Proportionality is why we instinctively feel it’s wrong to, say, banish someone from society just because they failed to pay a parking ticket or because they relapsed into addiction. There’s a deep human intuition that responses to wrongdoing or hardship should not destroy a person’s basic dignity and prospects. The law isn’t always so compassionate, but the ideal persists as a guiding light.

Demanding optimism from someone in crisis is like demanding a patient recover by attitude while we hold back the medicine, backwards and, even when well-meant, cruel in effect.

If punishment isn’t meant to help me understand what I ought not to do, then what was it for?