What is the difference between "Justice" and "Revenge"?

[NashvilleLefty]

Many people define Justice in terms of Vengeance. Especially when someone has been wronged grievously. I've seen too many people declare "I want Justice" when what they really meant was "I want Revenge!"

But, there is a difference.

How would you distinguish between the two? What do you think is the difference?

Many blood feuds are based on revenge, while both sides are crying for Justice. Not only in the Middle East, but throughout American History. Even today, in the case of particularly heinous crimes, many victim's families cry for "Justice" when they want Revenge. And, you can't blame them!

We appoint Judges and select Juries to decide the difference. But, seriously, what do you as a potential juror consider the difference?

I think this is an important discussion we need to have as a Country.

Examples are encouraged.

[Zalatix]

1. Revenge is justice when it is symmetrical and like-for-like.

[NashvilleLefty]

2. Do you mean "eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth"?

That sounds more like Revenge than Justice to me.

[Zalatix]

3. No, deterrence.

If someone pokes out your eye and you just let it go, they'll come back for your other eye, or they may even kill you. If you take out their eye in response, they will most certainly be less capable of coming at you again. That's simple survival logic.

If someone insults your religion you respond by insulting theirs, or with economic sanctions. You could even justify a graffiti attack on the consulate/embassy. But killing someone in response is way over the top, and is more revenge or even psychotic rage, than deterrence.

[Tom Ripley]

39. In a sense, "eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth" was an attempt to distinguish between justice...

and revenge. Revenge would be, "I'm going to stone you, kill your sons, and rape your daughters for the loss of my eye"
Justice would make the punishment commensurate with the crime.

[Egalitarian Thug]

36. No, revenge has nothing to do with justice, that's the hard part about justice.

That's also why we can't seem to create a system of justice in this country, every time we start, the cries for vengeance soon drown out any argument or plan for justice.

[cynatnite]

4. Revenge is emotional retaliation...

Justice is unbiased punishment that fits the crime. It's wielded by a court system.

[malokvale77]

9. I'd like to agree with you...

but I don't see anything unbiased or fitting the crime when it comes to drug laws and dozens of other illegalities.

[cynatnite]

10. The system is designed to be unbiased in general...

You feel that certain laws are unbiased because you don't believe they should be prohibited.

I've served on juries and I can tell you that our opinions about the laws themselves can't be a part of deciding guilt or innocence. My feelings about the legalization of pot has no place when deciding to indict or acquit.

The judge will give his instructions and given an order as to how to judge the case. Now, I've seen some who explain that morally they don't agree with certain laws and they are dismissed from jury duty. When I was on a grand jury, we were not given that option. There were enough of us that if one want to abstain from voting because of moral grounds or whatever the case may be, we could do that or we could vote not to indict.

[malokvale77]

11. Sorry, that's not at all what I was talking about.

[cynatnite]

13. You feel that certain laws are unbiased because you don't believe they should be prohibited....

That's what I thought you were talking about. Feel free to correct me.

The rest of it, I was just expanding on how it was handled in jury systems when someone didn't agree with the prohibition of drugs.

[malokvale77]

18. I'm very tired, but I will try to explain.

I feel the laws and the judicial process is "biased". I've served on a few juries myself. I've seen bias on the part of the judges, the jurors, and the laws. Laws are made by people. Cases are steered by judges. Decisions are handed down by juries. People are fallible and yes, biased.

[cynatnite]

23. Okay, so you think that all juries, judges, laws and every other part of is is biased...

That no one is capable of judging a case unemotionally.

Of course, we all take our preconceived notions with us no matter where we go. Our opinions, our beliefs and our experiences guide us. That is true.

Weak and fallible humans shepard these cases from beginning to end and people do the best they can.

Also, my experience with juries is that we pass judgment based only on the facts of the case using the law and the instructions we are given by the judge. We are not allowed to use our experiences and emotions. If we are unable to do this we are either dismissed or we dismiss ourselves.

It's not a perfect system, but it's not a horrible one either except when it gets it wrong. I hate to say it, but when we get it wrong, we get it wrong bad.

I'm not going to try to convince you that this is a great system. It's not. It's as imperfect as we humans are. But it's what we've got. The lawyers I know are decent people who do try the best they can in the complicated they have to work with.

