In preparation for a debate on spanking, philosopher Stefan Molyneux focuses on the complex and often contentious issue of spanking as a form of disciplinary action for children. Stefan dives right into the moral and philosophical implications surrounding the use of physical punishment in child-rearing. He reflects on his own experiences and observations, setting the stage for a thorough examination of why this practice, although widely accepted, is fundamentally problematic from a moral standpoint.
He constructs a case against spanking by highlighting the inherent power dynamics between adults and children. He argues that society generally dictates that those who wield more power—whether due to size, strength, or authority—bear a greater moral responsibility not to harm those who are weaker or more vulnerable. The inconsistency in societal rules becomes apparent when considering the normalization of spanking. While society frowns upon aggression from stronger individuals, particularly in adult relationships or the workplace, there appears to be an allowance for parents to hit their children, even if the latter lack the cognitive capacity to understand or reason about the punishment.
Through carefully crafted arguments, Stefan questions the logic behind punishing children with physical force because they supposedly cannot reason. The potential for moral inconsistencies is examined, especially when considering individuals with intellectual disabilities or the elderly. The idea of moral universality is introduced, challenging the listener to consider whether it is justifiable to hit anyone incapable of reason. This line of thinking invites contemplation on the cultural and historical acceptance of spanking while recognizing the need for a universal moral code that protects the vulnerable rather than victimizes them.
Stefan further explores the implications of using violence—specifically, whether it is ethical to resort to physical punishment when non-violent alternatives exist. He emphasizes that effective parenting should incorporate peaceful conflict resolution methods. Citing various studies, he demonstrates that children raised without physical punishment often display better emotional regulation, fewer behavioral issues, and a deeper understanding of moral concepts compared to those who are spanked. Through a series of analogies, such as comparing spanking to unnecessary medical procedures, he argues that teaching and guiding children should not involve harm, echoing a broader philosophical stance on the role of violence in resolving disputes.
Stefan discusses childhood behavior and the historical context of punishment. He challenges the notion that children are inherently "evil" and require physical correction, proposing instead that children are naturally inclined toward empathy and moral reasoning, as shown through developmental studies. This insight leads to a comprehensive critique of the historical rationale behind spanking and its continued acceptance in various cultural and religious contexts, particularly emphasizing a need for societal evolution in understanding child development and ethical parenting practices.
Stefan presents a preparation for the upcoming debate and a rich exploration of the ethical considerations surrounding physical punishment. He advocates for a shift in understanding—from viewing spanking as a permissible disciplinary practice to recognizing it as a violation of children's rights and dignity. He concludes by asserting a vision for a future free from violence against children, where all members of society—especially the most vulnerable—are granted the same moral protections, leading to a healthier, more compassionate world.
0:31 - The Issue of Spanking
3:48 - Moral Reasoning and Children
5:48 - Hitting vs. Restraining
13:04 - Medical Interventions and Discipline
15:51 - Peaceful Alternatives to Violence
18:51 - The Concept of Original Sin
21:53 - Moral Development in Children
26:18 - The Impact of Upbringing on Parenting
[0:00] All right, so this is a little bit of debate prep.
[0:04] Debate prep. I have a debate tomorrow at 6 p.m. Eastern Standard. Well, I guess this will be in the past because I'm not going to put this out before the debate, but a little bit of debate prep. Oh, it's been a while since I've done a sort of live debate.
[0:20] So I'm going to put this forward as prep, and you can hear the prep after the fact. This is my sound check. It'll be played after the concert. All right.
[0:31] So, spanking, of course, is the use of physical force to inflict pain to change a child's behavior, I guess, ideally with the goal of changing the child's behavior, although, of course, spanking occurs in other contexts out of frustration, anger, impatience, and so on. So, it is a glaring exception to the general rules of society. And in fact, it is a complete reversal of the general rules in society. Now, that is not necessarily making it false. We don't allow children to sign contracts, so we don't allow children to drive cars, we don't allow them to vote. So, just because we have opposite rules for children or restrictive rules for children doesn't make them automatically wrong. However, none of the categories make any sense regarding hitting. So, for instance, we generally consider it bad when a man hits a woman because, or worse than the reverse, because a man is usually bigger and stronger than a woman.
