 This requirement is also evident in Pufendorf’s long discussion of the sovereign’s right to punish (DJN VIII.3, Hüning 2009b). Punishment presupposes a superior, and so (in contrast to Locke) it cannot occur in either the pre-civil or the international state of nature (DJN VIII.3.1–2, 3.7). Of course, both individuals and states have a right to defend themselves or wage defensive (and, in limited circumstances, preemptive) war, but neither of these is to be construed as punishment strictly speaking. The latter is, instead, a means of social control available only to sovereigns for the specific purpose of restraint, deterrence, and reform (DJN VIII.3.9). In their hands, moreover, it is more future- than past-oriented, with the latter being important only for the sake of the former: that is, one should not pointlessly impose evil on someone, even if guilty, if the deed cannot be undone or the damage repaired, for he remains after all our conspecific or fellow human being (cognato) (DJN VIII.3.8). Those who have injured another certainly owe a duty of reparation, as well as assurances about future behavior, but they are under no obligation to submit to punishment (DJN VIII.3.4; see end of 4.1.3 above), which is imposed for purely consequentialist reasons. Joining Hobbes, Pufendorf dismisses revenge as a “vain and unreasonable” motive (DJN VIII.3.8) for punishment, and he also dismisses Selden’s “satisfaction, purgation, or expiation” (DJN VIII.3.12) as unnecessary or meaningless notions. Moreover, he holds that penalties are not “owed to” or “deserved by” criminals, who are unlikely to assert such a right (DJN VIII.3.5, 3.15). Instead,a sovereign’s resort to punishment should be guided by state interest (as, in the case of a parent, by the interests of the family: DJN VIII.3.10), which also determines the quantity and quality of punishment needed (DJN VIII.3.23–24). The latter should never be excessive but guided by the actual advantages to be gained (DJN VII.9.6–7). In some cases, punishment may even be foregone altogether if the interest of the state demands it (DJN VIII.3.14, 16). This is because punishment is an instance of neither distributive nor commutative (expletive) justice, but a type of administrative sanction recommended by “prudence … conjoined with the duty to rule others” (DJN VIII.3.5).