[NashvilleLefty]

25. Thank you! No, it's not perfect by any stretch of the imagination

because it is driven and decided by fallible humans.

And that is what I'm talking about. We have to do "better" - whatever that means.

[malokvale77]

44. I never said all...

Don't misrepresent my post. You said the system was designed to be unbiased and for the punishment to fit the crime.
Examples:
crack cocaine vs. powder cocaine--The punishment has been far more harsh on crack. (poor urban blacks vs. wealthy white suburbanites) No bias there?

Jurors who believe someone is guilty based on their legal status despite the lack of evidence. Bias maybe?

I'm not even going to get into "the death penalty" (I live in Texas).

Too often, justice is merely revenge, dished out by very biased people with no skin in the game.

I said, I would like to agree with you. It just seems to me that the justice system has become a political football, passed around by very biased people (SCOTUS anyone?).

[TransitJohn]

5. One is state sanctioned. eom

n/t

[jp11]

8. I think at the most basic level this sums it up.

Justice is seeking out the legitimate recourse through the legal system. One hopes the law covers all the crimes and the punishments are appropriate for the crime but that is not always the case.

Revenge is more about the personal/emotional need to see the perpetrator suffer often in the same context as their victim if not a greater capacity since the victim rarely if ever was the person to seek out the outcome or otherwise start the incident.

[ananda]

6. Cullen Bohannon says ..

they're the same thing.

But he had lost his way big time with
vigilantism.

[Igel]

7. Revenge is justice according to a set of rules we disagree with.

Revenge is also usually carried out by a non-governmental actor if a criminal statute is violated in a way that hurts him or his.

Revenge can be state-sanctioned, in the right culture. In Western cultures, the state has said that it is responsible for dealing with infractions, so if you're raped, if you're maimed, if you have your kid killed, you have no right to take any action. Somebody acts not on your behalf but on the behalf of the state. Justice isn't individual, enforcing the values and laws depends entirely on paid professionals.

In other cultures, the state says that individuals can settle such disputes entirely on their own, so that the distinction between "criminal" and "civil" is much less clear. I can settle a civil matter on my own. But as soon as it's "criminal" I'm left only with the option of pressing charges--and in some cases the matter's not mine to decide. Yet in some cultures, if restitution is made than even the trial and punishment for murder can be made to go away.

[onenote]

12. The rule of law.

[Generic Brad]

14. Revenge is about getting even

It has nothing to do with justice or ensuring the right thing is done.

[reformist2]

15. Revenge is when you take justice into your own hands, which is impossible because

justice is a social concept.

So revenge is related to justice, but is not the same as justice.

How's that?

[NashvilleLefty]

26. Good try, good first step, but....

what's next?

No right or wrong answer, seriously, what's next?

[Cleita]

16. This is how Justice evolved in civilization because of revenge.

You know the eye for an eye stuff. When Hammurabi decided to codify what were customs, there came a definition of what a person could be compensated for if he suffered a loss. Because a neutral party was needed to decide exactly what the offense was in order to deliver the right compensation, civilization invented judges, IMHO.

[unblock]

19. hammurabi was an effort to avoid escalation. the "eye for an eye" stuff was meant to be a limit

it was meant to stop the notion that killing someone for a theft was going too far.

it wasn't meant to say that an eye for an eye was a reasonable minimum, only that anything beyond that was definitely UNreasonable and not viable as a society.

so, take NO MORE than an eye for an eye, etc.


i agree that hammurabi and similar codes essentially bureaucratized revenge, to try to prevent individuals from getting carried away and creating escalating and never-ending feuds. eventually this institutional revenge evolved into social justice, and became something far better than revenge.

[Posteritatis]

21. Limiting the tit-for-tat cycle to one exchange was a huge thing

Hammurabi's codes often seem fairly savage today, but they were downright Ghandian for the time - they more or less stamped out the continuous revenge cycle while they held force.

"This much vengeance and no more" was a pretty good starting point when trying to figure one's way to the notion of justice.

[unblock]

22. for its time, absolutely. it's a shame some people haven't evolved since then.

