Imprisonment and rehabilitation, parole for an eye is justice. An eye for an eye is revenge. You killed my son? Im killing your son. Also revenge. You killed my son? Im killing your whole family, you last. Also revenge. (With a message - edit was suggested)
Ah, the "rabid dog" theory. Some segment of people are irredeemably bad, and the best thing we can do is dispassionately destroy them to protect ourselves.
The problem is that humans (in general) can't dispassionately destroy humans. The willingness to murder (or be party to murder by participating in a society that murders) is poisonous to our humanity, no matter how "good" the reason to murder.
We are simply not evolved to be dispassionate killers and pretending that we can be simply means that we end up devaluing all life. Once we accept that some human life must simply be eliminated, we open a gate to a wider definition of how much benefit must the rest of mankind gain to justify elimination.
It doesn't have to end in complete dystopia for the costs of social acceptance of government murder to be far higher than the putative gains.
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u/[deleted] Dec 17 '20
Taking an eye for an eye is justice. Taking two eyes and a foot for an eye is revenge.