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Optimizing the social utility of judicial punishment: An evolutionary biology and neuroscience perspective
Punishment as a response to impairment of individual or group welfare may be found not only among humans but also among a wide range of social animals. In some cases, acts of punishment serve to increase social cooperation among conspecifics. Such phenomena motivate the search for the biological fou...
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
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Frontiers Media S.A.
2022
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Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9511021/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36171873 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2022.967090 |
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author | Levy, Daniel A. |
author_facet | Levy, Daniel A. |
author_sort | Levy, Daniel A. |
collection | PubMed |
description | Punishment as a response to impairment of individual or group welfare may be found not only among humans but also among a wide range of social animals. In some cases, acts of punishment serve to increase social cooperation among conspecifics. Such phenomena motivate the search for the biological foundations of punishment among humans. Of special interest are cases of pro-social punishment of individuals harming others. Behavioral studies have shown that in economic games people punish exploiters even at a cost to their own welfare. Additionally, neuroimaging studies have reported activity during the planning of such punishment in brain areas involved in the anticipation of reward. Such findings hint that there is an evolutionarily honed basic drive to punish social offenders. I argue that the transfer of punishment authority from the individual to the group requires that social offenders be punished as a public good, even if such punishment is not effective as retribution or deterrent. Furthermore, the social need for punishment of offenders has implications for alternatives to incarceration, publicity of punishment, and judicial structure. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-9511021 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2022 |
publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-95110212022-09-27 Optimizing the social utility of judicial punishment: An evolutionary biology and neuroscience perspective Levy, Daniel A. Front Hum Neurosci Human Neuroscience Punishment as a response to impairment of individual or group welfare may be found not only among humans but also among a wide range of social animals. In some cases, acts of punishment serve to increase social cooperation among conspecifics. Such phenomena motivate the search for the biological foundations of punishment among humans. Of special interest are cases of pro-social punishment of individuals harming others. Behavioral studies have shown that in economic games people punish exploiters even at a cost to their own welfare. Additionally, neuroimaging studies have reported activity during the planning of such punishment in brain areas involved in the anticipation of reward. Such findings hint that there is an evolutionarily honed basic drive to punish social offenders. I argue that the transfer of punishment authority from the individual to the group requires that social offenders be punished as a public good, even if such punishment is not effective as retribution or deterrent. Furthermore, the social need for punishment of offenders has implications for alternatives to incarceration, publicity of punishment, and judicial structure. Frontiers Media S.A. 2022-09-12 /pmc/articles/PMC9511021/ /pubmed/36171873 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2022.967090 Text en Copyright © 2022 Levy. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. |
spellingShingle | Human Neuroscience Levy, Daniel A. Optimizing the social utility of judicial punishment: An evolutionary biology and neuroscience perspective |
title | Optimizing the social utility of judicial punishment: An evolutionary biology and neuroscience perspective |
title_full | Optimizing the social utility of judicial punishment: An evolutionary biology and neuroscience perspective |
title_fullStr | Optimizing the social utility of judicial punishment: An evolutionary biology and neuroscience perspective |
title_full_unstemmed | Optimizing the social utility of judicial punishment: An evolutionary biology and neuroscience perspective |
title_short | Optimizing the social utility of judicial punishment: An evolutionary biology and neuroscience perspective |
title_sort | optimizing the social utility of judicial punishment: an evolutionary biology and neuroscience perspective |
topic | Human Neuroscience |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9511021/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36171873 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2022.967090 |
work_keys_str_mv | AT levydaniela optimizingthesocialutilityofjudicialpunishmentanevolutionarybiologyandneuroscienceperspective |