Philosophy 'An Eye for an Eye'; why is it a Bad Philosophy?

[Bacle]

Many people say 'An Eye for An Eye Leaves the Whole World Blind' or 'When You Set Out for Revenge, Dig Two Graves' as a deterrent against people seeking vengeance or justice for wrongs committed against them.

Yet, quite simply, history shows us this is not the case for many cultures, nations, and ideologies.

A great example of it working on the macro-scale is the concept of Mutually Assured Destruction, which has been the bedrock of world peace since the nuclear age began.

Even the Code of Hammurabi, almost the ur-legal document, accepts it as a justified manner of thinking and action. Most of the objection seems to stem from the Christian world and ideologies, as most Eastern religions, while even Judaism and Islam do not overtly denounce that line of thinking.

Also, many parts of realpolitik accept it as reality as well, and we see it played out all the time from all parts of the political spectrum.

I think there is a good argument to be made that the phrases/saying were invented more to keep victims from fighting back, and make them accepting of their fates, more than anything else.


So, how do different parts of the political spectrum see this issue?

 

[Doomsought]

Many people say 'An Eye for An Eye Leaves the Whole World Blind'

To these people I reply, "if the whole world goes blind, nobody was using their eyes in the first place. "

 

[S'task]

Well, the issue is that most people quoting the line "an eye for an eye" are misquoting it and using it as justification for personal vengeance. You yourself do the same, by bringing up the quote about revenge.

However, the actual line of "an eye for an eye" is part of a much larger quote that in context is talking about formal retributive justice within the framework of a formal trial. It is part of a passage discussing what penalties someone has to face after being found guilty of doing bodily harm to another. In the context of the passage, it is outlining a very significant legal principle: the punishment for a crime should not outweigh the damage caused by the crime and that the punishment should fit the crime in question.

Which, I would note, stands in SHARP CONTRAST to the Code of Hammurabi, which had such penalties as losing a hand for the crime of stealing and the like. The Jewish legal code (which the line "an eye for an eye" comes from) is in fact explicitly calling out other legal codes of its period as being UNJUST and rejecting their framework of punitive punishments by limiting punishments to being no worse than, and fitting to, the crime committed. You'll note that for stealing in the Jewish legal code does not require bodily harm, but instead demands financial restitution.

In short, your premise is wrong and the line you think supports punitive justice is actually a core foundational principle in for equal and merciful justice. Likewise, people who quote the line to support taking personal vengeance are, in fact, misquoting and misunderstanding the line, as it has nothing to do with personal vengeance.

 

[Bacle]

Well, the issue is that most people quoting the line "an eye for an eye" are misquoting it and using it as justification for personal vengeance. You yourself do the same, by bringing up the quote about revenge.

However, the actual line of "an eye for an eye" is part of a much larger quote that in context is talking about formal retributive justice within the framework of a formal trial. It is part of a passage discussing what penalties someone has to face after being found guilty of doing bodily harm to another. In the context of the passage, it is outlining a very significant legal principle: the punishment for a crime should not outweigh the damage caused by the crime and that the punishment should fit the crime in question.

Which, I would note, stands in SHARP CONTRAST to the Code of Hammurabi, which had such penalties as losing a hand for the crime of stealing and the like. The Jewish legal code (which the line "an eye for an eye" comes from) is in fact explicitly calling out other legal codes of its period as being UNJUST and rejecting their framework of punitive punishments by limiting punishments to being no worse than, and fitting to, the crime committed. You'll note that for stealing in the Jewish legal code does not require bodily harm, but instead demands financial restitution.

In short, your premise is wrong and the line you think supports punitive justice is actually a core foundational principle in for equal and merciful justice. Likewise, people who quote the line to support taking personal vengeance are, in fact, misquoting and misunderstanding the line, as it has nothing to do with personal vengeance.

Well much of this is news to me.

The fact that I and others misunderstand the quote and context shows part of how the meanings of those quotes have mutated in the modern lexicon.

Also, personal vengeance via the legal system is a rather wide spread concept these days, so the distinction seems rather academic at best for the purpose of realpolitik. As well, MAD very much follows the Hammurabi-style, and modern lexicon, version of this thinking.

