The Morality of Revenge

@hue-man,

i do agree that adding the elements of the victim being a child, or arguing that killing the murderer is ok because he is guilty, are emotion based and lead us further away from the truth. they could be relevant in other questions, but not in the case of revenge.

@salima,

Based on my own personal contemplation, and the contributions of others on this topic, I've come to the conclusion that while we can all understand why someone would want to seek revenge, it is not conducive to a functioning, civil society. The criminal could also be accused or convicted on faulty circumstantial evidence, which means that corporal punishment could be afflicted on the wrong person. It could also land you in jail for vigilantism and murder, both of which are not conducive to a civil and just society. If indeed the purpose of morality and ethics is to sustain one's personal well being and the well being of a cooperative society, then I think we can all agree that revenge is not conducive to either. Therefore, I conclude that revenge is wrong.

@hue-man,

hue-man;83358 wrote:

When, if ever, is revenge morally justified? Please explain why or why not in your response?

Once again, you must define morals and revenge. Your question is much too vague.

Jamie

@hue-man,

I think revenge is justified if it is meant to serve as an eye for an eye so to speak.

@hue-man,

hue-man;83495 wrote:

Let's say that someone rapes and murders little children. The rapist goes to jail and a fellow prisoner murders him for his crimes. There are no retaliation killings for the murder of this killer, and the families of the children are happy that the rapist is dead. What's morally wrong with this scenario?

There is nothing morally wrong with the scenario you present; however the child murderer is more likely to be killed in prison because he committed some personal offense to that other prisoner.

Something akin to this happened to The Boston Strangler some years back. Authorities are not certain as to the exact reason why he was slain by another convict, though.

We cannot reasonably conclude that such an execution is a revenge killing.

Revenge is not worthy of rational beings. They will eventually figure this out (on the assumption that they are rational.)

Do you still defend revenge and retaliation?

@Caroline,

My feeling is that revenge in itself is usually useless, and rarely benefits the avenger, but that the threat of revenge is very important in human affairs. We cannot help but factor it in to our decision-making process. It is probably true that forgiveness helps the forgiver more than the forgiven, but the threat of retaliation certainly helps to keep people in line.

@Caroline,

Caroline;84005 wrote:

They don't always kill the right person, that is why vigilantism is illegal, the wrong person can and does get killed.

No it isn't! Where did you pull that statement from?

It's illegal because the state doesn't want people running around feeling free to batter the bejesus out of each other on a whim.

If what you say was the case, then presumably, the extension of that would be that if the hypothetical prisoner did indeed film himself raping kids, then as far as the state was concerned, it was open season on him.

I think there's a little more to it than that.

@hue-man,

hue-man;83495 wrote:

Let's say that someone rapes and murders little children. The rapist goes to jail and a fellow prisoner murders him for his crimes. There are no retaliation killings for the murder of this killer, and the families of the children are happy that the rapist is dead. What's morally wrong with this scenario?

The only thing that I see that went wrong, is the parents of the children didn't get to commit the murder. I think what the prisoner did to the rapist/murderer was morally correct and good, but I think it would have been more good if the parents had gotten to.

My definition of morality:
Good=something that produces more happiness than unhappiness in general, not just in your own feelings.
Bad=the opposite.

Therefore, my reasoning for saying so is that I think the parents would experience more happiness had they gotten revenge on their kids' rapist/murderer. However, I believe the prisoner produced more happiness than sadness in his action, and it was morally good, but there was/is a better option.

@hue-man,

let's try to look at it from the possible point of view of the victim. if i were murdered or subject to any sort of crime you think heinous i would not wish for my son to take revenge on the person who was responsible. i would want that person to be proved responsible and then prevented from repeating the act on anyone else in the future. and if at all possible i would want the person to be rehabilitated into knowing that what he did was wrong, regretting it, and wishing to somehow make amends in the form of community service or other alternative meaningful work.

if my son were to commit murder to avenge my death, i would be extremely sorrowful about it. i can remember a time in my life when i would have murdered any number of people and if ctried and convicted would say in court 'yes i did it and i'm glad' but life experience has changed me. it is not that i no longer abhor violence and wish to end it, but more so it is that i dont wish to add to the violence in my own nature in futile attempts to erase it from the face of the earth.

