An Eye for an Eye

This chapter investigates how humans perceive justice and how these perceptions have shaped the development of law. It surveys early childhood evidence of helping, sharing and harm-repair; links empathy, altruism and fairness, weighing critiques of these links; and follows justice and revenge across time and space, from lex talionis in Mesopotamia and biblical and Qur’anic retribution and pardon to Confucian-and Japanese-sanctioned revenge. Then, it turns to the philosophical frameworks of Aristotelian distributive and corrective justice, Rawlsian justice as fairness and Kantian deontology and consequentialism, focusing on their applications to the justification of criminal punishment. Finally, it considers the role of the social contract in prohibiting private justice.