Abstract

Retributivism—the idea that wrongdoers should be “paid back” for their wicked deeds—fits naturally with many people’s feelings. They find it deeply satisfying when murderers and rapists “get what they have coming,” and they are infuriated when villains “get away with it.” But others dismiss these feelings as primitive and unenlightened. Sometimes the complaint takes a religious form. The desire for revenge, it is said, should be resisted by those who believe in Christian charity. After all, Jesus himself rejected the rule of “an eye for an eye,”2 and St. Paul underscored the point, saying that we should not “return evil for evil” but we should “overcome evil with good.”3 To those who adopt this way of thinking, whether on secular or religious grounds, vengeance cannot be an acceptable motive for action. This objection is, for the most part, misguided. The idea that wrongdoers should be “paid back” for their wickedness is not merely a demand for primitive vengeance. It is..