 

[S'task]

Well much of this is news to me.

The fact that I and others misunderstand the quote and context shows part of how the meanings of those quotes have mutated in the modern lexicon.

Also, personal vengeance via the legal system is a rather wide spread concept these days, so the distinction seems rather academic at best for the purpose of realpolitik. As well, MAD very much follows the Hammurabi-style, and modern lexicon, version of this thinking.

No, the meaning of the quote hasn't, it's people use of the idiom that has.

I mean, the full quote, in context is from Exodus 21, the verse in question, 21:24, is part of a section that is titled: "Personal Injury" in the NIV translation, and the explicit context of the quote is as follows:

If people are fighting and hit a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely but there is no serious injury, the offender must be fined whatever the woman’s husband demands and the court allows. But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.

You'll note that this isn't even about MAD, but the potential of injuries caused to a pregnant woman via the negligence of two people fighting. It's explicitly a protection for BYSTANDERS. It is not, notably, a call for vengeance or anything else of the like, rather, it is strictly about what punitive measures should be taken when serious injury occurs to an uninvolved party. This stands in contrast to the penalties given to INVOLVED parties in the prior verses 18 and 19, where if someone is seriously injured in a brawl resulting from a quarrel, they are only required to pay compensation and ensure healing, not have injury or death bestowed upon them.

 

[ShadowsOfParadox]

MAD isn't even "eye for an eye"

MAD is "You can blow me up, I can blow you up, if you try to blow me up I'll blow you up and if I blow you up you'll blow me up". It's Threat Display. It's the same reason a Coral Snake is colored as it is, or why a Rattlesnake rattles, or why Poison Dart Frogs are all bright and contrasting.

 

[Deleted member]

Non-socially-sanctioned revenge is the problem. The objective of the law originally was to provide a resolution of an incipient blood feud acceptable to both families or clans. Personal vengeance is chaos and anarchy; regularised vengeance is actually the basis of all law.

 

[CarlManvers2019]

I think guys against it are also of the mind that people wanting vengeance will hurt others in the process or do more than what was done onto them

 

[Shipmaster Sane]

Eye-for-an-eye, as in the actual Mesopotamian legal rule, was not the problem, it's the philosophy of revenge generally associated with the phrase which, ironically, the actual rule was meant to put an end to.

Reciprocal violence tends extremely strongly to escalate, not be perfectly symmetrical and closed. You kill a man, for whatever reason, and his son comes to kill you, then he kills you, and your son kills him, until people just start trying to wipe out everyone's relations and extended friendships every time there is a mortal dispute.

It is not for nothing that the ancient Celts believed that the ability to convert an adversary into a useful member of society was vital enough that if it did not happen for long enough, the state would collapse in on itself.



Revenge (which is different than retaliation) as ultimately self defeating should be... rather obvious, and I don't know where you're getting that it's only a christian idea.

 

[Hlaalu Agent]

Eye-for-an-eye, as in the actual Mesopotamian legal rule, was not the problem, it's the philosophy of revenge generally associated with the phrase which, ironically, the actual rule was meant to put an end to.

Reciprocal violence tends extremely strongly to escalate, not be perfectly symmetrical and closed. You kill a man, for whatever reason, and his son comes to kill you, then he kills you, and your son kills him, until people just start trying to wipe out everyone's relations and extended friendships every time there is a mortal dispute.

It is not for nothing that the ancient Celts believed that the ability to convert an adversary into a useful member of society was vital enough that if it did not happen for long enough, the state would collapse in on itself.



Revenge (which is different than retaliation) as ultimately self defeating should be... rather obvious, and I don't know where you're getting that it's only a christian idea.

Indeed. It is meant to limit revenge. To allow for justice instead of endless restitution. And that is the reason why vendetta cultures are so dysfunctional, the Maniot Greeks literally needed towers so that family members could hide and not getting wiped out. Those guys were literally so into it and quarrelsome that one of the last ones had to have Greek government intervention to put it down.