[1:40] We generally don't like it when a bigger child bullies a smaller child because of the size and strength disparity. So, of course, we generally say that people who are bigger and stronger have a special consideration to not bully others. So, for instance, if our child is very weak and in a wheelchair, we generally don't have to give them a lot of lectures on bullying, whereas if our child is some really fast-developing, you know, six-foot-tall-by-grade-six kind of kid, we might be a little bit more concerned about bullying. So, in general, we say the bigger and stronger you are, the more requirement you have to be peaceful and to not use violence.
[2:31] We also generally say that where there is a power disparity, then violations of moral codes are even worse. So this is why, in general, a boss is not allowed to date his immediate employee, because the power disparity is too great. In other words, if your boss asks you out and you say no, is that going to harm your career because he might misuse his power and so on? Generally, if a cop commits a crime, we view that as worse than an average citizen committing a crime because the cop has all the power of the state behind him. And so the more powerful you are, the higher your moral requirements, not the lower. So the fact that parents are larger, stronger, more powerful, and have infinitely more legal, moral, and economic strength and power and independence should raise...
[3:27] Their moral standards, not collapse them completely. It would be like saying, well, if you're a small kid, bullying is really bad and wrong. But if you're a big kid, bullying is really good and great. Well, we wouldn't say that in general, that wouldn't make any sense. But we say it with regards to hitting children.
[3:48] Now, of course, the other reason why people say you have to hit children is because children don't reason. You can't reason with a child. Well, how do we abstract that moral rule and make it universal? Because moral rules have to be universal, otherwise they're exploitation and a justification for immorality. If we say only redheads can steal, then that's not a moral rule. That's just permission for redheads to achieve their final form of demonic pilfering.
[4:22] So, if we say, well, you can hit children because children can't reason, or let's say won't reason, then we have a problem. Is the moral rule that we can hit people who are incapable of reason? All right? Well, if that is the moral rule, we have a challenge, which is, can we then hit people who suffer from mental retardation? Can we hit people who suffer from Alzheimer's? Can we hit people who have other sorts of degenerative brain disorders? Can we hit seniors who are notoriously forgetful? There's even a phrase for it called having a senior moment where you can't remember where your keys are, or you drive forward when you think you've got the car in reverse, or vice versa. Can we hit people who are incapable of...
[5:13] Reasoning? No. In fact, in most common law systems, you have higher penalties for hitting the disabled rather than you have permission to hit the disabled. So, it's a reversal of the more strength means more moral responsibility. We actually lower it considerably with children. We create a special category called you can hit people who are incapable of
[5:41] reason, and that's considered good with children but would be egregious in any other situation. For instance, if you have your lovely, wonderful mother or grandmother is in an elder home, right? An elder care home, an old age home and you arrive and she tells you that the orderly hit her because she forgot to clean up after lunch. and she's crying.
[6:14] Wouldn't you be appalled at that? But why? But why? I mean, that's a really important question. Why would you be appalled? And let's say that your elderly mother was forgetful or had some sort of brain issues and so on, or was just old. I mean, it happens, right? Why would you be appalled? Say, ah, well, you know, but only family members can hit. Well, know, in loco parentis is a Latin for acting in the guise of parents. I myself was hit by a headmaster who was not my parent. And of course, in I think 18 American states, teachers can hit children. So if teachers can hit children, why wouldn't orderlies be able to hit elderly grandmothers for being forgetful? Well, we'd say, well, you can't hit them just because they forgot something. You can't hit them just because they were acting badly. You can't hit them just because they soiled their diapers. You can't hit them, even if they are, as a result of their Alzheimer's or whatever it was, that, let's say, that they're even aggressive.
[7:17] And yell at or hit other people in the old age home? Would we say, well, yes, then you must be able to hit them in order to correct their behavior because they can't be reasoned with? Well, we would consider that appalling. But why? Why would we consider that appalling?
[7:35] Every single standard that we say makes it good to hit children somehow makes it evil to hit people who aren't children. Well, that's no good. That doesn't make any sense. We say, well, if you have more strength and size and power, you have higher moral standards, not lower. And if somebody who is abled hits somebody who's disabled, we consider that even more egregious than less. Hmm. Now, let's say that somebody can reason but doesn't reason. Well, if me, as the old saying from Hamlet goes, treat each man according to his desserts, none shall escape the whipping. Can you say that you have always acted with perfect rationality in this life? I know I can't, and I think it would be an inhuman and ridiculous claim to say that you and I have always acted with perfect rationality in this life. The other day, I got all huffy about a caller for putting forward some insults after right, called his hobby gay and retarded. That was hypocritical. Should I be beaten for that? I was in the wrong.
