Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[Leontiskos]

Right, I understand all that. But the problem is that when people redefine vengeance to mean "personal vengeance" or "excessive revenge" they end up omitting from their lexicon any words that represent legitimate retributive justice, and this is why there is so much confusion in this area. Besides this, modern political philosophy does not make strong distinctions between individual and state, and therefore the obvious question arises, "Why can the state resort to vengeance but the individual cannot?" Or, "Why can the state return evil for evil but the individual cannot?" These lexical omissions eventually lead to conceptual ignorance and ultimately to anarchy, for if the notion of retributive justice is per se evil then it is no more acceptable on a state level than on an individual level (and all other state prerogatives also collapse). ...So I don't think you can just bracket the fuller meaning of vengeance in favor of a purely personal or pejorative meaning. This is what leads to the problems in the first place.

I agree, though in common usage, governments "dispense justice" which is considered a positive and individuals "exact revenge" which is considered a negative. Of course both are practicing vengeance as you noted and there are numerous examples of positive and negative events in both. Thus why I have been arguing uphill in this thread since there is a presupposition in the community that personal vengeance is inherently negative. Even though that is a gross oversimplification, to the point of being erroneous.

Yes, I agree with your angle in this thread. Sorry if I was unclear; I meant to agree all along (with the exception of that consequentialism bit).

[Mounce574]

I don't think you can actually achieve true vengeance. You cannot 1-up a person not can you make them feel like you did in the moment that they caused you harm. That person can only experience remorse/guilt, be happy they benefited from their actions, or nothing at all.
So with those three options, if you seek vengeance you still won't make them feel what you did. I follow the Bible Scripture Romans 12:19-21
Avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord. Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head.
Also Deuteronomy 32:35-Vengeance is Mine, and recompense; Their foot shall slip in due time; For the day of their calamity is at hand, And the things to come hasten upon them.’

Several things:

First, you don't make clear what your personal definition of "true vengeance" is, but whatever it is, based on your second sentence, it is not a commonly held one.

Second, based on your red comment, most who seek vengeance (obviously not you) are trying to accomplish different goals than what you suppose.

Lastly, your plan of awaiting justice until the afterlife is the ultimate delayed gratification. Very few can do that in Real Life and stay emotionally sound. If you can actually pull that off you are in a small minority. I'll be the first to admit I don't do that.

Vengeance or revenge is a person taking it upon themself to exact a punishment for the person who offended them. Most people who are a victim of a crime want the offender to feel the pain that they felt or worse. But there are people who have no remorse.
Example: If I stole something from you, how would you seek vengeance?

[Pattern-chaser]

...there is a presupposition in the community that personal vengeance is inherently negative. Even though that is a gross oversimplification, to the point of being erroneous.

I have said a few times that personal or judicial vengeance is pointless and not constructive, as opposed to outright "negative". A simple pragmatic perspective notes the existence of more constructive approaches than vengeance, and recommends them because they offer possible benefits that vengeance does not.

Yes, you as an individual have addressed the concept of vengeance regardless of the source, though the majority of the thread has specifically commented on personal vengeance.

Vengeance can be personal, of course. It can also be communal, which is to say, exacted by the community. If I offend against you, you could take vengeance yourself, personally, or you could allow the state to do it for you. Surely it is vengeance, in both cases? Is there enough difference between the two to justify treating them separately, as though they were two different things? I can't see it. And this leads me to the conclusion that the "source" of vengeance doesn't really seem to matter. It's vengeance itself that matters. IMO, of course.

[LuckyR]

I don't think you can actually achieve true vengeance. You cannot 1-up a person not can you make them feel like you did in the moment that they caused you harm. That person can only experience remorse/guilt, be happy they benefited from their actions, or nothing at all.
So with those three options, if you seek vengeance you still won't make them feel what you did. I follow the Bible Scripture Romans 12:19-21
Avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord. Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head.
Also Deuteronomy 32:35-Vengeance is Mine, and recompense; Their foot shall slip in due time; For the day of their calamity is at hand, And the things to come hasten upon them.’

