If he devotes his life to finding the man with the intent that the man should be executed, then it's probably a desire for revenge.

Wanting to find the man and see him tried in court would be justice. Wanting to see him killed would revenge, I think.

-ITL-

Justice, is just revenge and helps serve as a deterent. If the courts judged this man and gave him three days community service, would that be justice? We seek revenge through our court system if we act outside of that system we are in peril of being judged by that system...

Defining "justice" is the project of a life time.

Wanting to find the man, and lay the details of his life on a scale against the details of the life of the one killed and seeking justice in the balance would be fair...We say a life for a life, but that is wrong...What Western society demands is peace, so that when the peace is broken we, society feels it has been injured...So we do not seek justice, but order...It is possible the mugger never knew justice, and never had it poined out to him so he could become acquainted with it...Maybe the wife never gave justice once in her life, and deserved death more than her killer... We do not want justice, or we would make an issue of it every day of our lives...As Socrates was supposed to have said when asked when there would be justice in Athens: There will be Justice in Athens when those not injured by injustice are as indignant as those who are... ...We should all be indignant over injustice, and never accept the substitution of peace for Justice...

---------- Post added 12-02-2009 at 08:10 AM ----------


So is defining life...No one else's definition means anything more than our own...

It appears a personal reason not something society demands, we need order but we could obtain order without justice. We need justice to be seen, to be done. We need it to be just. Order is the benefit of justice, Hitler maintained order but he did not administer justice.

Peace should grow out of justice, and when peace is enforced without justice the wind is sowed...

Wishful thinking comes to mind. You can have peace without justice, fear can create a peaceful community.

It is the Catholic Church that demanded peace before justice, and you can have peace within society with that attitude; but a people denied justice at home are all too ready to look for it abroad, and to take justice from others...War is the fashion in which native injustice becomes international injustice...So, we accept less violence and endure more war... Wasn't it better before the church got a hold of it, where each man was his own cop, and feuds took the dull and left the sharp??? Peace without justice is not a goal, but a trap...The whole social contract is a fraud... We give up our power and right to immediate justice for the promise of justice fairly administered by the whole people...The courts act in the name of the whole people, but they have not consulted with the people for hundreds of years...

If its not just, its not justice. You are giving examples of injustice thats not what we are debatting.

Traditionally, when something is taken from you, including the lives you prize, then honor is taken, and justice is the way honor is restored...

Honour is a strange word to use, it smacks of vendettas and mob rule.

Honor is a strange, and even foreign word to use because where money is dear honor is cheap...But you cannot look at our past and understand human behavior even today in much of the world without reference to honor...Honor makes a whole different society, and honor makes a whole different economy... We can see in our government the trappings and displays of honor, the oaths, the forms, and formality, the distance, how did Nietzsche express it: The pathos of distance???
Look at our history as we have it, through ancient liturature, and you can see all of mankind on a quest for honor as we quest for money... Yet, people still live that way, and though honor societies cannot stand in the face of money societies they have worked for far longer than our money society could dream of, and all people everywhere have come out of them who are not still living in them...Honor is inextricably tied to justice, and no unjust man has honor... We presume of wealth that it has honor, though we never question how it was arrived at... For this reason, some poor people seek wealth no matter what its source, because they see that poverty is taken as dishonorable, and that wealth confers honor... Do we at least know that this is not true, that nothing but honorable wealth has honor???