[8:49] So if somebody cannot reason, does it make sense to hit them for not being rational? If somebody can reason, but chooses not to reason, can we hit them? No. No. No. So, the use of violence is sharply curtailed and proscribed, curtailed and proscribed, not prescribed, it's kind of an important difference, in Western civilization. We curtail reason, violence. And why do we curtail it? Well, because we don't want to live in a violent society. So, in general, under common law, we allow violence only in very, very specific and immediate circumstances. So, we say that violence is only justifiable in an immediate moment of self-defense when you are facing grievous bodily harm or death. That you can use violence up to and including lethal violence in situations of lethal or imminent lethal threat or imminent bodily harm. Grievous bodily harm, not just like a slap.
[10:03] So, you can't shoot someone for spitting on you, but it is interesting that although spitting on you is almost certain to cause no harm whatsoever, we still consider it assault and punish people with a year or more, potentially in jail. So, it's really, really bad and wrong, you see, to spit on people, which causes them almost certainly no bodily harm. But it is good to hit children. And euphemism aside, it doesn't matter. It's still hitting.
[10:37] Have to invent new words because we're not proud of what we do. So we only allow for self-defense in very specific situations of immediate and intense danger, again, of death or grievous bodily harm, and only then to the proportion to which you eliminate the threat, right? So if somebody is about to hit you and you pull out a gun and then they start running away, you cannot shoot them because the threat has been neutralized through the pulling out of the gun. So we do not allow violence, except in very specific circumstances, almost none of which apply to raising children. A toddler can not really inflict death or grievous bodily harm on you, except if you count as grievous bodily harm stepping on Lego bits, but a toddler cannot inflict deadly violence upon you, and therefore the idea that you are striking the toddler in self-defense is invalid.
[11:49] Now, arguments can be made such as, what about grabbing a child who's about to run onto the street? Well, let's look at that one and ask ourself, is it universalized? And the answer is, yeah, it is. So, if you see a blind man with his headphones on about to wander into traffic and you grab him to restrain him, then that would not be assault.
[12:19] Now, if you then slap him repeatedly to train him not to walk into traffic, that would be assault. But you can certainly use force, in a sense, to prevent imminent harm from somebody who's una... So if your child is about to stick a fork into an electrical socket, not knowing the consequences, of course, which you should have trained him about, but let's just say there's some circumstance in which there's not a deficiency on your part, but impulsivity on the child's part, then yeah, you can absolutely grab the fork and take it away and so on. But that is not the same as hitting. Restraint is not the same as hitting.
[12:54] So, again, these are universalized, and it is not the case that it is specific to childhood. A more apt analogy might be something like inoculations. So, a child cannot understand the reason for inoculations, vaccinations, but you may choose to vaccinate your child nonetheless. That is the infliction of harm upon the child in order to help the child's health down the road.
[13:31] And that is not equivalent to spanking because the introduction of medicine or medical procedures that is unpleasant to the child is not the same as initiating the use of force against the child to correct his or her behavior. If your child gets a bad cut, then your child may need stitches, and the stitches will be unpleasant and painful for the child. But that is not the same as you initiating the use of force against your child in order to correct his or her behavior. Now, the question is also, if there is a peaceful alternative...
[14:16] To a conflict, surely we should take the peaceful alternative rather than the coercive alternative, even if the coercive alternative is legal. In other words, if you want to teach your child about right and wrong, good and bad, for choose immorality, good behavior, politeness, reasonableness, and so on, diplomacy, which these are all good things to teach our children and children in general, in general, we would prefer the more peaceful alternative to a potentially violent situation. So, if somebody is beginning to threaten us in some public place, if we have the option to talk our way out of the threat, I think most people would say that is a better option than assaulting him. And certainly the law would, if somebody is just starting to become, like, threatening, like, yeah, you better watch your tone or something like that, right? Like not a direct threat, like I'm going to kill you, but you know, you better think about your next words very, very carefully, or you better watch it, or something like that. And then we just start pounding him, right? On the face or body or something like that. We assault him. I think most people would say that de-escalation and not responding to verbal aggression with physical force is better.
