Spanking children is a necessity.

Thanks to Pro for a clear and interesting set of arguments. Also, given the unfortunate state of the pro-spanking literature, I'd echo Pro's sentiment in advising readers to go easy on pro's lack of citations when voting. :-) Let the better arguments win! PRELIMINARIES First, I want to make some preliminary comments. (After that I will advance some positive arguments for my case. Finally I will respond to Pro's arguments, point by point.) I think Pro's case for the necessity of spanking cannot be convincing if it only tells us that (a) spanking has some good effects (e.g. teaching obedience, etc.) Pro also needs to show that (b) spanking is the ONLY way we can achieve those outcomes, and (c) the side-effects of spanking aren't so bad as to make it an unacceptable form of discipline (no matter how useful we might think it is). E.g. if spanking caused obedience but we could have taught obedience through non-violent means, surely that shows that spanking is not necessary. Or, if spanking caused obedience but also caused serious long-term emotional side effects, that also shows that spanking is not necessary"in fact it might be impermissible. In what follows I will argue that spanking meets neither (b) nor (c). MY ARGUMENTS (I) Spanking does not meet requirement (b) above. Empirical evidence suggests that whenever non-violent methods *fail* to work, spanking and other violent methods would fail as well; and whenever spanking works, other non-violent methods would have worked as well. Therefore, spanking is never necessary if one wants to discipline a child. First of all let"s be clear: what counts as successful discipline? I take it that successful discipline doesn"t just teach a child not to misbehave there and then, but also to learn not to misbehave in the future. So, what about Pro"s objection that in some scenarios spanking succeeds where others fail? Empirical evidence suggests otherwise. According to a study by Larzelere, Shneider, Larson, and Pike (1996, quoted in Straus 2005: 144), all punishments (including spanking) tend to fail at an equal rate. The study concerned disobedience and fighting among young toddler-age children. No matter which punishment was used (including spanking), within the very same day 80% of children would misbehave again by disobedience and fighting. Now of course, the above study is just one kind of case, and there are plenty of other situations in which spanking does succeed in teaching a lesson of obedience. But in these scenarios, the empirical evidence suggests that spanking was not necessary to teach the lesson. My evidence is from Murray Straus (2005: 144) who cites a study of toddlers in which parents are assigned a random form of punishment. Some toddlers get locked in a room, others get spanked. Both learn to stop misbehaving after a while, just as long as the punishment is done consistently. The lesson is that successful discipline consists in being consistent, not in "using the right amount of force". To conclude this argument: spanking is never necessary because other forms of punishment would work just as well"whether it be (in young children) a reward system, or (in older children) negotiating and explaining. To be sure, there are some cases in which it"s as if every form of discipline you try fails. But in that case, empirical evidence suggests that spanking will fail as well. (II) Spanking does not meet requirement (c) above. Empirical evidence strongly suggests that spanking has bad effects that far outweigh the good effects. As I have already argued, we should not treat actions as "necessities" if their bad effects far outweigh the good effects (it would be like arguing for the necessity of a nuclear strike on New York City, in order to stop an outbreak of contagious flu). Therefore, spanking is not a necessity. Now, what is the empirical evidence? Well, there are many, many professional articles written by psychologists and sociologists documenting the bad effects of spanking. I'll just one of them here, Elizabeth Gershoff (2002). Gershoff used over 80 independent empirical studies of children, as well as 10 "meta-studies" (studies of empirical studies), to arrive at the following conclusions. Firstly, parental corporal punishment (i.e. spanking, beating and other forms of physical punishment) has ONLY ONE good effect: "increased immediate compliance" (Gershoff 2002: 550). What about the bad effects? Gershoff states that they are as follows (I briefly explain why I think spanking causes these effects while I"m at it): (i) "decreased moral internalization" increased adult aggression, increased adult criminal and antisocial behavior, decreased adult mental health, and increased risk of abusing own child or spouse": This is to be expected because physical intimidation like spanking does not explain to the child what is wrong with the behavior. Thus, the child simply learns not to misbehave when the parent is around, and when the parent is threatening. If a child refrains from misbehavior only because of physical intimidation then they misbehave even more once the parent is gone, and once the parent is no longer intimidating (i.e. when the child has become an adult). (ii) "decreased quality of relationship between parent and child" decreased child mental health, increased risk of being a victim of physical abuse". We can expect this because spanking causes negative emotions. Excessive spanking (which usually follows from spanking, due to its lack of long term success) causes excessive negative emotions. The child associates those emotions with the parent. This interferes with the building of relationship, with learning and with emotional health, and with building of self-worth. (iii) "increased child delinquent and antisocial behavior". Again, not unexpected. Consider: the alternative to spanking is negotiating, explaining, compromising. By spanking, the parent deprives the child of learning how to engage in these skills. This increases the likelihood of antisocial behaviour. To me these effects are good enough evidence to show that the bad effects of spanking outweigh the good ones. Pro needs to give us good reasons to reject this evidence, in order to refute this argument. (III) There"s no principled way of drawing the line at spanking. If spanking is permissible, then why not more vicious forms of 'discipline', like assault and so on? (Imagine the parent who says: "wow, my child is no longer responding with obedience even to my beatings... why not a veiled death threat (I won't go through with it of course) for the next time? That'll show him." Pro has to explain to us why the buck stops with beating/spanking. PRO'S POINTS Having outlined my arguments I"ll offer some brief comments on pro"s arguments/points and why I think they fail, in light of the considerations I have already given. (#1) "when spankings happened in schools, children grew up following the rules, and taking a good approach into adulthood". "This is a fairly strong claim (whether it"s meant to be general or specifically about US schools in the 1970s). First of all Pro has cited no evidence for this claim other than his own assertion. In the absence of evidence it seems unlikely to be true, given the empirical data I"ve cited. Secondly, even if it were true it doesn"t say anything about whether it was spanking that caused the good behavior. Thirdly, even if spanking caused the good behavior it would still be unnecessary and unacceptable, if my above arguments are correct. (#2) "Spanking [is] a necessity to teach the child obedience". "My argument (I) says that this claim is not right. Pro thus needs to refute my argument (I) to show that his claim is tenable. (#3) In the past, children who were beaten by their parents "grew up knowing the difference between right and wrong". "Everything I said in response to Pro"s point (1) apply to this point as well. (#4) "a simple empty threat will not help" spoiling your child tells the child there is no right and wrong, and taking away items, all kids find ways around to getting what they want, until they are spanked" "Again, my argument (I) says that this is not right. There are other forms of discipline, such as reward systems that don"t involve spoiling (e.g. promising a reward only after a certain amount of good behavior). If all the alternatives fail, the empirical evidence suggests that spanking will fail as well, so spanking is not a reliable "last resort". CONCLUSION In my opinion, Pro is right that spanking has some good outcomes. E.g. it brings about obedience, at least in the short term. But this is not enough to show us that spanking is necessary or even acceptable in any circumstances. Pro needs to show that (b) spanking is the only way to achieve those outcomes, and (c) spanking doesn't also have bad outcomes that outweigh the good outcomes. In order to do so he needs to show us where my above arguments go wrong. REFERENCES Gershoff, E. T. (2002). "Corporal punishment by parents and associated child behaviors and experiences: a meta-analytic and theoretical review." Psychological bulletin, 128(4), 539. Accessed at http://www.comm.umn.edu...(2002).pdf Straus, M. A. (2005). "Children should never, ever, be spanked no matter what the circumstances." Current controversies on family violence, 137-157. Accessed at http://fermat.unh.edu...