Okay, sure, but everything I said earlier still applies. See, for example,
#18.
If you're referring to this part:
On one conception law rights wrongs. On another it discourages actions. It is only when this second conception is given primacy that deterrence and pain/penalty become the central considerations.
"In order to properly deter and pain you, we are requiring that you pay X amount even though the damages and restitution were much less." That is the strange move, and it also raises the fraught question: Who receives this extra money?
It's not a strange move...it's not a perfect move, but it's the best move we've got in the way of avoiding conflicts of interest.
The wronged party receives the money from the punitive damages. As noted, it's not perfect. But it's less imperfect than letting it go to the government, as if that were the case, the immediate speculation would be that the government has a vested interest in jacking that amount up for selfish reasons.
For instance, if you were a mega millionaire, let's say you were worth $200M. You defamed me in a way that severely damaged my reputation, resulted in me getting harassed and getting death threats, and caused me to lose my job.
It would only take 4M to "make me whole". With $4M, I retire today, buy a new house in a new town, and never have to work again.
However, $4M alone isn't a deterrent to you if you're worth that much (and still earning millions per year on an ongoing basis), it's a drop in the bucket. What's to stop if you from doing it again in 6 months?
That's where the punitive damages factor in. $100M would certainly give you something to think about before engaging in that behavior again, correct?
The question, would you rather that go to me? Or would you rather it go to government actors to fund policies and state actions that apply to everyone, that you're not a huge fan of? For instance, with that $100M they could subsidize <insert something you and half the town repulsive here>. Obviously your preference would be to not have to pay it all, but if you had to pick one of the two aforementioned options? The latter also creates a bad incentive structure where state governments could be encouraged to "go heavy on the punitive, because that'll help our bottom line".
For punitive damages, it's basically giving the money to the party that has the least amount of widespread influence. You give it to me, I'll spend on things that largely only impact me, you hand it over to the state government, they'll spend it on things that impact millions of people. (in ways that can be seen as good or bad)
Full Disclosure, if it were left up to me, the amount I would've dictated was "each of the 10 families gets $3-4 million dollars, and $50M in punitive damages that would get divided up between them -- or donated to a non-political charity of their choosing)
I do think a total (between the two forms of compensation) of $100-120M would've been enough to make them whole, and give ol' AJ something to think about. But that's a separate aspect of the conversation.