# Blatchford distinguished punishment from stopping harm

Commentary on Orthodoxy by G. K. Chesterton.

On [CH08.P027](https://glosses.org/orthodoxy/pg16769-r1/CH08.P027/#char=379,516): "They do not prove that Adam should not have been punished by God; they only prove that the nearest sweater should not be punished by men."

The distinction between deserving punishment and preventing injury matters here. In *Not Guilty: A Defence of the Bottom Dog* (London edition catalogued in 1906; inspected in Project Gutenberg's transcription of the New York, Boni and Liveright, 1918 edition), Robert Blatchford expressly denies responsibility and deserved punishment. That supports Chesterton's narrower claim about what his opponent's premises remove. But chapter XIV expressly includes the sweater among people society must stop, despite withholding blame. It also argues that social systems can be altered or abolished without being morally blamed. [Blatchford, chapters I and XIV](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/43466/43466-h/43466-h.htm).

Chesterton turns the loss of retributive responsibility into a loss of political courage. Blatchford's answer is that intervention and reform themselves change the environment determining conduct. Thus the text supplies a serious disagreement about the justification of punishment, but does not establish that determinism entails acquiescence in exploitation. Whether Blatchford can sustain moral evaluation while denying blame remains a further philosophical question, rather than a conclusion settled by this sentence. The [1906 London publication record](https://books.google.com/books/about/Not_Guilty.html?hl=en&id=2EJYAAAAMAAJ) should be distinguished from the later edition inspected here.

## Sources

- [Robert Blatchford, Not Guilty: A Defence of the Bottom Dog](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/43466/43466-h/43466-h.htm), 1918 Boni and Liveright edition; chapter I, opening argument; chapter XIV, paragraphs beginning 'Men cannot be blamed' and 'So, although we might not blame a thief'
- [Not Guilty: A Defence of the Bottom Dog — 1906 Clarion Press catalogue record](https://books.google.com/books/about/Not_Guilty.html?hl=en&id=2EJYAAAAMAAJ), Bibliographic information: Clarion Press, 1906, 261 pages

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