How do you feel about vengeance?

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Thrylix
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Re: How do you feel about vengeance?

Post by Thrylix »

Vengeance is a human emotion and thus should be indulged whenever its consequences aren't greater than its benefits. :P
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Re: How do you feel about vengeance?

Post by Intellectual_Savnot »

If personally I were to have my own personal vengeance, I would be utterly ruthless and destructive. Vengeance to those who care only for the destruction of the enemy is more of a fun game than a serious matter of importance. If I were not such a well conforming citizen of the USA, I would surely be the most ruthless, die young, vengeance getting human in the history of our nation. Would I think it wrong? It is possible, I cannot speak for what I am not. However, I do not think vengeance for myself would be "eye for eye". I as well believe like all things, they finish only at conclusion. You can't feel like you win a video game until you see the "Victory!" screen. You can't have truly finished your emotional lapse until you have gutted the subject of your terror in your own plain sight. Logically speaking, vengeance is a tool for the strong to keep the weak at bay. I think if I were to ever get into one of my supreme interests, gang conflict, I would use it extensively to any and all ends. What do you think? I hope you have a good day, stay comfy out there!
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LuckyR
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Re: How do you feel about vengeance?

Post by LuckyR »

Intellectual_Savnot wrote: March 5th, 2019, 2:18 pm If personally I were to have my own personal vengeance, I would be utterly ruthless and destructive. Vengeance to those who care only for the destruction of the enemy is more of a fun game than a serious matter of importance. If I were not such a well conforming citizen of the USA, I would surely be the most ruthless, die young, vengeance getting human in the history of our nation. Would I think it wrong? It is possible, I cannot speak for what I am not. However, I do not think vengeance for myself would be "eye for eye". I as well believe like all things, they finish only at conclusion. You can't feel like you win a video game until you see the "Victory!" screen. You can't have truly finished your emotional lapse until you have gutted the subject of your terror in your own plain sight. Logically speaking, vengeance is a tool for the strong to keep the weak at bay. I think if I were to ever get into one of my supreme interests, gang conflict, I would use it extensively to any and all ends. What do you think? I hope you have a good day, stay comfy out there!
Huh? Vengeance isn't classically used by the strong since, by definition it's used by those who have suffered a loss.
"As usual... it depends."
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Intellectual_Savnot
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Re: How do you feel about vengeance?

Post by Intellectual_Savnot »

Strong people take losses too, that isn't something that is unfamiliar to the strong or the powerful.
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LuckyR
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Re: How do you feel about vengeance?

Post by LuckyR »

Intellectual_Savnot wrote: March 7th, 2019, 1:30 pm Strong people take losses too, that isn't something that is unfamiliar to the strong or the powerful.
That's true,of course though is not commonly part of the braggadocio of the self described "strong".
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Re: How do you feel about vengeance?

Post by Hereandnow »

Thrylix
Vengeance is a human emotion
Is it? Or, is it really that simple? Is there anything that is simply an emotion, or does it have a broader meaning than this? Vengeance: the getting even, settling the score, the injury by another that screams out for compensation--isn't this the very thing that horrible aggression is very often made of? It tends to stand in for reason and calm in its desire to lash out. One trouble with this emotion is that is that it is not inherently good, just the opposite: the feeling of vengeance is a reliving of a slight or some indignity over and over. It is an ugly thing to imagine hurting others because you are under the spell, not of justice, but of revenge. Justice is a far superior notion that requires the altogether dismissal of vengeance.
and thus should be indulged whenever its consequences aren't greater than its benefits.
We should do things in moral situations that tend to bring benefit over its opposite. But the "doing" here is not clear of the vengeance, is it? So you endorse stinking it to your pffending party motivated by vengeance if things are better for it over not doing this? Without the vengeance, it would be a kind of utility based assessment of actions, which is debatable, But with the vengeance, you would be endorsing what I call a wicked motivation.

I don't know what you mean by "thus" in this context at all. Human emotions should be encouraged by default??
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Re: How do you feel about vengeance?

Post by Hereandnow »

not stinking....but sticking

And I should add that there is a brand of thinking that says retribution is an integral part of justice. I don't agree.
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Re: How do you feel about vengeance?

