Just desserts
Desert in philosophy is the condition of being deserving of something, whether good or bad.
A person who gets what he or she deserves (reward or punishment, as the case may be) is said to have received his or her just deserts.
The word is related to justice, guilt, and many topics central to moral philosophy, also "moral desert".
Deserving reward or punishment In ordinary usage, to deserve is to earn or merit a reward; in philosophy, the distinction is drawn in the term desert to include the case that that which one receives as 'one's just deserts' may well be unwelcome, or a reward.
In any cultural situation where certain punishments are established, a person can be thought to be deserving or not deserving that punishment in a given moment for something they have said, done, or failed to do. In the punishment of spanking, it can be anywhere in the range between an undeserved spanking and a well-deserved spanking. The spankee's feelings as to their deserving or not deserving the spanking may differ from the spanker's feelings.
A spanking tends to be best received if the spankee is contrite and feels guilty and deserving it. If they feel undeserving it, their view can sometimes be changed by the punishment, but it is also quite possible they feel unfair (mal)treatment, resulting in trauma, anger, hatred, revenge, and similar negative outcomes.
Parents and educators therefore often take great lengths to make the delinquent understand the severity of their offense and agree that the punishment is fair and "needs to be". In the simplest case, this is done through a well-worded scolding (perhaps ideally a positive scolding) before and/or during the punishment (see also the layer cake method).
The feeling of a well-deserved punishment can also be already strengthened ahead of the offense committed, through a stern warning to behave, or else a spanking will follow.
Sometimes it is the other way round and a person feels guilty and deserving punishment for something but is not punished. This can be for example because their misdeed is not found out, or they successfully lied about it and got away, or because their parent or guardian is too soft-hearted to punish, or simply disagrees on the severity of the perceived transgression. In such cases, feelings of bad conscience and guilt can accumulate and lead to negative consequences.
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