@hue-man,

I believe ideally punishment should produce results. pointless suffering is well pointless. I believe we are slaves to an evolutionary trait which causes the mentality "you wronged me so I am going to pay you back" I believe we inherited this trait because it is beneficial in preventing further abuse, basically teaching a lesson to the perpetrator so he/she is unlikely to do it again. however we tend to feel this urge even if it is not going to benefit ourselves or the other person.

@deepthot,

deepthot;87928 wrote:

There is nothing morally wrong with the scenario you present; however the child murderer is more likely to be killed in prison because he committed some personal offense to that other prisoner.

Something akin to this happened to The Boston Strangler some years back. Authorities are not certain as to the exact reason why he was slain by another convict, though.

We cannot reasonably conclude that such an execution is a revenge killing.

Revenge is not worthy of rational beings. They will eventually figure this out (on the assumption that they are rational.)

Do you still defend revenge and retaliation?

Let's put it this way. If someone tortured and murdered my family right in front of me and I saw their face I would want to seek revenge. My only reason for not seeking revenge would be fear of incarceration. The laws of civilization are, after all, meant to suppress the instincts.

@hue-man,

hue-man;83358 wrote:

When, if ever, is revenge morally justified? Please explain why or why not in your response?

When the offerd does harm with evil or selfish intend, not when it's unintended.

Unfortunaly many does not see the difference and will exact an unjust and disproportional revenge, that's why we in average sees revenge as immoral.

@HexHammer,

Revenge is bad because it draws the avenger down to the moral level of the offender. We have a justice system that allows us to judge and punish wrong doers. It can be seen as a civilised form of revenge on a non personal level and that avoids to some extent the spiral effect. When the justice system fails to bring justice, people tend to want to do justice for themselves and this happens most often to unresourceful people, the poor or the marginalised because they either don't have the money to get a lawyer or they simply don't trust the justice system who sometimes manages to turn the victim into the wrong doer as it often happened in the past with rape cases. Personally I think that whether we call it revenge, retaliation, justice or payback, it is only normal for a killer to expect getting killed legally through the justice system, illegally through vedanta or even by devine intervention. This is what keeps people in line as someone said, notwithstanding personal morality. Forgiveness is what makes the difference between revenge and justice. It is a good thing but it requires some sort of remorse from the wrong doer and some guarantee that it won't happen again. An ever forgiving parent for example, is sure to make a spoiled brat out of a child if he never demands an apology and thus does not allow the child to take responsibility for his actions. A parent who punishes a child is teaching the child that there are consequences to what he does and it's forgiveness that restores the harmony between the two whereas revenge per se means there is no possibility of forgiveness because there is no remorse. Some people can forgive even if the wrong doer does not apologise but I can't do that unless the person is mentally ill, retarded. As for "an eye for an eye" Gandhi said it will make us all go blind but originally it was meant to prevent people from getting their hand cut off just because they stole an apple, it meant that the punishment must be proportionate to the crime.

@hue-man,

polpol

What if it's revenge against a great tyrant? WWII had many underground resistance people, or do you allow terrorist to freely damage your country? ..it would damage your national prestige, it's a dilemma.

@hue-man,

HexHammer, I understood your no72 post but not no74, what do you mean?

