It might be good to define justice, first. If you consider justice as only punishment of the guilty party without considering who holds the baseball bat, then yes, revenge can lead to justice. But that's not how human society defines justice. The whole point of justice in a functioning society is to have a judge substituting to individuals to decide the punishment and enforce it. Breaking the revenge cycle comes as an immediate benefit: there is a difference between society killing someone for what he did and an individual doing the killing and placing the family and friends of the now deceased in a position to take revenge. Unfortunately, when human society is not in a position to deliver justice, we are left with revenge.
So what you saying is justice is a faceless, nameless group that can pass judgement and take action against another without fear of retribution. Ya, sounds about right...at least with revenge, everyone is responsible for the actions.
Agreed - in our culture, the public (as represented by the government) metes out “justice”, in the attempt to avoid cycles personal “revenge”. Part of “justice” is that it’s supposed to be impartial and appropriate, as determined by a larger group of people than just the injured party, who is likely too close to be impartial and possibly not powerful enough to carry it out. By itself, that theory seems reasonable.
It might be good to define justice, first. If you consider justice as only punishment of the guilty party without considering who holds the baseball bat, then yes, revenge can lead to justice. But that's not how human society defines justice. The whole point of justice in a functioning society is to have a judge substituting to individuals to decide the punishment and enforce it. Breaking the revenge cycle comes as an immediate benefit: there is a difference between society killing someone for what he did and an individual doing the killing and placing the family and friends of the now deceased in a position to take revenge. Unfortunately, when human society is not in a position to deliver justice, we are left with revenge.
So what you saying is justice is a faceless, nameless group that can pass judgement and take action against another without fear of retribution. Ya, sounds about right...at least with revenge, everyone is responsible for the actions.
Agreed - in our culture, the public (as represented by the government) metes out “justice”, in the attempt to avoid cycles personal “revenge”. Part of “justice” is that it’s supposed to be impartial and appropriate, as determined by a larger group of people than just the injured party, who is likely too close to be impartial and possibly not powerful enough to carry it out. By itself, that theory seems reasonable.