Korean Job Discussion Forums

[visitorq]

[Captain Corea]

[visitorq]

[Captain Corea]

[visitorq]

[Plain Meaning]

Inexplicable: Inside the Mind of a Mass Killer

[Fox]

[The Cosmic Hum]

[Fox]

[geldedgoat]

Fox, how do you define and distinguish between charity, justice, retribution, and vengeance?

[Fox]

Vengeance: harm, for the sake of harm, in response to and justified by a previous perceived harm, on an emotional basis.

Retribution: vengeance intellectualized and raised up to the level of a principle of conduct, the idea that harming a human being can and should sometimes be an end in itself, even absent any ostensible vengeful motive. An individual can be vengeful, but a system can only really be retributive. In some ways, retribution strikes me as more perverse than vengeance, since at least vengefulness can be explained in terms of emotions and surrendering to them, which, while not necessarily admirable, is at least understandable. Retribution is a willing choice to embrace the ends towards which vengeance push us and declare them acceptable, or even optimal.

And I think we should add a third term.

Deterrence: using criminals as mere props in hopes of dissuading future misconduct in others. This is not necessarily retributive, since harming the subject isn't necessarily the point. A given act could in principle be motivated with intentions towards both retribution and deterrence (and our own criminal justice system combines elements of each), but strictly speaking, I don't think they're the same, and either could exist in isolation.

Charity and Justice: The relationship between charity and justice is very similar in character to the relationship between vengeance and retribution. Charity, at it's core, is a manifestation of our natural inclination towards compassion; an urge to improve others, and an attempt to act on that urge (even if often enough in a clumsy, superficial, or ineffectual way). Justice intellectualizes that and raises it up to the level of a principle of conduct, but while that transition from emotion to principle makes vengeance more perverse and potentially destructive, it improves and perfects charity. It might sound strange that the same process could make one thing worse while making the other thing better, but it can be thought of as a kind of amplification: amplifying something good results in something better, and amplifying something bad results in something worse.

In short, it's natural for humans to feel vengeful and charitable urges. Intellectualizing the former results in dysfunction. Intellectualizing the latter results in something worthy and admirable. My actual view on the matter is somewhat more complex than this, because justice as I understand it is fundamentally related to virtue, its cultivation, and its maintenance, but I'm not ready to talk about and defend my conception of virtue with others yet, so this short hand is going to have to be adequate for the moment. Virtue plays a decisive role in why I personally favor justice over retribution, but I obviously can't expect that to be persuasive absent an explanation of what virtue is or why it's important, and if someone actually didn't see anything distasteful in a human's vengeful urges, they might not see anything perverse about those urges being amplified into a retributive principle and applied.

Now, I wouldn't be surprised if you might disagree with my clumsy attempts at articulating these terms, so I for one would very much like it if you (or anyone else interested) would also take a stab at "defin[ing] and distinguish[ing] between charity, justice retribution, and vengeance." Seeing the thoughts of others on the matter would be interesting and enriching, even if we might disagree.

[The Cosmic Hum]

[Plain Meaning]

There's definitely a concept of retribution independent of vengeance.

Aristotle delineates between two functions of justice; one is corrective justice and the other is distributive justice. Corrective justice may be thought of as rehabilitation. In almost every case, we may agree that rehabilitation should be the focus of attempts at justice. Furthermore, there is distributive justice. We see distributive justice in restitution. If I destroy your car, I have to pay for a new car.

Nonetheless, we recognize that in some cases, in cases where there was a deliberate intent to destroy your car (i.e. "malice"), that some punishment must ensue. The question is whether this punishment can only be a desire for vengeance or a desire to imprison me because I might destroy other cars or a desire to imprison me "for my own good," i.e. to receive rehabilitation on destroying cars. I submit that there is a punishment called retribution, which Aristotle briefly hints at (but does not fully acknowledge, at least in the limited texts that have survived) but which he does not explore.

Retribution is compensation for the debt or wrong the wrongdoer owes beyond the victim to society at large. Retribution may not be relevant to certain malum prohibitum offenses, and may only be relevant to malum per se crimes. But in cases of terrorism like Breivik's, retribution is certainly relevant. You can delineate retribution from revenge in the nature of the punishment; torture, deprivation of necessities, or plain cruelty could not constitute righteous retribution. Instead, retribution would look a lot like it does in Norway; confinement within reasonably comfortable confines, and a severe limitation of participation in society. Also, a strict regulation of time and habits, although I would stress that some free time must be a necessity which cannot be righteously deprived.

I do not care to distinguish retribution from deterrence because the two are closely related. Through the law, we have a clear explanation of what duties a citizen must do, and what conduct a citizen must refrain from doing (and in some cases what positive obligations a citizen has). Nonetheless, retribution extends far beyond deterrence, in the sense that it might be necessary even when deterrence would be impossible or impracticable.

In Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche talks about a society so strong that it would not need to punish its wrongdoers at all. It may be that an infinitely strong and secure society would have no need of retribution. Nonetheless, each serious crime is an assault on society and order itself, and it threatens the fundamental trust and faith we have in the order necessary to continue peaceful and lawful business and recreation in a just society. I am not confident of this connection, and I do not want to make retribution contingent upon a society's order or system of trust, because the need for retribution may go deeper.

In any case, retribution becomes critical when it comes to responding to acts of mass killing for a political purpose, what is often called 'terrorism.' Corrective justice is impotent when someone kills so many, and in Breivik's case they were children, and in such a fashion and for such reasons.

[Plain Meaning]

Five years ago.