Justice vs. Vengeance — Is There a Difference?

[searcher]

Justice vs. Vengeance — Is There a Difference?​

We tend to think of justice as a noble ideal we should strive for and vengeance as a small negative pettiness driven by the darker angels of our nature. But when we drill down on the mechanisms of justice a different image emerges. As the French philosopher and anthropologist René Girard has put it:

"public vengeance is the exclusive property of well-policed societies, and our society calls it the judicial system."

Nowhere is this Shadow of justice more evident than in our attitude towards criminals; or more accurately our attitudes because we are conflicted when it comes to criminals. We speak two different languages in this domain that often contradict each other; they are the languages of punishment and rehabilitation. This is reflective of the deeper nature of justice that Girard and before him Nietzsche excavated.

More:

Justice vs. Vengeance — Is There a Difference?

Nietzsche and Girard on the nature of justice

thelivingphilosophy.substack.com

 

[OhWell]

IMHO a society that preserves its civil cancers (murder, rape, etc.) by keeping it alive (prison) is not civil but insane. When the doctor finds a cancerous tumor in a patient, he will set out to eliminate the cancer from the body in its entirety if possible. They don't take action to keep the cancer alive in hopes of it becoming a productive member of the body. The death penalty is not vengeance or retribution for crimes committed. It should be considered an effort to preserve a civil society.

 

[Casey Jones]

Justice is measured; is meted out according to pre-agreed punishments, and is equal before any member of the community that violates what standard was violated.

Vengeance is rage...is violence...is the desire to inflict PAIN. There is nothing measured about it - it's the killer urge, put the subject in pain, make him fear you, your group, whoever is backing you up. It's a test of strength and you want to make him and his backers fearful of ever challenging you and yours.

Often it's carried on to death. Often that's the intent.

 

[Casey Jones]

Scanned the link. When I got to the example of the Confederate States rising up as Vengeance...I quit.

That had nothing to do with it. What the Northern-controlled Federal Government was doing was unjust - usurping State Sovereignty. To a good end? Evil to a good end never ends well.

Slavery was the impetus for the disagreement, but the core of that disagreement WAS, the rights of the States to exit the Union, when the powers that controlled it exceeded the limits of the Constitution which states had agreed to work under.

I don't think it's so difficult as the author wants to make it. We can see vengeance versus just punishment. A court judgment, versus burning your opponent's house down in the middle of the night. Law versus chaos.

Those who support anarchy, though, might give it a thought. Without government, there is no law, which means the only redress to wrongs is vengeance.