Immediate punishment

This point parallels the objection to the "cop at your shoulder" standard sometimes invoked in discussions of criminal responsibility. That the accused would have resisted if they had had that kind of incentive is supposed to show that they possessed powers of self-restraint sufficient for legal responsibility. Similarly, if you knew your drug taking was subject to immediate punishment, then you would have had a certain kind of reason to abstain. If that knowledge would have led you to abstain, then you are at least minimally responsive to reasons.17 My objection is that the counterfactual incentive might be compulsive as well. 

It was commonly thought by those in authority that if mithridatum or theriac did not produce the desired cure, this was due to incorrect preparation (perhaps with adulterated or poor-quality materials) or to incorrect storage after use. As the only cause for therapeutic failure therefore lay with the pharmacist who compounded the mixture, the remedy lay in careful scrutiny of manufacture, which should be in public. Any misdemeanor should then be detected and immediately punished. 

Pain and fear of pain are perhaps the most powerful of aversive stimuli and the most immediately important for survival since they carry the threat of tissue damage. Melzack and Wall (1988) described three components of pain sensory-discriminative from peripheral nociceptors, emotional or motivational-affective, involving limbic system punishment pathways, and rational or cognitive-evaluative derived from cerebral cortex. Excitatory and inhibitory feed-back systems link all components. 

Immediately before the present choice has to be made, the immediate reward (A) from the first event is valued higher than the larger, delayed punishment. Hence, abstention (valued as zero) is less attractive than consumption. However, the discounted values of all later events go in... 

None incorporates statutory limitations on sovereign authority with regard to the punishment of crimes. Now it is obvious that the legislature has no right to criminalise actions which are not a direct, immediate and serious breach of the rights of either an individual or of society. 

The effectiveness of punishment depends on its consistency. It only works if given immediately and every time an unsafe behavior occurs. 

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