Pattern-chaser wrote: ↑May 10th, 2023, 9:22 amIn my eyes, vengeance is when you harm me — or I
think and
believe that you harmed me — so I harm you in return.
LuckyR wrote: ↑May 10th, 2023, 1:10 pmYes, 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.