Revenge and Justice

Anders Herlitz asks whether revenge is an unjust necessity, see practical ethics . In his posting he suggests we have an innate desire to punish wrongdoers. In the light of this suggestion he further suggests that institutionalised punishment plays two distinct roles in our society. Firstly it is a means of justice. Secondly it rids us of innate urges. In this posting I want to consider these innate urges.

Firstly is there anything wrong with our urges to punish, hurt, humiliate and harass wrongdoers? It seems to me in the presence of wrongdoing these strong urges are not only not wrong but necessary to combat the wrongdoing. For instance Hugh Thompson’s anger at the My Lai massacre was both right and necessary to stop the massacre, see Hugh Thompson . Why then are these strong urges harmful in some situations? I am attracted to Michael Brady’s ideas on emotions (1). Brady argues that emotions are somewhat analogous to alarms. Emotions draw our attention to the things that are important to us. They do this in two ways. Firstly emotions capture our attention and secondly point it in a certain direction. Alarms are calls for action. Hugh Thompson’s anger prompted him to act to stop the massacre; prompted him to act justly. Unanswered alarms are annoying and unanswered emotions, emotions that don’t lead to action, are harmful. It follows if we don’t act in response to our natural urges to punish, hurt, humiliate and harass wrongdoers that we are further harmed.

Herlitz suggests one function of punishment is to rid ourselves of these harmful emotions. However it might be objected that we could lose these emotions in a different way, we might forgive wrongdoers. What does it mean to forgive? I would suggest forgiveness is neither simply forgetting nor should we forgive unconditionally. We forget some wrong when we go to sleep but this forgetting is certainly not forgiving. Let us accept society depends on trust and that without trust no sort of meaningful society is possible. I would suggest that if we forgive wrongdoers unconditionally that we pay scant respect to that trust. It follows if we are to forgive a wrongdoer certain conditions must be met.

What are the conditions which must be met if someone is to forgive some wrongdoer for the harm he has inflicted on a victim? I would suggest the wrongdoer must first undertake the following actions based on Charles Griswold (2).

1. He must admit he was responsible for the action
2. He must admit the deed was wrong.
3. He must express regret, feeling regret is inadequate.
4. He must commit to becoming a better person.
5. He must listen to and understand the victim’s point of view.
6. He must be able to offer some sort of narrative as to why he did what he did.

If the wrongdoer undertakes these actions then the victim should respond by,

1. Forswearing revenge.
2. Moderating or eliminating his resentment.
3. Express his forgiveness to the wrongdoer.

Let us assume that some offence takes and the victim forgives the wrongdoer as outlined above. It seems probable that this forgiveness will usually moderate the victim’s urges to hurt, humiliate and harass the wrongdoer. I believe forgiveness can be best achieved by restorative justice, see Restorative Justice Council. I further believe the domain of restorative justice should be expanded.

However forgiveness does not punish the wrongdoer; does not alleviate all our innate desires. The question now arises should we punish those offenders who take part in restorative justice and pose no threat of re-offending?  Punishing such offenders would address our natural urge for revenge, but should we try to move on from this urge? I will now argue, admittedly somewhat tentatively, that we should not. Let us accept that forgiveness without apology is impossible. Apologising for some wrong she committed forces an offender to split from her former self to some degree. Such splitting is harmful in the short term. It might be objected that in the long term such splitting is beneficial. In response I will simply point out that in the long term a prison sentence might benefit an offender but that it is still a form of punishment. It follows that for any wrongdoing for which an apology is justified that some minimal form of punishment must also be justified. In some cases this minimal punishment might prove to be adequate. However in other cases greater punishment might well be justified. If adequate punishment is regarded as a form of revenge then some revenge is not an unjust necessity.

1.      Michael Brady, Emotional Insight; The Epistemic Role of Emotional Experience, Oxford University Press, 2013.

2.      Charles Griswold, Forgiveness, Cambridge University Press, 2007.