Question What is the line between justice and revenge called? Or better put, when does justice become an act of revenge?

Accepted:
October 13, 2005

Comments

Retributivists about punishment are keen to distinguish between retributive justice and revenge. They presumably distinguish between punishment as restribution -- where that involves inflicting punishment for wrongdoing because it is wrong and in proportion to is wrongness -- from punishment as revenge -- where that involves punishing indpendently of wrongfulness or out of proportion to wrongfulness. Still, even if a private citizen exacts proportional retribution that smacks of revenge, doesn't it? If so, revenge may sometimes involve a wrongful assumption of penal authority.

Question What is the line between justice and revenge called? Or better put, when does justice become an act of revenge? Accepted:October 13, 2005

Question What is the line between justice and revenge called? Or better put, when does justice become an act of revenge?

Accepted:
October 13, 2005