Vengeance and Justice

Economics Political Theory
1

Disproportionate revenge is for such people. I believe the desire for vengeance is an intrinsic part of man’s moral psyche.

From Wikipedia…

“Retributive justice is a theory of justice that considers that punishment, if proportionate, is a morally acceptable response to crime, with an eye to the satisfaction and psychological benefits it can bestow to the aggrieved party…”

If someone raped and murdered my wife, I wouldn’t be satisfied with a cash payment; I would want the perpetrator to suffer and to be destroyed.

POLL: Do you think paying taxes is morally wrong?
2

On restitution theory, see Barnett’s “Restitution: A New Paradigm of Criminal Justice,” and Long’s “Punishment vs. Restitution: A Formulation.”

You might find this interesting.

3

I don’t believe that is an absolute truth. I think people like to believe their own morality is part of the nature of man (perhaps attributing it to nature, rather than emotion), instead of recognizing it as unique to each individual… [:P] [:D]

That is quite medieval. Do you own your wife’s life? What about her siblings? Her parents? Children, friends?

Not to be insulting friend, but you’re making my case. Revenge is not a solution. It is a reaction.

4

To a pro-medieval historical revisionist like me, that’s a compliment!

5

No, but you definitely have a long term interest in them, both spiritually and economically. In fact you sort of offer PDA services for free to your family. Well, I do I mean.

QFT

6

As in, an instinctive part? I don’t think all instincts are necessarily good. When someone cuts the average person off in traffic, their revenge instinct may be to end their life then and there[6] In other words, our intrinsic moral sense is not perfect, or from an evolutionary standpoint not fully adapted to modern life.

But let me argue the other angle for a moment. When we later reflect back on the “vicious” driver that cut us off, our intrinsic moral sense coupled with our reasoning ability can give us a totally different judgment. If we are being fully logical, we realize that there is no way for us to know that the person was not racing to get someone to the hospital, etc. As long as we are in full acknowledgment that we have no grounds for blaming them, it is I believe psychologically impossible to feel that anger or desire for vengeance*. So perhaps our intrinsic moral sense does serve us, at least after cool reflection.

*The need for the perpetrator to be stopped for safety reasons is a separate issue that can be judged purely through reasoning.

In summary, I think man’s moral psyche has instincts that react to injustice as we judge it, but our judgments are only as good as we allow our reason to discern for us, which may require time and non-emotional consideration. Once we are sure we’ve formed an accurate judgment of the situation, we can then submit it to our emotional faculties and see how they respond.

If we judge with our intellect that someone is “to blame” (not meaning in the legal sense), then when we submit that judgment to our emotional faculty we may be impelled toward vengeance. However, I have a rather radical stance on this: I think blaming is both fundamentally illogical and also seldom if ever helpful. I still do it, but I wish I didn’t. (I find it also extremely useful to note that all negative emotions - besides perhaps pure sadness, fear and malaise/pain - require blame as a prerequisite. Anger, guilt, jealousy, self-pity, hatred, etc. etc.)

7

Perhaps. But I have a spiritual interest in my preacher. Can I go out and avenge his death? What about the economic interest I have in my butcher or bartender?

I have family. I will be very upset if someone hurt them. I do whatever I can to keep them safe. But if something happens, revenge is about satisfying me, not satisfying them or gaining justice.

Sure, and I am not sure that PDAs will be judged on their ability to satisfy dead clients, as much as protect live ones. That is to say, people will probably be more interested in signing up with LS Defense Services, if I keep my clients from getting killed, as opposed to having a kickass payback record on people who murder my clients. Maybe deterrence will be a big part of protection, but even in that case, the end is not to buy revenge service, but survival service.

If presented with the service option of killing the person who murdered one of my family, or chasing restitution for such act to provide for dependents, which would people be more likely to choose? I would rather someone provide restitution, because it protects the living, than try to seek justice for the dead, but that is just me.

This is what I am talking about when we move to a more libertarian conception of justice. For sure, emotion is inseparable from man, but it is a balancing of emotion with reason, that is the foundation for libertarianism. When we can recognize our best interest may not be the high time preference immediate emotional response.

I used to believe that line from RATM, “Anger is a gift” (hope I sourced that properly edit nope, may have been Malcolm X). But then I watch these G20 protests, and I realize that anger is just wasted energy. It is exactly the way the state wants us to respond. It is a way to get us to misdirect ourselves from improving our situation, and instead investing in a dead end.

I feel the same way about revenge.

8

I don’t know if this is completely relevant or not, but I saw this in a video we watched in class today. It’s the story of a samurai who must kill another who killed his master. And so, he goes to this other samurai’s house, or whatever, and unsheathes his sword and prepares to kill him. Suddenly, the man he is going to kill spits in his face, and so he puts his sword back in his sheath and walks away. He did not want to mix up “justice” (in this case; or at least, how the Japanese saw it) with “personal revenge”.

9

whilst samurais throughout history almost certainly were ‘the bad guys’, they do make excellent fiction.

