Is punishment just revenge?

Asked by: Queen Strosin  |  Last update: January 19, 2026
Score: 4.1/5 (33 votes)

Punishment is intended to serve a rational purpose. It usually has an objective external goal or focus: prevention, correction, reparation, education, socialization… Revenge is intended to generate emotional satisfaction in the person taking revenge. Its goals are always internal, personal, and subjective.

Is punishment the same as revenge?

A. Revenge is a subjective, personal, wild form of justice, untempered by objectivity and truth. Often the focus of revenge is a sense of satisfaction or enjoyment, while punishment is about consequence, and a deterrent and hopefully also an attempt to rehabilitate.

What makes a punishment just?

Consequentialist accounts contend that punishment is justified as a means to securing some valuable end—typically crime reduction, by deterring, incapacitating, or reforming offenders. Retributivism, by contrast, holds that punishment is an intrinsically appropriate (because deserved) response to criminal wrongdoing.

Why is punishment not good?

Wilson suggests that punishment may stop unwanted behaviour in the short term, but it also creates fear and sneaky behaviour. Punishment uses pain and unpleasantness, builds resentment, encourages deception and can damage self esteem.

Is punishment ever justified?

The utilization of punishment is justified in terms of deterrence, retribution, or incapacitation. The deterrence position maintains that if the offender is punished, not only the offender by also those who see his example are deterred from further offenses.

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38 related questions found

Is punishment a necessary evil?

A general appraisal of the ethical and sociological significance, of punishment will have to recognize that punishment is an evil- albeit a necessary evil-of an imperfect society. It is the correlative of crime and can at best aid in the prevention and cure of crimin- ality.

Is punishment better than forgiveness?

We have important relationships we need to maintain with these people, even when they've hurt us deeply. According to Australian psychologist Peter Strelan, though, we need to punish before we can forgive. Punishment provides a sense of justice, which the victim must feel before true forgiveness can take place.

What to do instead of punishment?

Below are ten alternatives to spanking that you might find helpful.
  • Give choices. A choice gives some control back to the child on the parents' terms. ...
  • Take a timeout. ...
  • Get someone else involved. ...
  • Teach them what you expect. ...
  • Recognize their positive behaviors. ...
  • Timeout. ...
  • Consequence. ...
  • Pick your battles.

What are the 4 disadvantages of punishment?

PROBLEMS AND
  • PUNISHMENT OFTEN FAILS TO STOP, AND CAN EVEN INCREASE THE OCCURRENCE OF, ...
  • PUNISHMENT AROUSES STRONG EMOTIONAL RESPONSES THAT MAY GENERALIZE. ...
  • USING PUNISHMENT MODELS AGGRESSION. ...
  • INTERNAL CONTROL OF BEHAVIOR IS NOT LEARNED. ...
  • PUNISHMENT CAN EASILY BECOME ABUSE. ...
  • PAIN IS STRONGLY ASSOCIATED WITH AGGRESSION.

What is the point of punishment?

This part of the Module examines the main purposes of criminal punishment. There are five main underlying justifications of criminal punishment considered briefly here: retribution; incapacitation; deterrence; rehabilitation and reparation.

Are all crimes morally wrong?

Not All Crimes are Immoral; Not All Moral Wrongs are Crimes. Morality and criminal law frequently overlap.

What is a word for just punishment?

just punishment (noun as in comeuppance) Strongest match. retribution. Strong matches. due recompense requital.

What is more powerful than revenge?

A new study underscores the power of forgiveness [+] in restoring one's humanity. A new study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology weighs the benefits of forgiveness against revenge in repairing one's sense of self after a dehumanizing or victimizing experience.

What is the psychology behind punishment?

Punishment involves learning about the relationship between behavior and its adverse consequences. Punishment is fundamental to reinforcement learning, decision-making and choice, and is disrupted in psychiatric disorders such as addiction, depression, and psychopathy.

Are sins punished differently?

Biblical Doctrine

Therefore, all who die without repenting and trusting in Christ face the same quantitatively eternal punishment for their sins. And yet, because God is strictly just, he will punish those who have committed qualitatively greater offenses with a qualitatively greater punishment.

What is the strongest punishment?

The death penalty deters future murders. Society has always used punishment to discourage would-be criminals from unlawful action. Since society has the highest interest in preventing murder, it should use the strongest punishment available to deter murder, and that is the death penalty.

What is better than punishment?

Consequences are Better Than Punishment.

What is the least intrusive type of punishment?

Conditioned punishment might be beneficial for use in clinical settings because relatively less intrusive procedures that are easy to deliver (e.g., verbal reprimands, a brief tone) could be established as effective punishers.

What are positive punishments?

Positive punishment involves adding an aversive stimulus after an unwanted behavior to discourage a person from repeating the behavior. Spanking and chores are examples of this. On the other hand, negative punishment involves the removal of something desirable.

What is the most common punishment?

You probably know the phrase, “The punishment fits the crime.” In the criminal justice system, there are several forms of punishment that the law may consider — and the four most common types are incarceration, rehabilitation, diversion, and retribution.

How do you discipline a child that won't listen?

These include:
  1. Show and tell. Teach children right from wrong with calm words and actions. ...
  2. Set limits. Have clear and consistent rules your children can follow. ...
  3. Give consequences. ...
  4. Hear them out. ...
  5. Give them your attention. ...
  6. Catch them being good. ...
  7. Know when not to respond. ...
  8. Be prepared for trouble.

Why is it not good to use punishment?

Punishment undermines moral development by leading people to ask, “What do they want me to do, and what happens to me if I don't do it” and actively discouraging them from asking, “What kind of person do I want to be?” (I've laid out these arguments in more detail in my books Unconditional Parenting and Beyond ...

Can God forgive and still punish?

God's discipline in reaction to wrongdoing is right and loving because it is purposeful. “Yes, God does punish us for our sin to communicate his displeasure and the gravity of what we've done. But also, to set us in the right direction.

What really feels better forgiveness or revenge?

For people who wrote a letter expressing forgiveness, the researchers found that their levels of self-humanity were higher than people who wrote a revenge letter. Additionally, those who forgave reported lower inclination toward self-harm. In other words, forgiving has benefits for those of us who have been hurt.