Abstract
In this article I engage with Peter French’s defense, in The Virtues of Vengeance, of the view that hostility is sometimes morally appropriate. In light of our current intellectual climate (which I briefly describe herein) French’s position is truly courageous. While I agree with French’s position, I wish to suggest that it faces an interesting dilemma. Either French has not really distinguished vengeance from punishment (and in such a case, some of his views on vengeance would need to be revised), or he would have to admit that vengeance is really not as virtuous as he makes it appear. For one characteristic of the avenger, as opposed to the punisher, is a certain imperviousness as to the reality and the significance of the suffering that she inflicts – and it is hard to see this indolence of sorts as a virtue.
With thanks to Zachary Goldberg.
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Notes
- 1.
Like French, I use these terms interchangeably.
- 2.
The enthusiasm transcended the confines of academia: see Larissa MacFarquhar “How to be Good”, The New Yorker, (Sept 5 2011, 42–53).
- 3.
Whatever else can be contentious about punishment, the fact that, purely as a conceptual matter, it seeks to inflict suffering is beyond dispute. See Hart (2008, 4 ff.). As we shall see, for current purposes, “suffering” can remain relatively unanalyzed, meaning something akin to “hard treatment”, “pain”, “unpleasantness”, and even to (Parfit’s) “being less happy”.
- 4.
- 5.
I have here focused on these two influential authors, but there are many other authors who espouse this sort of position.
- 6.
To “force” someone to undergo a painful medical treatment is not hostile, since there is no value in that person undergoing the pain as such. If the effects of the treatment were attainable without the pain, then that would be preferable. Many see punishment under this exact light: the pain that punishment causes is necessary in order to diminish further pain down the road. Those who see punishment in this way may be forced that so understood punishment is in fact not hostile. But those who think that, for example, torturers and rapists ought to suffer as a consequence of having tortured and raped, independently of whatever good consequences may follow from their suffering, are perforce recognizing that punishment is a hostile response.
- 7.
In this context, retribution can be taken to be a synonym to punishment. “Retributive punishment” is, in a way, pleonastic – since “punishment” which does not purport to be retributive (of the guilty) can hardly be called punishment. See Zaibert (2006b, 7–37 and passim). See also Rawls (1955, 3–32).
- 8.
In Zaibert (2006b, 41) I call it a “catch-all” and “entirely empty clause”.
- 9.
Defenses of communicative approaches to punishment are visible in the work of leading punishment theorists, such as Joel Feinberg, Douglas Husak, Andrew von Hirsch, John Tasioulas, and above all R. A. Duff.
- 10.
For example, see Jeffrie Murphy “Forgiveness and Resentment” in (Murphy and Hampton 1988, 23 ff.).
- 11.
For example, the prostitutes in Unforgiven, which French discusses on pp. 38 ff., just wished the cruel cowboy who disfigured one of them dead – they have no interest in communicating anything to him.
- 12.
See above all (Zaibert 2006, passim).
- 13.
Again, I have discussed them at length in (Zaibert 2006).
References
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———. 2006b. Punishment and retribution, 69–95. Aldershot: Ashgate.
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Zaibert, L. (2017). The Ethics of Hostility. In: Goldberg, Z. (eds) Reflections on Ethics and Responsibility. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-50359-2_12
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