[unblock]

17. revenge is what you seek in a world without justice.

in a just world, there is neither a need nor a place for revenge.

justice includes the rule of law and appropriate mechanisms for enforcing it (which MAY include revenge-like aspects)
in particular, it includes compensation for victims of wrongs, to try to make them whole.

revenge is primarily about making the wrong-doer suffing in proportion to the victim.
it's a twisted attempt to build a moral system on the notion that two wrongs make a right.
in particular, it does nothing to compensate the victims of wrongs, beyond the temporary illusion that the suffering of the wrong-doer adds in any way to the original victim.

[NashvilleLefty]

27. Ah, but in your first sentence you say

"in a just world".

I agree with you - in a JUST world there would be no need for Revenge. But what does that actually mean?

Not trying to be difficult, just trying to stimulate conversation.

[unblock]

43. what i mean by this is that revenge is borne out of frustration that the world is unjust

say i'm robbed, and i live in a world where i am made whole, the security available to me (whether public or private) are able to show to my satisfaction that this was a rare event and won't happen again, the perpetrator has been separated from his ill-gotten gains, he has be humanely discouraged from doing anything like this again, and the public's notion that crime doesn't pay has been reasonably reinforced.

such a world makes it easy for me to shrug my shoulders and move on. why would i feel a need to do anything nasty to the perpetrator if i'm not out anything and he didn't gain and he won't do it again?

i think the desire for revenge only happens because people don't believe the world is sufficiently just, and they must do something themselves to get whatever justice they can. unfortunately, most people don't have the means or the imagination to impose actual justice, so they settle for revenge.

if i'm not made whole, or i otherwise continue to suffer, i may feel that the best i can do is to make the perpetrator suffer as much as i have. justice has nothing to do with making the perpetrator suffer similarly, justice only requires that the perpetrator not profit from the crime and that he and the public are reasonably discouraged from criminal activity. that discouragement can take many forms. comparable suffering is merely one such form, and arguably not a very good one.

[nanabugg]

20. Justice punishes the guilty. Revenge punishes anyone and everyone. nt

[NashvilleLefty]

30. But what if someone is guilty of stealing a candy bar?

If they are killed, or their hand is cut off, is that Justice? For a cheap candy bar?

By your definition, the person caught would have their hand cut off. If they weren't caught, everyone would have their hand cut off.

Although your definition actually has a lot of theoretical relevance to our present National Situation, I'm not sure it is relevant to the personal situation I outlined.

But you bring up a good point - a lot of Republican proposals intended to target a few actually negatively impact many, many people that the laws were intended to help.

I like to make this comparison: you notice a mosquito bite on your hand. Republicans want to cut off your arm.

[nanabugg]

40. I said "punish" I didn't say kill or any other specific method. nt

[lonestarnot]

24. Justice is even handed and blind. Revenge is a serrated knife swinger willing to chose any target

within range.

[NashvilleLefty]

28. Excellent! How do we accomplish that?

You can use any example you can think of. I'm not trying to prove a point, just trying to get some perspective.

[lonestarnot]

29. Accomplish which part? You are on your own in a knife fight.

[lonestarnot]

33. Alert a fucking nut!

[SIDURI]

32. What is the difference between a jury trial and a lynching?

The rule of law is the difference. Justice is supposed to settle the matter. Revenge goes on forever.

Hatfields, meet McCoys.

Siduri

[Volaris]

34. Spiritual Justice is about making right what was wronged...

Temporal Justice is about, at it's best, doing what can be done to see that the injustice is not/will not/CANNOT be repeated, (that last part concerns life sentences) and at it's worst, its about base vengeance.

As an example, I'm almost convinced that if Federal Judges has the power to raise the dead, no one would ever go to prison for murder, because the wrong had been corrected, and the harm set right.

A big part of Spiritual Justice is forgiveness. And some days, that part can be a real bitch.

Just me.

[lumberjack_jeff]

35. Justice is revenge by consensus. n/t

[Tom Ripley]

37. Justice is tempered revenge

[reformist2]

38. For an excellent dialogue on what is justice, read the first part of Plato's Republic.

[pennylane100]

41. Revenge is what you seek when you do not receive Justice.

I remember years ago a friend told me that he was arrested for being drunk and disorderly at a party. He was beaten up by the policeman who arrested him. He told me that he arranged to have every finger in the man's hand broken. That was certainly (if true) an act of revenge. However, his chance of getting justice through the courts was zero and for him at least, that was justice.

[Poll_Blind]

42. An act of Justice serves society as a whole. An act of revenge, an individual. nt

PB