more from this thinker | more from this text
Full Idea
More primitive men regarded the acts of violence that could befall them as an easily redressed evil and not as an offence that must be punished; they did not even dream of vengeance, except as a knee-jerk response.
Gist of Idea
Primitive people simply redressed the evil caused by violence, without thought of punishing
Source
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Discourse on the Origin of Inequality [1754], Part I)
Book Ref
Rousseau,Jean-Jacques: 'The Basic Political Writings', ed/tr. Cress,Donald A. [Hackett 1987], p.55
A Reaction
This may be Rousseau at his most optimistic, trying to deny a rather more aggressive streak in people, seen in children's playgrounds.
| 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] |