an extended period of time. The gold-rusher expects to get rich quickly. If he doesn't see the benefits soon enough, then it's not worth it even if the benefits materialize eventually (there's only so much that he's willing to sacrifice for the gold).

Remember, punishment is an artificial way of teaching. The natural way of teaching is simply to present the benefits associated with the desired behavior. There's nothing wrong with utilizing this artificial method of teaching as long as it meets the aforementioned criteria: the child is learning in the process, there is no easier way of doing it and the child does not consider it punishment for very long.