The American Pediatric Association is clear that spanking harms children. In light of this information, it’s fair to say spanking children is immoral and those who spank in this day and age are doing wrong. But here’s a tricky question. How should our moral judgments of the present impact our judgments of what people did in the past?
Is abortion the murder of an innocent child? Or the exercise of a woman’s right to control her own body? Or maybe we’re focusing on the wrong question.
Is it ever morally okay to punish people? To punish someone is to hurt them because of a wrong they’ve already committed—whether or not any future benefit will come of that hurt. How could it be okay to deliberately hurt someone?
相信有些事情是自然的，而有些事情是不自然的，这是人类共同思想的一部分，但我们很少停下来思考什么是不自然的。这样做很重要，因为这个概念在政治上非常有效。