And that Celt thing sounds pretty neat. It sounds like a reasonable position from the way you describe it.

And indeed, is this not the point of the Oresteia?

 

[Deleted member]

A great deal of the world still functions on the basis of the blood feud, I would argue it's a much greater cause of many issues within the Islamic ummah than Islam is, and in the Christian western the Greeks and southern Italians were some of the last, "best" examples of this. Of course, these areas had law-abiding cultures for centuries at the height of their grandeur, so it's very difficult to claim that history is a progression--some areas have essentially, in cultural terms, lost functional legal institutions and reverted to this level. The Maniots are arguably an example of that.

 

[Lanmandragon]

A great deal of the world still functions on the basis of the blood feud, I would argue it's a much greater cause of many issues within the Islamic ummah than Islam is, and in the Christian western the Greeks and southern Italians were some of the last, "best" examples of this. Of course, these areas had law-abiding cultures for centuries at the height of their grandeur, so it's very difficult to claim that history is a progression--some areas have essentially, in cultural terms, lost functional legal institutions and reverted to this level. The Maniots are arguably an example of that.

No need to go looking overseas. Gangs and gang warfare are in effect the same as blood feuds. You have sets from neighborhood right next to each other. Who have been and still are at war.

 

[CarlManvers2019]

You know, I sorta think guys against an Eye For An Eye, aren’t just thinking about going beyond that, they just want complete forgiveness

 

[Lightershoulders]

Rather than debate the phrase itself, I will approach the concept the OP is attempting to address, which is "Is revenge bad according to different political spectrums?"

The answer will always be a resounding yes, if done to them, and a resounding correction to the term justice if they are seeking it.

 

[Deleted member]

No need to go looking overseas. Gangs and gang warfare are in effect the same as blood feuds. You have sets from neighborhood right next to each other. Who have been and still are at war.

That really just drives home the psychosocial reality of a kind of de-civilisational process which occurs in situations of poverty and social disorder.

 

[Lanmandragon]

That really just drives home the psychosocial reality of a kind of de-civilisational process which occurs in situations of poverty and social disorder.

Yep order will be established one way or the other. Alot of these gangs along with the mafia Yakuza etc. Actually started as basically cops. They'd protect and enforce order in thier neighborhoods because the legit cops wouldn't. It was only later that crime (usally drugs). Became the primary purpose as opposed to just a revenue stream.

 

[Deleted member]

Yep order will be established one way or the other. Alot of these gangs along with the mafia Yakuza etc. Actually started as basically cops. They'd protect and enforce order in thier neighborhoods because the legit cops wouldn't. It was only later that crime (usally drugs). Became the primary purpose as opposed to just a revenue stream.

When regular society breaks down, humans create their own on rougher terms.

 

[Hlaalu Agent]

When regular society breaks down, humans create their own on rougher terms.

Which is perhaps why we need such things as bowling clubs. Since they provide the social capital needed for situations like that, where people can network and rebuild society in microcosms.

 

[Deleted member]

Which is perhaps why we need such things as bowling clubs. Since they provide the social capital needed for situations like that, where people can network and rebuild society in microcosms.

Yes! You're on to it! Those kinds of simple social organisations are the real way to rebuild a healthy society. Their disintegration was the sign of the social apocalypse, so to speak. The loss of the neighbourhood bar, the bowling alley, the Elks Club, the social settings of small scale community, the loss of volunteerism--that was the symptom and a driver of the rise of deracinated, athamelic society.

 

[Hlaalu Agent]

Yes! You're on to it! Those kinds of simple social organisations are the real way to rebuild a healthy society. Their disintegration was the sign of the social apocalypse, so to speak. The loss of the neighbourhood bar, the bowling alley, the Elks Club, the social settings of small scale community, the loss of volunteerism--that was the symptom and a driver of the rise of deracinated, athamelic society.

I am sure you can explain what exactly I am thinking of with this. But you are entirely correct with your assessment of what I mean, and could you describe the last term there? I am not 100% sure what you mean, and I am just inserting my own assumptions in and this missing it. I'd personally love to get out and be involved with other people in the community...so it might behoove me to actually look.