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

[Deleted member]

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.

Athamelic means "Lacking in Thamé", which itself just means "order, harmony and niceness" for lack of a better term. You know what deracinated is -- so basically it's a society of isolated wretches exposed to the full power of the state, who are compelled by civilisation using state power, surveillance, etc, to obey, instead of having communities which mediate, define, and negotiate power to support them. That's what we are now, and building community at the local level is how we re-racinate and begin to restore those principles.

 

[Francis Urquhart]

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".

If I might expand on that a little, Mutual Assured Destruction doesn't quite work like that. What Assured Destruction means is that if an opponent launches a first strike, the country in possession of the Assured Destruction capability will retain enough of that capability that, after absorbing the inbound first strike, the capability to lay its enemy to waste remains viable. Normally, this is achieved by creating a nuclear force structure that is sufficiently hard enough and well-protected enough to survive an onslaught. If both sides have an Assured Destruction capability, then a state of Mutual Assured Destruction is deemed to exist.

Although colloquially MAD is referred to as a strategy, it isn't. It's an operational theory which, if its considered desirable, can be obtained by a variety of strategies. One is to make the weapons that comprise the Assured Destruction force as impossible to find as can be achieved. SSBNs are the best example of that.

Another is to so heavily protect the Assured Destruction force that it will need a disproportionately large commitment of force to disable it. This has two sub-strategies; either the weapons can be protected by piling concrete around them or by shielding them with defensive missiles. Back in the good old days, we used to calculate that the Soviets would have to fire ten warheads to be sure of disabling each of our ICBMs. That meant that we could score a 10:1 kill rate in warhead terms simply by not launching. Now you know why people MIRVed their missiles.

Another strategy for achieving Assured Destruction us to adopt launch-on-warning which means if a first strike is detected approaching, the recipient gets all the goodies off and on their way. Since, operational nuclear missiles do NOT have abort or retarget systems, once they are fired and on their way, that's it. So LoW is a very dangerous strategy. AFAIK only Pakistan actually has a formal LoW strategy.

This whole area is not a good fit for "eye for an eye". There was an effort to go that way labelled "Flexible Response" but it has really sort of faded away. The basic rule these days is "toss one at us and we'll smash your country's entire war-making capability. And that means smash EVERYTHING."

 

[Urabrask Revealed]

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

Which is stupid. It results in the one being forgiven getting away with everything they have done, and the one wronged usually deciding to extract their own justice because they are abandoned and so have to take things into their own hand.

 

[CarlManvers2019]

Which is stupid. It results in the one being forgiven getting away with everything they have done, and the one wronged usually deciding to extract their own justice because they are abandoned and so have to take things into their own hand.

There’s the question if the forgiven even regrets anything to begin with

 

[Francis Urquhart]

There’s the question if the forgiven even regrets anything to begin with

This actually puts a finger on the real problem of "eye for an eye". People very rarely are bad guys in their own eyes and usually believe they are in the right on any given issue. Therefore what one side sees as retaliation for a given injury is seen by the other as an unprovoked attack which justifies their retaliation. And so the vendetta cycle is set up. Then there's the whole "He started it! he hit me back!" meme

 

[Deleted member]

Managing and preventing the Vendetta cycle is the actual function of the Justice system, at its very most fundamental.

 

[Francis Urquhart]

Managing and preventing the Vendetta cycle is the actual function of the Justice system, at its very most fundamental.

That's an interesting way of looking at things and I can see the logic within it. A justice system provides the context and balance of the issues and takes on itself the burden of resolving said issues. The problem is, though, that we have seen that system evolve into just another cause for vendettas.

"Why did you kill him?"
"Because he testified in court against my brother"

 

[Deleted member]

@Francis Urquhart that's because respect for the system declines as respect for the outcomes is lost -- as the justice system gets further and further away from its intended purpose.

 

[Francis Urquhart]

@Francis Urquhart that's because respect for the system declines as respect for the outcomes is lost -- as the justice system gets further and further away from its intended purpose.

Re-reading my post, I think I should have said "system devolve into just another cause for vendettas." There's no doubt in my mind that the justice system worldwide has lost its way and become a tool for the manipulation of the law-abiding rather than a vehicle for the management of situations that would otherwise lead to vendettas. It's apparent that the worst culprits in this spreading corruption have been the judges themselves who have arrogated power to themselves. Can't help feeling too many of today's judges have been brought up on Judge Dredd.