Several things:

First, you don't make clear what your personal definition of "true vengeance" is, but whatever it is, based on your second sentence, it is not a commonly held one.

Second, based on your red comment, most who seek vengeance (obviously not you) are trying to accomplish different goals than what you suppose.

Lastly, your plan of awaiting justice until the afterlife is the ultimate delayed gratification. Very few can do that in Real Life and stay emotionally sound. If you can actually pull that off you are in a small minority. I'll be the first to admit I don't do that.

Vengeance or revenge is a person taking it upon themself to exact a punishment for the person who offended them. Most people who are a victim of a crime want the offender to feel the pain that they felt or worse. But there are people who have no remorse.
Example: If I stole something from you, how would you seek vengeance?

If you are an anonymous criminal I would allow the justice system to do it's thing. If they catch you and punish you, great. If they catch you but can't prove it in court, fine. Or (the most likely) they never catch you, that's also OK. OTOH, if I know you and I am going to interact with you in the future things change. If the justice system handles it, great. If the justice system never gets involved (say we're school children and you steal my lunch money) I will do something myself. What form that will take will depend on various factors, but the principle is the same.

[LuckyR]

...there is a presupposition in the community that personal vengeance is inherently negative. Even though that is a gross oversimplification, to the point of being erroneous.

I have said a few times that personal or judicial vengeance is pointless and not constructive, as opposed to outright "negative". A simple pragmatic perspective notes the existence of more constructive approaches than vengeance, and recommends them because they offer possible benefits that vengeance does not.

Yes, you as an individual have addressed the concept of vengeance regardless of the source, though the majority of the thread has specifically commented on personal vengeance.

Vengeance can be personal, of course. It can also be communal, which is to say, exacted by the community. If I offend against you, you could take vengeance yourself, personally, or you could allow the state to do it for you. Surely it is vengeance, in both cases? Is there enough difference between the two to justify treating them separately, as though they were two different things? I can't see it. And this leads me to the conclusion that the "source" of vengeance doesn't really seem to matter. It's vengeance itself that matters. IMO, of course.

I agree that vengeance is vengeance regardless of the source. As a society, in my opinion if the state wants to get involved, they get dibs. If they don't, then (and only then, IMO) individuals can (and should) step in.

[Pattern-chaser]

I agree that vengeance is vengeance regardless of the source. As a society, in my opinion if the state wants to get involved, they get dibs. If they don't, then (and only then, IMO) individuals can (and should) step in.

...and yet you still support vengeance over any different — say rehabilitative, or restorative? — alternative approach?

[LuckyR]

I agree that vengeance is vengeance regardless of the source. As a society, in my opinion if the state wants to get involved, they get dibs. If they don't, then (and only then, IMO) individuals can (and should) step in.

...and yet you still support vengeance over any different — say rehabilitative, or restorative? — alternative approach?

To my way of thinking rehabilitation and restoration are subsets of vengeance (which I view as an umbrella term in contrast to doing nothing at all). Thus I totally support rehabilitation and restoration as subtypes of vengeance or response to evildoing.

[Pattern-chaser]

I agree that vengeance is vengeance regardless of the source. As a society, in my opinion if the state wants to get involved, they get dibs. If they don't, then (and only then, IMO) individuals can (and should) step in.

...and yet you still support vengeance over any different — say rehabilitative, or restorative? — alternative approach?

To my way of thinking rehabilitation and restoration are subsets of vengeance (which I view as an umbrella term in contrast to doing nothing at all). Thus I totally support rehabilitation and restoration as subtypes of vengeance or response to evildoing.

Oh.

In my eyes, vengeance is when you harm me — or I think and believe that you harmed me — so I harm you in return. The returned harm is vengeance, yes? It seems to me that what you describe as "vengeance", here, is just a response to a certain act or acts that someone else has performed.