You know, the beginning of the God Father has a good primer on honor...The mortician comes to the Don for revenge for his daughter because the court did not punish those who attacked her...He asks for death, and the Don refuses because his daughter was not killed... He invites the man under his protection, and orders justice for those guilty of injuring his own...The same was true in Ancient Athens...No one could bring a charge of murder unless they were related to the deceased, and no one could bring a charge of murder on behalf of a murdered slave...Honor reflects a certain relationship with ones community... That is the sense of the word rehabilitate... with the hab, of habitation being the essential word, because no one by choice lives with or near others who they do not trust...Trust is essential to honor and peace, and in fact, any relationship... Why do we have oaths at marriages??? Is it all formality???Try to have a marriage without honor, and you will find yourself out and looking in...The same is true of all societies; so we are fools to not think of honor more, and more highly of it...

revenge is against the law and its driving force is hatred, it makes you aggresive

justice gives a person a virtue of temperance, remain calm and let the laws fight for it

i think they prefer justice than revenge because of its more good side

I am certain you are wrong here... Revenge is not out of hatred, or aggression... Revenge is the informal form of justice...It is the individual form of law....People value their honor, and all the more so when they live in honor societies with honor economies...If you take something from such people, or kill one of their own you also take honor; and they are bound to get it back... Considering that law does not make a issue of Justice it does not restore honor to the injured, and does not make them whole... Rehabilitation has the meaning of restored to honor; but the honor of the injured is not considered, so justice is not forthcoming...Look at primitive literature and see their concern for honor... It was the driving force behind almost every behavior... Achilles when warned that his revenge of his friend's death would be followed by his own said: Prepare me for my death!!! In what sense were the people of the past more noble except in this, that they would stand up for themselves and for their kin???

I am not suggesting that people seek revenge in preference to law; but I can see that with the breakdown of law that people take matters into their own hands, and form communities for mutual defense and support... We condemn such gangs as tribes, and bring the force of law to bear...If the people considered that law brought them justice the law would have their support...

Justice is the revenge of the law,
Revenge is the justice without the law.
What is law?
What is law without justice and or revenge?

According to Abalard, Jus is the genus, and Lex a species of it... Law that is not just, is not law...The object of law should be peace, not by force, but by justice removing the cause for violence, showing restraint, mercy, and equity... Vengence is given to extremes, and it does not target those specifically guilty, but guilty communities... It worked in that communities controlled their own, and individuals followed the custom and character of their people and acted in this way ethically... Laws which are always imposed by the powerful upon the weak, as civilizations are made out of conquest, so justice is not the aim, nor are complete communities with distinct identities the aim, so laws without justice attack their greatest aid to peace in the community, for when communities fail it is every man/person for himself...

revenge is a cycle of fight, it ends if one of you gives up

revenge --> retaliation
revenge <-- retaliation

it usually ends with:

death or a feeling of great lose which leads to depression and discontentment for the losers

Which make things worse.

feeling of guilt or becoming proud on self which leads to a more darker side of its morality for the winners(e.g: Sadness -> Hatred-> Revenge)

while justice:
gives what is due necessary
which makes all FAIR
gives a good result
will make you remain good

There were a lot of aspects to feud societies that you simply miss... There was a lot of peace within the violence... There was intermarriage which tended to brake violence... There was the notion of Fate, or Kismet that tended to excuse mercy, and there was a lot of simple accomodation... We do not have less violence without feuds, but arguably, much more violence and more dangerous violence on a mass scale that does not spare women or children or property...The demand for justice is still there, and if socieites are forced to live with injustice they export their injustice, thinking to take justice from others that they are denied at home... In Greece it was the democrats who dragged Athens into the disaster of the Peloponesian war, and it was because they were long denied justice in Attica...Because wealth meant so much, and life meant to little without it, the people of Greece exported themselves as mercenaries even to Persia, their life long enemy, laying life on the line for the stuff of respect...

In response to the original post:

In my eyes, the man is seeking revenge, and that is the only thing he can possibly seek. When a person feels wronged he cannot possibly act in a way that would be just because he has emotional attachment to the situation which would make any decision he makes unjust. Even a perfectly calculated reaction would end up not fitting, as one cannot find all the consequences of it, and cannot know how the other would react.

Thus, any reaction, no matter intent or severity, is revenge. This does not make it inappropriate to take such action at certain times, I find it entirely normal for people to react to offences. However, if one wants justice, one must wait until all is said and done and then look back in hopes of finding it: and only then, when nothing more can change, can one decide if things were just or not.