 

[Lanmandragon]

Re-reading my post, I think I should have said "system devolve into just another cause for vendettas." There's no doubt in my mind that the justice system worldwide has lost its way and become a tool for the manipulation of the law-abiding rather than a vehicle for the management of situations that would otherwise lead to vendettas. It's apparent that the worst culprits in this spreading corruption have been the judges themselves who have arrogated power to themselves. Can't help feeling too many of today's judges have been brought up on Judge Dredd.

Honestly that would almost be better. Dredd enforces the law ad it's written without bias or emotion. Real judges let both of those interfer with justice all the time.

 

[Deleted member]

Re-reading my post, I think I should have said "system devolve into just another cause for vendettas." There's no doubt in my mind that the justice system worldwide has lost its way and become a tool for the manipulation of the law-abiding rather than a vehicle for the management of situations that would otherwise lead to vendettas. It's apparent that the worst culprits in this spreading corruption have been the judges themselves who have arrogated power to themselves. Can't help feeling too many of today's judges have been brought up on Judge Dredd.

To me the basic summation of Common Law remains Blackstone's Commentaries and anyone deviating from them is essentially abrogating the law for their personal ideology or power.

 

[Doomsought]

Here's a different look at it:

If you broke someone's arm in a fight, would you rather have your arm broken or go to prison?

 

[Francis Urquhart]

Here's a different look at it: If you broke someone's arm in a fight, would you rather have your arm broken or go to prison?

Well, looking at things differently, if the Good Lord had intended people to go around hitting each other, He would not have provided us with machine guns.

 

[Deleted member]

Here's a different look at it:

If you broke someone's arm in a fight, would you rather have your arm broken or go to prison?

How many people would really choose prison, and yet how many people are in prison?

 

[Bacle]

Here's a different look at it:

If you broke someone's arm in a fight, would you rather have your arm broken or go to prison?

I'll take the broken arm, thank you very much.

 

[Lanmandragon]

Here's a different look at it:

If you broke someone's arm in a fight, would you rather have your arm broken or go to prison?

Depends if it's a self defense situation you shouldn't be punished at all. I'd also say if both guys agreed to the fight you shouldn't be punished either. I'd rather have the broken arm though. I've had both before the break sucks far less.

 

[Cherico]

Ok once again as a jew the eye for an eye thing was about proportional justice.

The idea was that the punishment shouldn't out do the crime, it wasn't an endorsement of revenge it was a limitation. Because if some one destroyed some ones eye during a drunken brawl we didn't want that to turn into a multi generational shit show of vendettas. So the offending party would only lose his eye or have to pay recompense.

And as for If you seek revenge dig two graves. There is an alternative meaning to that, in that meaning revenge is so important that one must be prepared to die for it. IF the slight wasn't worth your own life then it wasn't worth the effort. It can very easily be seen as a shit or get off the pot statement. Of either let it go or go all in but don't do the wishy washy bullshit.

 

[Lanmandragon]

Ok once again as a jew the eye for an eye thing was about proportional justice.

The idea was that the punishment shouldn't out do the crime, it wasn't an endorsement of revenge it was a limitation. Because if some one destroyed some ones eye during a drunken brawl we didn't want that to turn into a multi generational shit show of vendettas. So the offending party would only lose his eye or have to pay recompense.

And as for If you seek revenge dig two graves. There is an alternative meaning to that, in that meaning revenge is so important that one must be prepared to die for it. IF the slight wasn't worth your own life then it wasn't worth the effort. It can very easily be seen as a shit or get off the pot statement. Of either let it go or go all in but don't do the wishy washy bullshit.

This is all very basic stuff. I'd say I was surprised folks don't get it. I've seen people amazed at Peterson saying basic stuff though. Sad world sometimes.

 

[Deleted member]

This is all very basic stuff. I'd say I was surprised folks don't get it. I've seen people amazed at Peterson saying basic stuff though. Sad world sometimes.

I think it's just a matter of degrees. Ideally, we could restore social peace without resorting to proportional punishment, but it is certainly a maxim that if everything else fails, resorting to proportional response is appropriate. Sometimes it's just the only way to keep the peace. But among nations it tends to be less effective than among people. Was the War of Jenkins' ear really wrong?