[LuckyR]

I agree that vengeance is vengeance regardless of the source. As a society, in my opinion if the state wants to get involved, they get dibs. If they don't, then (and only then, IMO) individuals can (and should) step in.

...and yet you still support vengeance over any different — say rehabilitative, or restorative? — alternative approach?

To my way of thinking rehabilitation and restoration are subsets of vengeance (which I view as an umbrella term in contrast to doing nothing at all). Thus I totally support rehabilitation and restoration as subtypes of vengeance or response to evildoing.

Oh.

In my eyes, vengeance is when you harm me — or I think and believe that you harmed me — so I harm you in return. The returned harm is vengeance, yes? It seems to me that what you describe as "vengeance", here, is just a response to a certain act or acts that someone else has performed.

Yes, harming someone who harms you is vengeance. However, as many have noted in this thread, most responses in Real Life are less dramatic, since most "harms" aren't very dramatic. In the West a murder in response to a wrong is front page news, specifically because it is rare. Whereas we are all wronged in an office setting or on the schoolyard routinely. Common vengeance responses are equally mild and nonviolent. If a victim has the presence of mind to demand repayment (restoration), fantastic. In cases of transgressions by close friends and family members a victim could very well suggest obtaining help (rehabilitation), though I agree with you that in that case, "response" is closer in common meaning than "vengeance".

Though in my defense many contributors in this thread state they don't practice "vengeance", instead they "do nothing". So my main point is against doing nothing, as opposed to promoting particular varieties of response. Having said that, I do believe in proportionality, though specifically for lowering the risk of future transgressions, not in response to the past event. In other words, if I believe that I will never run into the perpetrator again, I would do nothing.

[Pattern-chaser]

I agree that vengeance is vengeance regardless of the source. As a society, in my opinion if the state wants to get involved, they get dibs. If they don't, then (and only then, IMO) individuals can (and should) step in.

...and yet you still support vengeance over any different — say rehabilitative, or restorative? — alternative approach?

To my way of thinking rehabilitation and restoration are subsets of vengeance (which I view as an umbrella term in contrast to doing nothing at all). Thus I totally support rehabilitation and restoration as subtypes of vengeance or response to evildoing.

Oh.

In my eyes, vengeance is when you harm me — or I think and believe that you harmed me — so I harm you in return. The returned harm is vengeance, yes? It seems to me that what you describe as "vengeance", here, is just a response to a certain act or acts that someone else has performed.

Yes, harming someone who harms you is vengeance. However, as many have noted in this thread, most responses in Real Life are less dramatic, since most "harms" aren't very dramatic. In the West a murder in response to a wrong is front page news, specifically because it is rare. Whereas we are all wronged in an office setting or on the schoolyard routinely. Common vengeance responses are equally mild and nonviolent. If a victim has the presence of mind to demand repayment (restoration), fantastic. In cases of transgressions by close friends and family members a victim could very well suggest obtaining help (rehabilitation), though I agree with you that in that case, "response" is closer in common meaning than "vengeance".

Though in my defense many contributors in this thread state they don't practice "vengeance", instead they "do nothing". So my main point is against doing nothing, as opposed to promoting particular varieties of response. Having said that, I do believe in proportionality, though specifically for lowering the risk of future transgressions, not in response to the past event. In other words, if I believe that I will never run into the perpetrator again, I would do nothing.

In that case, I would say that you are not in favour of vengeance at all, but in a more rational response instead. But it is clear that any disagreement we might seem to have is merely semantic, and we are actually in agreement.

[Mounce574]

I agree that vengeance is vengeance regardless of the source. As a society, in my opinion if the state wants to get involved, they get dibs. If they don't, then (and only then, IMO) individuals can (and should) step in.

...and yet you still support vengeance over any different — say rehabilitative, or restorative? — alternative approach?