@hue-man,

well revenge makes you succumb to a darker more darker part of morality it begins with sadness ---> hate--> revenge or something like that

revenge is an everlasting cycle of fight
it only ends when one of you gives up

it usually ends up with a
feeling of discontentment or depression for the loser
feeling of guilt or become proud of self (a path to become more evil)

justice:
makes all equal, nothing more, nothing less
makes you remain to the good side
to give what must be given
*it gives you the virtue of temperance, just learn to survive the pain
*makes you more stronger.
it ends up the fight FAIR

@Wisdom Seeker,

Wisdom Seeker;152446 wrote:

well revenge makes you succumb to a darker more darker part of morality it begins with sadness ---> hate--> revenge or something like that

revenge is an everlasting cycle of fight
it only ends when one of you gives up

it usually ends up with a
feeling of discontentment or depression for the loser
feeling of guilt or become proud of self (a path to become more evil)

justice:
makes all equal, nothing more, nothing less
makes you remain to the good side
to give what must be given
*it gives you the virtue of temperance, just learn to survive the pain
*makes you more stronger.
it ends up the fight FAIR

Revenge is not necessarily an everlasting cycle of fight. It can abruptly end by me killing the culprit. The spiral effect is not a guaranteed one.

I'm not so sure about the feeling of discontent on the part of the avenger. Has that been proven by some type of survey or study on people who have taken vengeance or is it just an anecdote?

I don't think that becoming proud of taking vengeance necessarily leads to evil (whatever you mean by that). In fact, it could increase the avenger's ability to distinguish the guilty from the innocent.

@hue-man,

hue-man;152522 wrote:

Revenge is not necessarily an everlasting cycle of fight. It can abruptly end by me killing the culprit. The spiral effect is not a guaranteed one.

I'm not so sure about the feeling of discontent on the part of the avenger. Has that been proven by some type of survey or study on people who have taken vengeance or is it just an anecdote?

I don't think that becoming proud of taking vengeance necessarily leads to evil (whatever you mean by that). In fact, it could increase the avenger's ability to distinguish the guilty from the innocent.

I very well could be wrong but I would think that it would not stop with you but rather continue the cycle as you will share your thoughts and ideas with others that will will be inspired by your ideas. Revenge will be one of the points of your philosophy that you will share with others so the cycle will continue forever. Your [spirit]:detective: or [your ideas that you share with others are everlasting]:detective: It is our ideas that provoke us into action. Like I have said I can always be wrong. Smile

@hue-man,

Our educational systems need to change in order to reflect the advanced evolutionary stage we're at.

Revenge is just another word for give-and-take. Everyone causes consequence, through sequence of action. The time and space that the scalar effects come back to you varies with the spacetime set.

Example: tape your wrists, waists, and ankles together to another person. The range of sync you enact is also in scale to the size of the spacetime set. So, therefore, a butterfly causing a hurricane on the other side of the world is going to have a longer, more delayed wave effect, than you taped to another person.

The Golden Rule.

So if one were well educated to scalar options of the what, where, how, why, when, and who, then initiating (first cause) eventual consequence becomes just as moral as the agent's accountability for scalar return.

So, assuming six degrees of separation, do we need to be more accurate in the what, where, how, why, when, and who's, given that the ratio of people-to-resources is becoming just as important as our control of life-changing power? Or is it inevitable that a species goes through a thinning-of-the-herd, and a large percentage of people get left behind and become obsolete in the genome?

Perhaps both options above are true, and it's exactly the rationing of how much - the very measure of scalar, educational philosophy, that is most crucial.

Eloquence indeed.

@polpol,

polpol;152417 wrote:

HexHammer, I understood your no72 post but not no74, what do you mean?

When you are a country, and someone launches an attack, you must protect your national prestige by exacting revenge, not because the damage is high, and you think it will happen again, but you need to show an attck doesn't go unpunished, such as 9/11, or like in Russia where the minor states will claim independance, you have to uphold the soveren national integrety.

What about resistance people in WW2? Would you as a french accept germans to invade your country? Or as a german officer, would you accept french resistance to kill your soldiers?

Philosophy Forum

The Morality of Revenge

Quick Links

My Account

able2know