PUNISHMENT AS A FACTOR IN PREVENTING ALCOHOL-RELATED ACCIDENTS

As a humanitarian and economic 'bad', infliction of punishment require s justification in terms of compensating achievements, as well as mora l appropriateness. In the context of road accidents, there is evidence that increasing the certainty and swiftness of threatened punishment may deter risky behavior, although increasing the severity of the thre at seems ineffective. These effects may be generalizable to other kind s of accidents, but empirical evidence is lacking. A further possibili ty for the justifiable use of punishment is in its application to negl igent service of alcohol.