ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the benefits, costs, advantages and disadvantages of corporal punishment. It considers the case for corporal punishment put forward by its philosophical defenders, who claim for it several benefits and advantages. The chapters enumerate the costs of corporal punishment and its disadvantages compared to other types of punishment. It then shows that its advantages are insubstantial while its costs are serious. The chapter explains that the case for corporal punishment is unsuccessful since its defenders have failed to demonstrate that its benefits outweigh its costs or that it brings about more benefits than less costly alternative punishments. Nevertheless, retributivism cannot for at least three reasons vindicate the corporal punishment of children. The chapter assess the force of the argument that corporal punishment is morally permissible in virtue of its having greater obedience-eliciting efficacy than available, alternative sanctions and that resort to it may be necessary to make persistently disobedient children yield to the authority of care-givers.
