Do Candide’s Punishments Fit the Crime?

So far in the book, Candide has endured a lot of punishment for his “crimes”. He is kicked out of the baron’s castle for kissing Cunegonde, forced to run the gauntlet for seemingly deserting the army, and flogged for listening to Pangloss’s beliefs with open ears. The reason why I put crimes in quotations is because none of these things Candide does are really crimes. He was never trying to desert the Bulgar, he was simply going for a walk, and he was not trying to cause any harm by kissing Cunegonde or listening to what everyone has to say about the meaning of life. The punishments here have not been deserved. They largely out weigh any of the actions Candide has done. 

However, looking at this question from another perspective, I think what is really being punished here is Candide’s innocence, and belief system. Candide is a firm believer in the Leibniz/Pangloss philosophy in which the world he lives in is the best of all worlds and that everything is done for the greater good. When he is kicked out of the castle, he continues to hold this belief for a while. For example, rather than saving the Anabaptist who saved him, he continues to believe that this must happen for the greater good. This belief system is something that Voltaire is trying to punish. He keeps throwing Candide into horrible situations in which he is hurt mentally and physically in order to test his beliefs and show him that his philosophy is flawed; not everything can be for the best. He even takes it a step further and brings Cunegonde into the mix. After hearing the hardships she has endured, can Candide really continue to stand by his beliefs?

Voltaire really aims to show Candide that the world is in fact a harsh place full of evil and misfortunes; the world is not the always geared for the greater good. As his innocence leads him to mindlessly follow Pangloss’s philosophy and find the good in every situation, Voltaire pushes him, through punishment, to look at his own beliefs and in the end, make a decision about what he really believes in.