Post by LuckyR »

Hereandnow wrote: August 18th, 2019, 1:25 pm
Thrylix
Vengeance is a human emotion
Is it? Or, is it really that simple? Is there anything that is simply an emotion, or does it have a broader meaning than this? Vengeance: the getting even, settling the score, the injury by another that screams out for compensation--isn't this the very thing that horrible aggression is very often made of? It tends to stand in for reason and calm in its desire to lash out. One trouble with this emotion is that is that it is not inherently good, just the opposite: the feeling of vengeance is a reliving of a slight or some indignity over and over. It is an ugly thing to imagine hurting others because you are under the spell, not of justice, but of revenge. Justice is a far superior notion that requires the altogether dismissal of vengeance.
and thus should be indulged whenever its consequences aren't greater than its benefits.
We should do things in moral situations that tend to bring benefit over its opposite. But the "doing" here is not clear of the vengeance, is it? So you endorse stinking it to your pffending party motivated by vengeance if things are better for it over not doing this? Without the vengeance, it would be a kind of utility based assessment of actions, which is debatable, But with the vengeance, you would be endorsing what I call a wicked motivation.

I don't know what you mean by "thus" in this context at all. Human emotions should be encouraged by default??
What, in your opinion, are the relative definitions of justice and vengeance?
"As usual... it depends."
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Hereandnow
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Re: How do you feel about vengeance?

Post by Hereandnow »

LuckyR

What, in your opinion, are the relative definitions of justice and vengeance?
Vengeance as justice. They have a name for this: retributive justice. As I recall, it goes like this: when a person is, say, sentenced to die, among the practical reasons behind this, like deterrence, there is vengeance, the need of the offended parties (or, for society, because collectively "we" are offended when "our" laws are broken) for, as the euphemism goes, closure. And what is vengeance but this? Enduring a one sided offense does not sit well at all with people. The need for balance can be recognized as a legitimate part of moral thinking when considering punishment.

So, justice and vengeance can come together in single punitive concept, retributive justice.

I recognize the need for vengeance (calling it what it is), but for me it is still not qualitatively different from vengeance in any setting, legal or otherwise. If there is justification for including retribution in our concept of justice, it would be rhetorical, appealing to the passions of outrage to make us feel better about the punishment, or pragmatic, appealing to the necessity to placate because not to do so would leave people unhappy about killers and the like not getting their due (another related issue is their "due". Is guilt even possible?).

I recognize the reasoning, but I don 't accept it as an intrinsic part of justice, just an ad hoc way to make it work in an imperfect world. Justice is an idea that has broader meaning. Hard to put this out there because for me, one hasn't gotten to a concept's meaning until it is tracked down, all the way down the rabbit hole. Suffice it to say here, I do not believe in encouraging and prosecuting justice based on the need to satisfy hate and anger. The outrage one feels is a personal issue and is apart from justice. dealing with such negative emotions is an exercise on self control, a good thing. I also don't like the practical end of retribution as it fosters a society that fudges the boundaries between the worst feelings and ethical right and wrong.

There are other reasons, but I'm already pushing it a bit.
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Re: How do you feel about vengeance?

Post by LuckyR »

Hereandnow wrote: August 19th, 2019, 9:40 am
LuckyR

What, in your opinion, are the relative definitions of justice and vengeance?
Vengeance as justice. They have a name for this: retributive justice. As I recall, it goes like this: when a person is, say, sentenced to die, among the practical reasons behind this, like deterrence, there is vengeance, the need of the offended parties (or, for society, because collectively "we" are offended when "our" laws are broken) for, as the euphemism goes, closure. And what is vengeance but this? Enduring a one sided offense does not sit well at all with people. The need for balance can be recognized as a legitimate part of moral thinking when considering punishment.

So, justice and vengeance can come together in single punitive concept, retributive justice.

I recognize the need for vengeance (calling it what it is), but for me it is still not qualitatively different from vengeance in any setting, legal or otherwise. If there is justification for including retribution in our concept of justice, it would be rhetorical, appealing to the passions of outrage to make us feel better about the punishment, or pragmatic, appealing to the necessity to placate because not to do so would leave people unhappy about killers and the like not getting their due (another related issue is their "due". Is guilt even possible?).

I recognize the reasoning, but I don 't accept it as an intrinsic part of justice, just an ad hoc way to make it work in an imperfect world. Justice is an idea that has broader meaning. Hard to put this out there because for me, one hasn't gotten to a concept's meaning until it is tracked down, all the way down the rabbit hole. Suffice it to say here, I do not believe in encouraging and prosecuting justice based on the need to satisfy hate and anger. The outrage one feels is a personal issue and is apart from justice. dealing with such negative emotions is an exercise on self control, a good thing. I also don't like the practical end of retribution as it fosters a society that fudges the boundaries between the worst feelings and ethical right and wrong.

