A punishment that penalizes without forestalling is indeed called revenge.
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- Punishment that reacts to crime rather than preventing it is merely revenge.
- In plain terms
- If a penalty comes after the act without stopping it, it is just retaliation.
- What can you take from it?
- Focus on prevention rather than reactive punishment.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- Is all punishment revenge?
- How do you prevent crime?
Another view
Some argue deterrence requires punishment after the fact.
More from Albert Camus
When the imagination sleeps, words are emptied of their meaning: a deaf population absent-mindedly registers the condemnation of a man. ... there is no other s…
Permalink to quote #94 The welfare of the people in particular has always been the alibi of tyrants, and it provides the further advantage of giving the servants of tyranny a good co…
Permalink to quote #96 I do not have much liking for the too famous existential philosophy, and, to tell the truth, I think its conclusions false.
Permalink to quote #93
Related quotes
By committing a crime, a man places himself, of his own accord, outside the chain of eternal obligations which bind every human being to every other one. Punis…
Simone WeilSimone Weil quote #28 The law which attempts a man's life [capital punishment] is impractical, unjust, inadmissible. It has never repressed crime-for a second crime is every day com…
Donatien de SadeDonatien de Sade quote #1 He will be immediately avenged!
Alessandro PavoliniAlessandro Pavolini quote #2