To my way of thinking rehabilitation and restoration are subsets of vengeance (which I view as an umbrella term in contrast to doing nothing at all). Thus I totally support rehabilitation and restoration as subtypes of vengeance or response to evildoing.

Oh.

In my eyes, vengeance is when you harm me — or I think and believe that you harmed me — so I harm you in return. The returned harm is vengeance, yes? It seems to me that what you describe as "vengeance", here, is just a response to a certain act or acts that someone else has performed.

Key words: I BELIEVE or I THINK that you harmed you. Do you know I have?
Vengeance is a circular in the way it works. You hurt me, I hurt you, you hurt me again, I hurt you again.
Add the justice system into the equation: I hurt you, you use the justice system- I go to prison (for use of this example), someone from my family seeks vengeance on my behalf and you get hurt again. Does this line of thinking make sense or is it just the way I have been raised that is wrong?
And the justice system- it does not serve justice. I've been robbed at gunpoint. What did that person get- plea deal for 5 years. Didn't get my possessions back. I've been shot at by an ex- what did he get? 20 years probation for attempted murder. PROBATION. Is that justice? What should I do in these situations?

[Leontiskos]

In my eyes, vengeance is when you harm me — or I think and believe that you harmed me — so I harm you in return.

Yes, harming someone who harms you is vengeance.

To be a bit more precise, vengeance is about injury, not harm. If someone accidentally harms us there is no cause for anger or revenge. They must be culpable; they must be at fault. See Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Prima Secundae, Question 47, Article 2, Reply to Objection 1.

Vengeance is obviously tied up with anger. It is interesting that both Aristotle and Aquinas say that one can be defective in anger. Similarly, Aristotle says that just as we ought to feel pity and sorrow at someone's unmerited distress, so we ought also to feel approbation or at least indifference at someone's merited distress (i.e. just punishment).

Here is what Aquinas says in his Commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics:

• Since the Stoics were of the opinion that all anger is censurable, he consequently shows that the defect of anger sometimes is censurable for three reasons.
• He proposes the first reason at "a man seems to be foolish" (1126a4). Whatever indicates a lack of wisdom is blameworthy, because virtue is praised for working in accord with the right understanding of prudence. But for a man to fail to be angry at the things, in the manner, at the time, and with the persons with whom he should be angry seems to denote a lack of wisdom. It is evident that anger is caused by sadness. But sadness is a feeling of injury. If, then, someone fails to be angry at the things he should, he does not grieve for them, and so does not feel they are evil. This pertains to a lack of wisdom. Therefore, it is clear that a defect of anger is blameworthy.
• He gives the second reason at "moreover, he who does not get angry" (1126a6). Anger is a desire for vengeance. Hence, one who is not angry at the things at which he should be accordingly does not punish the actions he ought to punish. This is blameworthy. However, this explanation is not to be understood as if another vengeance cannot be taken according to the judgment of the reason without anger, but as if the movement of anger stirred up by the judgment of the reason makes one more prompt to take vengeance in the right way. If the sensitive appetite did not help to carry out the judgment of the reason, it would be useless in human nature.
• He introduces the third reason at "and it is considered" (1126a7), saying that only a cringing man suffers his household to be insulted and permits others to injure him without repelling the injury with due force. This follows from a defect of anger that renders a man slothful and remiss in warding off injury. Hence, it is evident that the defect of anger is blameworthy.
• Then, at "the excess can happen" (1126a8), he treats the excess of anger...

The more general idea here is that anger admits of deficiency and excess, not merely excess, as the Stoics believed.

[Leontiskos]

...So my main point is against doing nothing, as opposed to promoting particular varieties of response. Having said that, I do believe in proportionality, though specifically for lowering the risk of future transgressions, not in response to the past event. In other words, if I believe that I will never run into the perpetrator again, I would do nothing.

