Darth InSidious

6.422

The first thought in setting up an ethical law of the form "thou shalt . . ." is: And what if I do not do it? But it is clear that ethics has nothing to do with punishment and reward in the ordinary sense. This question as to the consequences of an action must therefore be irrelevant. At least these consequences will not be events. For there must be something right in that formulation of the question. There must be some sort of ethical reward and ethical punishment, but this must lie in the action itself.

(And this is clear also that the reward must be something acceptable, and the punishment something unacceptable.)

~~~

You should read Notes from Underground, Darathy. The entire book is essentially an essay on exactly this. The protagonist is essentially a man who knows exactly what he is...and bears a terrible hatred for himself because of it. He is punished every second of every day that he lives, but no one punishes him. He takes care of that himself.