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Single Idea 1661

[filed under theme 25. Social Practice / D. Justice / 3. Punishment / b. Retribution for crime ]

Full Idea

Socrates was the first Greek to grasp the truth that if someone has done a nasty thing to me, this does not give the slightest moral justification for doing anything nasty to him.

Gist of Idea

Socrates was the first to grasp that a cruelty is not justified by another cruelty

Source

comment on Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]) by Gregory Vlastos - Socrates: Ironist and Moral Philosopher p.190

Book Ref

Vlastos,Gregory: 'Socrates: Ironist and Moral Philosopher' [CUP 1992], p.190

The 13 ideas with the same theme [punishment as giving offenders what they deserve]:

1659 Protagoras seems to have made the huge move of separating punishment from revenge [Protagoras, by Vlastos]
1661 Socrates was the first to grasp that a cruelty is not justified by another cruelty [Vlastos on Socrates]
1755 Errors result from external influence, and should be corrected, not hated [Aristippus elder, by Diog. Laertius]
8241 Only put someone to death if the whole population believes it is deserved [Mengzi (Mencius)]
1660 It is noble to avenge oneself on one's enemies, and not come to terms with them [Aristotle]
19770 Primitive people simply redressed the evil caused by violence, without thought of punishing [Rousseau]
7673 Retributive punishment is better than being sent to hospital for your crimes [Kant, by Berlin]
21433 Violation of rights deserves punishment, which is vengeance, rather than restitution [Kant]
24118 Do away with punishment. Counter-retribution is as bad as the crime [Nietzsche]
18300 Whenever we have seen suffering, we have wanted the revenge of punishment [Nietzsche]
23527 Moral wickedness of an offence is always relevant to the degree of punishment [Hart,HLA]
1658 In early Greece the word for punishment was also the word for vengeance [Vlastos]
20617 How should the punishment fit the crime (for stealing chickens?) [Tuckness/Wolf]