10

I agree. with the whole post.

I don’t have a family as in wife and kids, but I do have my siblings. I do the same for them, but when something happens, as it has, I don’t seek vengence, but rather attempt to make the victim whole again, and perhaps prepare them to defend themselves in the future. Ration and reason have to be your guide, not anger as you said.

11

LS and Saan,

Let’s say a man rapes and murders my wife. I track the rapist-murderer down and kill him out of vengeance. The rapist-murderer’s family sues me. You’re in the jury. Convict or acquit?

12

This is almost impossible for me to answer. The entire premise is ridiculous. I would probably abstain.

In nearly every circumstance I can think of, cold blooded murder is not equal to justice and justice cannot be created from two injustices.

13

I had to run out for a bit, and I feel I didn’t treat your post properly lilburne. I apologize.

First, I’m not sure you are the agent of your dead wife.

Second, I’m not sure an eye for an eye is justice.

Third, I wouldn’t be on a jury, because I wouldn’t waste my time participating in mob justice.

Fourth, I don’t like the premise that you take revenge, then you check to see if it is legally permissible based on an appeal to emotion.

Fifth, how is this any different than what people might do today?

I admit, I am an odd dude. I would be torn up inside if anyone touched my loved ones. But I know, I KNOW, that revenge doesn’t change what has happened. If people really believe that restitution can be found in violence, then I suspect our libertarian existence will be untenable.

There can be no enlightenment until we’re willing to use other means than blood and ashes to solve conflicts/make payments.

14

Traditionally, the spouse is the first inheritor unless contrary provisions are made; thus, it’s not absurd that lilburn would inherit his wife’s right to resitution. What consitutes restituting a murder victim is up in the air, although it’s well known that sex crimes have a high recitivism rate and lilburn could argue he was merely defending others.

15

We’re not talking about tradition. We’re talking about inheritance under a libertarian property system.

I believe it is absurd to assume. Who will respect his inheritance right? To what limit (murder?) will it be respected?

This is even presuming that the dead have rights (as opposed to property) to give away.

We had another thread like this. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to keep up with it. A lot of people assume a lot of things. I ask people who claim the right to commit murder (even in revenge) to justify that use of force. Revenge != Self Defense. The question is Revenge = Restitution?

Sure, and Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction. And the Iranians might create a nuke and sell it to a terrorist cell. And if Saigon falls, then all of Asia will become communist in a domino effect. And if we don’t nuke civilians, the Japs will never surrender. And if we don’t bomb Dresden then the Germans will kill Britons. And so on and so forth…

16

I would nullify.

I don’t believe in mob justice, but I have a really hard time with a german style court as well. What is an alternative? Juries are worthless as are aristocratic magistrates in determining guilt or innocence. What is a solution in this case? I really have no clue, I would have to follow common law I guess.

17

acquit

18

Both justice and vengeance are reactionary concepts; they can not be put into play unless the perceived transgression has already taken effect. Neither by definition can be preemptive. Even by some odd Phillip K Dick time thing, or by eugenics; it’s still preemptive just in a bit more of a dramatic and sci-fi kind of way; it still requires the knowledge of some type of infringement to the transgressed party. They are both actions. And they are both acts that have to be administered. They both heavily imply the concept of retribution and to a lesser extant, reciprocity.

Justice is acting within the accepted limits of the culture in focus: whether it be government, family, religion, philosophy, etc. Either way it implies some form of plural or connection to a larger set of values or customs.

Vengeance would be acting outside of the values of the culture in focus. Vengeance can be taken down to the individual level, meaning that the person committing the act of vengeance could be acting out of no known code of conduct. This can not be done with justice.

To most, justice is administering an act to a principle other than egoism. It seems to imply an unbiased and impartial ruling to that system. Vengeance seems to imply an almost reckless purely egoistic type of decision to the culture it affects.

As far as if vengeance is part of a man’s moral psyche; I think it can be empirically shown throughout history that is most likely the case. Hell, it is a primary theme in “The Iliad” the first book in Western culture. It is also a concept that has been passed down for as long as can be recorded, so weather you agree with the concept or not, it must be acknowledged that our biological makeup must think it has some use (or perhaps more accurately stated; the emotion(s) and/ or processes that causes vengeance) Of course it may not be a recognized concept in everyone who has the ability to inherit the trait, which is the fact with almost everything that can be inherited from one generation to the next and still allow for the individual species to survive.

Note: this is by no way an appeal to biology as some authority on what is “right”, just that biologically speaking the human species seems to have naturally selected the processes that cause vengeance to be seen as a “useful” trait.

19

Whoops, forgot to conclude: It would most likely be far more profitable and convenient for a person who wishes to still interact in a society if the world was massively more decentralized (a prevailing universal concept of free movement wouldn’t hurt either), it may allow for more “personalized” justice systems, and the “bad” ones would almost inevitably collapse. In short, the “cure” for different opinions of justice is most likely the promotion of massive decentralization and free movement.