Let's have a look at your consequentialist approach to vengeance. There are three concepts bound up with redressing commutative injustice: retribution, deterrence, and rehabilitation. Retribution is more or less the same thing as vengeance. You are proposing an approach which discards retribution in favor of deterrence. This view is fairly common in our day and age. C. S. Lewis addresses it eloquently in his essay, <"The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment."> I will address it less eloquently here.

The problem with such a view is that it can't make sense of the well-accepted moral fact that one should not harm the innocent. In particular, it cannot repel the judge who would "make an example" of someone, even if that person committed no injustice. For instance, suppose someone is commonly believed to have committed some crime, but in fact did not commit it. Should a judge who has been convinced of their innocence punish them? If punishment is merely for the sake of deterrence and has no dependence on retribution--if it is only a proactive measure against future events and 'not a response to the past event'--then it really makes no difference that the person is innocent. The past event is irrelevant. If they are commonly believed to have committed the crime then punishing them will serve the end of deterrence, and since punishment is about nothing more than deterrence there is no reason why they should not be punished, and every reason to punish them.*

But this is absurd. It is not just to punish the innocent, even when it would deter crime. We must therefore throw out this overreliance on the end of deterrence and re-introduce the criterion of retribution. It is never permissible to harm the innocent. It is sometimes permissible to harm the guilty. But guilt always attaches to that "past event" you wish to ignore. If that past event merits the punishment then the punishment is just. If it does not merit the punishment then the punishment is unjust. It is not possible or just to prescind from the past event and turn all of our attention to deterrence and consequences. Deterrence can only follow upon retribution. It can never replace it.


* This emphasis on consequences is how things like the Dreyfus Affair arise.

[Pattern-chaser]

In my eyes, vengeance is when you harm me — or I think and believe that you harmed me — so I harm you in return. The returned harm is vengeance, yes? It seems to me that what you describe as "vengeance", here, is just a response to a certain act or acts that someone else has performed.

Yes, harming someone who harms you is vengeance. However, as many have noted in this thread, most responses in Real Life are less dramatic, since most "harms" aren't very dramatic. In the West a murder in response to a wrong is front page news, specifically because it is rare. Whereas we are all wronged in an office setting or on the schoolyard routinely. Common vengeance responses are equally mild and nonviolent. If a victim has the presence of mind to demand repayment (restoration), fantastic. In cases of transgressions by close friends and family members a victim could very well suggest obtaining help (rehabilitation), though I agree with you that in that case, "response" is closer in common meaning than "vengeance".

Though in my defense many contributors in this thread state they don't practice "vengeance", instead they "do nothing". So my main point is against doing nothing, as opposed to promoting particular varieties of response. Having said that, I do believe in proportionality, though specifically for lowering the risk of future transgressions, not in response to the past event. In other words, if I believe that I will never run into the perpetrator again, I would do nothing.

In that case, I would say that you are not in favour of vengeance at all, but in a more rational response instead. But it is clear that any disagreement we might seem to have is merely semantic, and we are actually in agreement.

There is one — minor — issue with the way you have chosen to assign meaning to "vengeance". You have mixed and blended the acceptable and reasonable side of (what you call) vengeance with the destructive and violent acts usually associated with the word. So it becomes difficult to separate the two, perhaps to accept one, while still opposing the other, as I would choose to do?

[Pattern-chaser]

Vengeance is a circular in the way it works. You hurt me, I hurt you, you hurt me again, I hurt you again.
Add the justice system into the equation: I hurt you, you use the justice system- I go to prison (for use of this example), someone from my family seeks vengeance on my behalf and you get hurt again. Does this line of thinking make sense or is it just the way I have been raised that is wrong?
And the justice system- it does not serve justice. I've been robbed at gunpoint. What did that person get- plea deal for 5 years. Didn't get my possessions back. I've been shot at by an ex- what did he get? 20 years probation for attempted murder. PROBATION. Is that justice? What should I do in these situations?

You only seem to have two options — move to a different country, or campaign for changes to the justice system in the country where you live.