"The laws in question can, therefore, only be justified by the theory of vindictive punishment, which holds that certain sins, though they may not injure anyone except the sinner, are so heinous as to make it our duty to inflict pain upon the delinquent. This point of view, under the influence of Benthamism, lost its hold during the nineteenth century. But in recent years, with the general decay of Liberalism, it has regained lost ground, and has begun to threaten a new tyranny as oppressive as any in the Middle Ages." | by: | Bertrand Russell
[Bertrand Arthur William Russell] (1872-1970) Philosopher, educator |
Source: | The Recrudescence of Puritanism, in Sceptical Essays, 1928
http://www.panarchy.org/russell/puritanism.html |
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