[15:40] If we could teach someone a lesson without using violence, I think most people would say that is preferable to teaching a lesson with violence.
[15:51] Now, let's go one step further. If it was also true that not only is it better if you can teach the same lesson without using violence, but you can teach the lesson better without using violence, well, then we would have an open and shut case.
[16:12] In general, we would prefer that a lesson be taught or a situation be de-escalated without using violence. But if the situation can be de-escalated and the lesson can be taught far better without using violence, then violence, even as a utilitarian justification, would cease to be justified at all. So if you want to teach your children emotional self-regulation, which we do, if you want to teach your children right from wrong, which we do, if you want to teach your children good from evil, which we do, if nonviolence teaches children, better than violence, in other words, they learn self-regulation and morality better through peace and reason rather than threats and violence, then the last justification for hitting children, falls away utterly. If you have a sore throat, you might get some antibiotics. You don't get a tracheotomy. A tracheotomy for a sore throat would be a salt.
[17:22] Antibiotics are better at curing a sore throat than a tracheotomy. So, I mean, the studies are very clear on this. There's no ambiguity that parents who are trained at reasoning with their children can abandon spanking over 90% of the time and have better outcomes. Children have better emotional self-regulation, they have fewer tantrums, they learn better, they mature faster, which is exactly what we would expect. It's pretty hard to learn a lesson. It's pretty hard to learn words if you are taught the opposite of what the words mean. If you're told that North and South is up is down and peace is violence and freedom is slavery, if you're given the opposite meaning to all these words, it's pretty hard to learn a language. It's pretty hard to be hit by your parents and learn the lesson that hitting is bad. It's pretty hard to see your parents get angry and hit you and learn the lesson about emotional maturity and self-regulation. It is pretty hard to be yelled at and told that calmness and reason is the best way to solve problems.
[18:33] Pretty hard to be hit, and to be told that you should never use violence to achieve your goals. This is all innately, rankly, and basically self-contradictory. And, of course, I understand the Christian reasoning. It's right there in the
[18:49] Bible that children are prone to evil. We're born with original sin or ancestral guilt. Even if we don't inherit the sin of Adam directly, it's ancestral guilt. And Satan is everywhere, and he enters through the new forged portal of the child's heart and counsels him to all sorts of wickedness. And the only way to purge him of that temptation of wickedness is to hit him repeatedly, right? The average child who is spanked, I did the math, the average child who is spanked is spanked hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of times over the course of his childhood.
[19:27] Spanking escalates or peaks at around the ages of three to four, but spanking still continues. More than a quarter of parents are still continuing to spank or hit children into their teenage years, which, of course, if you have to keep taking the medicine, maybe the medicine doesn't work. It's just a kind of thought about that. So the idea that children are born evil and have to have the devil struck out of them violently is very primitive. It's this form of child sacrifice. And I personally believe that it's because parents are trying to tell things that children just don't believe and don't have evidence for and don't understand, right? Like, you know, you say to a toddler, Jesus died for your sins, so you have to obey mother because of the Ten Commandments. The kid's going to be like, I don't know, but I know that I do like lollipops.
[20:25] Children are perceived to be born evil, and the sinfulness or the evil or the devil's playground has to be thrashed or hit or beaten out of them with a rod, often, otherwise they will fall prey to temptation and sin. This arises from an idea that is not at all supported scientifically. Like not even a tiny bit, not even a smidgen, it is not supported scientifically. The idea that children are born malevolent or with tendencies to evil and so on, this is not true. Certainly from six months of age, three to six months is kind of sketchy. There was some evidence, but it seems to have been pretty hard to replicate. So we'll kind of discard that. But from six to 12 months, children do show a slight preference for helper characters rather than harmful characters, they show six to 12 months, they show the beginnings of empathy for others who are in pain or suffering, and they begin to show a preference for what we would call morality or being helpful rather than harmful. They play more with toys that have been depicted in a positive moral fashion rather than a negative moral fashion. They play more with those toys and show more interest in them, look longer at, which is considered a sign of positivity, they look longer at positive characters than they do at negative characters.
