Access the full text.
Sign up today, get DeepDyve free for 14 days.
References for this paper are not available at this time. We will be adding them shortly, thank you for your patience.
POLIS The Journal of the Society for Greek Political Thought www.imprint-academic.com/polis R. F. Stalley Introduction In the Gorgias Socrates links his central claim that it is better to suffer acts of injustice than to do them (472e475e) to the equally surprising claim that it is better for us if we are punished for our misdeeds than if we go unpunished (475e477e).1 He supports this latter claim by arguing that, just as we take the sick person to the doctor to be cured of his illness, so we take the wicked person to the judge to be cured of his wickedness (477e479c).2 Punishment is thus seen as a means of curing the criminal in much the same way that medical treatment cures the sick. This account offers what is, in many ways, an attractive solution to the problem of punishment, but it also gives rise to some very obvious difficulties: a) It seems to fly in the face of obvious fact. It looks fairly clear that punishments, at least as applied in existing societies, do not `cure' the criminals on whom they are inflicted. Indeed it is sometimes said that punishment tends to intensify the criminal's resentment against society
Polis: The Journal for Ancient Greek Political Thought – Brill
Published: Jan 1, 1999
Read and print from thousands of top scholarly journals.
Already have an account? Log in
Bookmark this article. You can see your Bookmarks on your DeepDyve Library.
To save an article, log in first, or sign up for a DeepDyve account if you don’t already have one.
Copy and paste the desired citation format or use the link below to download a file formatted for EndNote
Access the full text.
Sign up today, get DeepDyve free for 14 days.
All DeepDyve websites use cookies to improve your online experience. They were placed on your computer when you launched this website. You can change your cookie settings through your browser.