Jean Elizabeth Hampton (June 1, 1954 – April 2, 1996) was an American political

philosopher,

She subscribed[1] to the "moral education" theory of punishment, where the goal
is to first educate the criminal and then secondly educate society about the morally
wrong action that has been done by the criminal. This theory does not condone 'pain'
inflicted punishment, nor does it believe that incarceration is always the answer. The
theory states that all criminals, even if they have wronged society, are still due the
autonomous rights guaranteed them by the state, and it is the state's duty to uphold
the moral education of the criminal the best way that it can.

It is understandably closely related to the rehabilitation theory, the main difference being
that the moral education is just as any education, it will not necessarily shorten anyone‟s
sentence. It focuses only on education as a purpose of punishment and not any form of
treatments such as medical or therapy. Hampton‟s idea is that if a perpetrator of a crime
learns what was done is morally wrong then he will not repeat the offence. So instead of
rehabilitate or reform someone, the theory simply educates someone. Of course this suffers
from some problems the rehabilitation theory does. How do we know that the inmate has
learned anything at all, or is just faking it? The point Hampton does is that the state is not
using pain coercively, but instead education, she also states it is not a guarantee but it is at
least something better.16 So to be clear; the idea is if someone successfully understand and
agree that what was done is morally impermissible, then she will not undergo that act again.
Hampton thinks that punishment can be justified only if it benefits the person being
punished; she thinks we can never harm another person and that, in particular, we
cannot interfere with people’s autonomy.

She proposes the education theory as a rationale for punishment that fits her ethical
assumptions. The idea is that punishment is justified if and only if it gets the
wrongdoer

“to reflect on the moral reasons for that barrier’s [the law’s prohibition] existence so
that he will make the decision to reject the prohibited action for moral reasons, rather
than for the self-interested reason of avoiding pain.”

Furthermore, she holds that, “on the moral education view it is incorrect to regard
simple deterrence as the aim of punishment; rather, to state it succinctly, the view
maintains that punishment is justified as a way to prevent wrongdoing insofar as it can
teach both wrongdoers and the public at large the moral reasons for choosing not to
perform an offense.

Hampton regards deterrence as something that society needs but she does not regard
society’s need for deterrence as a justification of punishment. Her idea is that we use
deterrence to control both non-human and human animals. But people are different
than other animals because they have the ability to understand why barriers have been
put in the way of their doing what they want to do. Hampton thinks this ability should
govern how we treat people: we should try to make them understand why they are
being punished and not just deter them from committing further crimes.

According to Hampton, punishment is justified because, qua expressive act, it is a required

response to another expressive act: the wrong. When one person intentionally wrongs another
(as opposed to merely harming another), he acts on the assumption that the victim‘s value
does not preclude this action.10 To intentionally wrong another person is to treat that person
as having lower value than oneself; it is to demean her.11 The wrongful act thus expresses
this view of the victim‘s value. In fact, Hampton goes as far as to say that wrongful acts are
wrong because they make a false and insulting claim about the value of the victim.12 They
deny the moral truth that all people are of equal, immutable value.
Hampton argues that punishment can be justified as an attempt to communicate to the
punished and the community at large the wrongness of his action. This purpose of
punishment, Hampton maintains, is not peculiar to state punishment, but can be seen in other
contexts, such as parental discipline. Hampton writes, ―[T]he goal of punishment, whether
carried out by the state on criminals or by parents on children, is the offender‘s (as well as
other potential offenders‘) realization of an action‘s wrongness‖ (1984: 214). The hard
treatment aspect of punishment makes it a medium well-suited for communicating the
wrongness of his act to the criminal, according to Hampton. Punishment disrupts the
criminal‘s pursuits of his own interests and, in harming him, prompts reflection on the harm
that he inflicted on his victim (1984: 224-228).

The moral education theory offers a powerful response to the challenge of justifying
punishment, insofar as it is thought of as the problem of justifying the serious harm that hard
treatment does to wrongdoers. For on Hampton‘s account the justifying aim of punishment is
not to harm the wrongdoer but to benefit him. The moral education theory ―attempts to
justify punishment as a way to benefit the person who will experience it…. [T]he moral good
which punishment attempts to accomplish within the wrongdoer makes it something which is
done for him, not to him‖ (1984: 214). When punishment successfully educates the
wrongdoer, if it makes sense to talk of harm at all, we can justify that harm by the net benefit
to the wrongdoer

-there are “too many criminals on whom such a [morally educative] message would be
completely lost; for example, amoral risk-takers, revolutionary zealots, sociopathic
personalities” (Hampton 1992, 21). If moral education provides the “full and complete
justification” for punishment that she once sought, then it would seem that there is no good
reason to punish such people, no matter how heinous the crimes they committed

-her claim is that “[e]xpressive punitive responses, such as the suspension of voting rights,
have the potential for provoking thought that can bring about a change in the wrongdoer’s
way of thinking about himself and his society” (Hampton 1998, 43). Moreover, this policy
has the salutary effect of telling not only offenders but every member of the society that “this
law links the exercise of freedom with responsibility for its effects” (Hampton 1998, 43),
thereby extending its value as a form of moral education to the entire population.