[21:53] Children can be morally reasoned with between 18 to 24 months. You can begin to see the first flickerings of it. Before that, they can't do any particular kind of reasoning, least of all moral reasoning, which is, as we can see from this debate, some of the most challenging reasoning around. But children cannot reason morally beforehand, and therefore punishing them for things that they cannot understand. It's like being arrested in a foreign language, when you didn't even know what you did wrong. It would be Kafka asked to be punished for something that you do not understand. And to punish someone for what they cannot understand, I mean, we have below a certain IQ, we don't punish people for their crimes. We might restrain them, but we don't punish them for their crimes because they cannot understand cause and effect. And this is adults who are intellectually unable to process morality, and children are unable to process morality, and therefore to punish them for that which they cannot understand, is wrong. If I ask you a question in Japanese, and you don't speak Japanese, and you say, huh, or what, or excuse me, or pardon me, and I just start hitting you because you didn't understand my Japanese...
[23:07] One in their right mind think that that's right and fair and just? Of course, the answer is no, they would not. So, when children cannot understand morality, punishing them for, quote, immoral choices is wrong. When they can understand morality, or at least begin to, then you need to start building the blocks of their moral understanding. In the same way that you don't read to a two-year-old Dostoevsky in the original Russian and punish him for failing to understand it and then say, well, I'll switch to English if he speaks English and he still doesn't understand it, well, you wouldn't punish him for that. What you would do is you would start to build his understanding of Russian or English to the point where down the road he can read and appreciate the lovely language of Fyodor Dostoevsky, you would build his knowledge up, but you would not punish him for that which he cannot understand. Now, people say, of course, well, there are biblical commandments that require this, and with all due respect to biblical commandments, some of which are perfectly valid, and I would 100% agree with as a moral philosopher.
[24:23] But I have not noticed killing family members who tempt you with other gods or atheism. I have not noticed stoning homosexuals to death lately. I have not noticed justifications for beating slaves being widely accepted. I certainly see quite a lot of women trying to instruct men in the ways of religion, and I do not see them being chastised and told to shut up and sit in the back of the church, and if they have any questions, go ask their husbands. So, with regards to Bible injunctions, a lot of them have been marked as morally wrong and ignored. So, when Christians say, no, I don't want to stone a homosexual to death, which...
[25:05] I obviously agree with, don't stone homosexuals to death. When they say, well, no, that's wrong, I reject that teaching. I also reject the teaching that says, if a man rapes a woman, he should, if she's a virgin, he should pay a certain amount of money to her father, and then she must be forced to marry him. I don't see that being pursued with any great depth or avidity in the Christian community, and, you know, there's a lot that's in the Bible that we now recognize as primitive and wrong. Yet, somehow, this one has escaped the notice of a lot of Christians. And why? Well, because 80% of Americans, in particular, have been raised, they were spanked. The number is probably higher, because people might say, I wasn't spanked when I was, but they would very rarely say the opposite. But even if we take the number at face value and say, well, 80% of parents, they were hit as parents, or saying it's wrong means that they're calling their parents, they say, parents, you did something wrong.
[26:15] And we can give some forgiveness to not knowing these things or whatever, right? Although anti-spanking has been around for at least 70 to 80 years that I know of. It could have gone back even further than that.
[26:27] So, if you were spanked as a parent, if you were spanked by your parents, then it becomes, you know, emotionally difficult to say to your parents, we're not going to spank. Oh, why aren't you going to spank? Well, we think that it's wrong. Oh, so you're saying my spanking was wrong, blah, blah, blah. It's just tough. And of course, you tend to speak the language that you were raised with. I speak English. I was raised with English, I'm not really competent in any other language.
[26:53] So people tend to repeat what they know. I mean, there's good aspects about that that's supposed to give a certain stability to culture as a whole, but there's bad aspects to it in that we get to repeat bad ideas and bad decisions and not grow from them. So I think that's sort of going to be roughly how I'm going to start out. Obviously, I'll have to go with what they're coming up with, but that would be my general approach. That's banking violates the non-aggression principle. it's the initiation of the use of force, not for the sake of immediate self-defense. And we need to bring children into the general umbrella in which we secure other members of society. The least vulnerable members of society have been slowly drawn into the fold of non-aggression, women, slaves, and so on. And we need to continue that process, the last barrier is children, and after that, we get a great world. So I hope that makes sense. Freedomain.com/donate to help out the show. Hey, afterwards, let's see how this debate went. But that's some of my prep, the non-technical parts, the rhetorical parts. I hope that makes sense. Lots of love. Bye.
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