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Justice vs. Vengeance — Is There a Difference?

Justice vs. Vengeance — Is There a Difference?

Nietzsche and Girard on the nature of justice

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The Living Philosophy
Jan 01, 2024
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The Living Philosophy
Justice vs. Vengeance — Is There a Difference?
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We tend to think of justice as a noble ideal we should strive for and vengeance as a small negative pettiness driven by the darker angels of our nature. But when we drill down on the mechanisms of justice a different image emerges. As the French philosopher and anthropologist René Girard has put it:

"public vengeance is the exclusive property of well-pol…

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