Spanking has been all but banished from modern parenting. What was once seen as a normal act of discipline is now condemned as violence or psychological harm. Over in the United Kingdom — once considered a bastion of common sense and personal freedom — campaigns to outlaw all corporal punishment are gaining momentum. We are told that spanking “teaches violence,” that it “damages trust,” or that it “doesn’t work.” Study after study, it seems, comes stamped with the same message: spanking is not only ineffective but immoral, a relic of an outdated era.
Yet, the evidence that spanking is harmful is far weaker than most think. A 2024 meta-analysis published in Marriage & Family Review analyzed existing research on spanking and found that “oft-reported harmful-looking outcomes of customary physical punishment … are likely due to residual confounding.” Many studies claiming supposed harm failed to distinguish between calm, measured spanking and abusive hitting. When done within structure and restraint, spanking can increase short-term compliance and reinforce parental authority.
In particular, the authors found that “back-up spanking,” where two swats are used after other forms of discipline fail, showed that children complied more quickly and consistently than those disciplined only with non-physical methods. The effect was most notable among highly defiant children. This suggests that spanking can interrupt entrenched disobedience and reinforce legitimate parental authority.
But the legitimacy of spanking does not depend on its statistical effects. Even if spanking had no measurable benefit, its moral legitimacy would remain. That’s because most arguments against spanking rely on a faulty conception of punishment.
The Basis of Punishment
There are two very different ways to think about punishment in general. The “modern” view, which is rooted in utilitarian thinking, is forward-looking. It sees discipline as a tool for producing desirable effects — obedience, deterrence, or social harmony. By contrast, the traditional view of punishment is backward-looking. It begins with an act of wrongdoing itself and holds that punishment is justified because it answers that wrong and restores order. On this view, the purpose of punishment is to impose on the wrongdoer a deprivation that is proportionate to his wrongdoing.
We can see the difference clearly in how we think about crime. A judge who fines a thief does not do so to improve his mood or social adjustment but because stealing deserves a penalty. The punishment may also happen to deter others or cause the thief to rethink his actions, but that is not what makes it right. Its justice comes from addressing what has already been done, not from what it might accomplish later.
From this we see that punishment, rightly understood, must be retributive. Its purpose is to address a moral wrong with a proportionate response. When someone breaks a rule, they disrupt social order by claiming for themselves a freedom that does not belong to them. Punishment restores order by imposing a corresponding deprivation on the wrongdoer. This is not the same thing as revenge, which seeks harm out of anger or resentment. Retribution is measured, principled, and aims to restore justice rather than to satisfy emotion.
Describing punishment in this way might sound harsh to modern ears, especially when applied to children. However, it simply means recognizing that wrongdoing is real and must be answered. Parents who take away privileges, assign time-outs, or remove toys already act on this principle. They impose a loss because a wrong has been done. Even the gentlest form of discipline presupposes that wrongdoing deserves a response. Spanking simply makes that moral reality visible in a way that our therapeutic culture finds uncomfortable.
If punishment were only about deterrence, compliance, or behavior management, then its justification would rest entirely on outcomes rather than actual wrongdoing. But in that case, there would be no moral barrier to punishing the innocent. We could punish a well-behaved child to frighten his siblings into obedience, or to set an example for others. Yet every parent knows this would be wrong. We punish only the child who disobeyed because punishment is tethered to actual wrongdoing. And the reason punishment is tethered to wrongdoing is because it is fundamentally retributive.
This truth does not change simply because the wrongdoer is young. The same moral logic that governs justice in the wider world also applies within the home. Households are miniature societies. When a child disobeys, the order of the household is disturbed, and it falls to the parents to restore it. This is where spanking comes in.
The Case for Spanking
The moral case for spanking is premised on a simple truth: punishment is meant to answer wrongdoing. When a child knowingly disobeys, parents face a moral obligation to respond. Spanking, when measured and restrained, can fulfill that purpose. A calm, measured spanking affirms that moral boundaries are real, that actions have consequences, and that the world isn’t ordered around one’s feelings. Physical punishment impresses the punishment in a way the child cannot ignore or mistake. As it is sometimes said, pain is a universal language.
Indeed, punishment is not supposed to feel good. It must be unwanted or painful, precisely because its very purpose is to mark wrongdoing as something that carries a cost. Physical pain provides a clear moral signal that a boundary has been crossed and that order must be restored.
A proper spanking has nothing to do with anger or domination. It is an act of discipline rooted in the belief that children, despite their immaturity, can understand right and wrong. Anyone who is a parent to a toddler knows this. A two-year-old who hides the cookie he wasn’t supposed to take knows perfectly well that he’s done wrong. He may not grasp Kant’s categorical imperative or Nozick’s conception of distributive justice, but he understands authority, obligation, and guilt.
Moral agency does not require the reflective capacities of an adult. It begins simply with the basic ability to understand that one ought to do certain things and refrain from others. Children clearly have this ability. They know what it means to obey, to lie, to take what isn’t theirs, and to feel guilt when caught. While they lack the full deliberative and rational powers of adults, they still act within the sphere of moral responsibility appropriate to their stage of development.
Recognizing a child’s moral agency also means respecting it. Discipline must appeal to that moral understanding, not crush it. Spanking done in anger or humiliation is not discipline but abuse. It punishes without justice and harms without teaching. The difference lies in intent and restraint. Proper discipline is measured, brief, and followed by reconciliation so that the child learns that punishment corrects the wrong. The goal is always restoration of order and relationship, never the satisfaction of rage.
The point isn’t that spanking is mandatory, but that it can be a legitimate way to correct wrongdoing when done calmly and fairly. Some children respond to it, others don’t. What matters is that parents exercise authority with justice and self-control, not that they all use the same method. Spanking is just one possible expression of discipline.
Why Arguments Against Spanking Fail
Statistical objections to spanking fail because they start from the wrong philosophical foundation. They treat discipline as a social experiment whose legitimacy depends on measurable outcomes. But punishment is not justified by data. Rather, it arises from individual moral accountability. No amount of evidence about side effects or correlations can overturn the moral fact that wrongdoing deserves a proportionate response. The worth of spanking, like any punishment, rests on whether it answers the wrong rightly, not on whether it optimizes behavior in a study.
Punishment is not therapy, and its legitimacy does not hinge on comfort or efficiency. To reject punishment because it sometimes hurts is to confuse kindness with goodness.
Why Spanking Still Matters
The debate over spanking is really a debate over the meaning of punishment itself. If punishment is just a tool for producing good results, then spanking will always look crude or outdated. But if punishment is a matter of giving wrongdoing its due then a measured spanking can be morally appropriate. The modern discomfort with spanking is less about harm to children than about our unwillingness to accept that wrongdoing sometimes deserves pain.
When done rightly, spanking functions as a small act of realism in an age allergic to consequences. It also teaches the child a painful lesson about reality: justice is not therapy, and love sometimes hurts.
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