There are other reasons, but I'm already pushing it a bit.
So if I understand you correctly, you judge the relative appropriateness of this or than punishment by the mental motivation of those who developed the punishment. If part of the motivation is retribution, that's what vengeance is, which is a negative thing to be avoided.

Is that close?
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Hereandnow
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Re: How do you feel about vengeance?

Post by Hereandnow »

LuckyR

So if I understand you correctly, you judge the relative appropriateness of this or than punishment by the mental motivation of those who developed the punishment. If part of the motivation is retribution, that's what vengeance is, which is a negative thing to be avoided.

Is that close?
The appropriateness of a punishment is a complicated thing. Those who developed the punishment? This would be less a who than a what: centuries of law making, precedents established, public sentiment changing, the compelling sense of fairness or equality, of making the whole affair morally nonarbitrary, the compromise between what the statute says and the flexibility of legal thinking, and so on.

My view on this is that revenge as a motivation should be punitively irrelevant. How angry we are about what was done should be punitively irrelevant. Punishment is not going to be perfect; indeed, I argue that once the dust of the legal process is settled, no punishment makes moral sense. At all. which is different from saying there is no justification for it. That justification is simply pragmatic: we do it because nothing else works better (as an institution with alternatives, and so forth).
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Re: How do you feel about vengeance?

Post by Mans »

It can be a right, but in some situations forgiveness is better
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Re: How do you feel about vengeance?

Post by Spyrith »

Viewed from the perspective of justice, vengeance is the most immediately intuitive way to "balance the scales" and restore the order that existed before the first crime was committed.

A big problem with vengeance based justice however, is that the avenger can blow things out of proportion ( e.g. a thief stole a farmer's chicken, so the farmer then cuts off the thief's hand). This is justice in a way, but it also completely lacks any sort of practicality and can then lead to even more bickering and injustice (the thief's family considers the amputation to be excessive so they then kill the farmer outright).

So the first task when regulating a vengeance based justice system, is to create a "floor", a threshold the revenge cannot cross in order to rebalance the scales. In the Code of Hammurabi, this meant that punishment of a crime should not be worse than the crime itself (i.e. the chicken thief would return the chicken, and then hand over one of his own as compensation).

This principle of justice is still alive in some countries, but in most other nations on Earth, the concept of compensation has completely replaced the concept of vengeance. While not as emotionally satisfying, it is more sustainable and offers space for complex situations. For instance, a vengeance based justice system isn't a good approach to accidental crimes such as traffic accidents.
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Thrylix
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Re: How do you feel about vengeance?

Post by Thrylix »

Hereandnow wrote: August 20th, 2019, 12:45 pm
LuckyR

So if I understand you correctly, you judge the relative appropriateness of this or than punishment by the mental motivation of those who developed the punishment. If part of the motivation is retribution, that's what vengeance is, which is a negative thing to be avoided.

Is that close?
The appropriateness of a punishment is a complicated thing. Those who developed the punishment? This would be less a who than a what: centuries of law making, precedents established, public sentiment changing, the compelling sense of fairness or equality, of making the whole affair morally nonarbitrary, the compromise between what the statute says and the flexibility of legal thinking, and so on.

My view on this is that revenge as a motivation should be punitively irrelevant. How angry we are about what was done should be punitively irrelevant. Punishment is not going to be perfect; indeed, I argue that once the dust of the legal process is settled, no punishment makes moral sense. At all. which is different from saying there is no justification for it. That justification is simply pragmatic: we do it because nothing else works better (as an institution with alternatives, and so forth).
Your sentences on "revenge as a motivation should be punitively irrelevant" is a big redundant mish-mash of words. Is "punitive irrelevance" a new expression you coined?

Your ideal view of criminal justice basically ignores how the victim of a crime is impacted and also ignores what the victim wishes to see happen to the accused if they are convicted. If you believe that, why should the victim be out of the equation? Seeing the guilty punished or at least made to do everything possible to make amends is sometimes the only thing that will grant peace of mind to the victim.

Rehabilitation and restitution are important parts of a criminal's sentence, but those two things often aren't enough to make the victim feel whole again in many situations. And they deserve to be made whole. If you had a son and some nutcase shot kidnapped or killed him, you probably wouldn't be okay with your anger being "punitively irrelevant."
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Ensrick
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Re: How do you feel about vengeance?

Post by Ensrick »

The political realities of justice systems aside, I see no solution involving punishment. Either we're sacrificing the wellbeing of the victim to rehabilitate the criminal, or the criminal's wellbeing to satisfy the victim.
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