“This reintegration with the good is what punishment is. Every man who is innocent, or who has finally expiated guilt, needs to be recognized as honourable to the same extent as anyone else.”

—  Simone Weil

Draft for a Statement of Human Obligation (1943), Statement Of Obligations
Context: Whenever a human being, through the commission of a crime, has become exiled from good, he needs to be reintegrated with it through suffering. The suffering should be inflicted with the aim of bringing the soul to recognize freely some day that its infliction was just. This reintegration with the good is what punishment is. Every man who is innocent, or who has finally expiated guilt, needs to be recognized as honourable to the same extent as anyone else.

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Simone Weil photo
Simone Weil 193
French philosopher, Christian mystic, and social activist 1909–1943

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