Systems that describe general rules in which good deeds are rewarded and bad deeds are punished are the foundation of a culture’s moral code. Within this code are predetermined ideas of what is right and wrong. Due to the negativity bias, the focus on the bad and how it can be punished tends have a greater effect on one’s psychological state than how kindliness is rewarded. While the two are equal counterparts, the redress of wrongs take precedence over the enforcement of rights. Retribution fits this general description of punishment being inflicted on the aggressor to the proportional degree inflicted on the victim. Contemporary morality relies on the evolution of this value. The changing attitudes towards retribution in Western tradition
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Retribution is used to enforce this balance and ground Homer’s society by helping characters develop a sense of what is just and unjust. To understand the attitude towards retribution, there must also be a definition of what the punishable acts are in the cultural context of the work. Scenes of betrayal, thievery, and violations of etiquette all end with the fatal punishment of death:
You dogs, you never thought I would any more come back from the land of Troy, and because of that you despoiled my household, and forcibly took my serving women to sleep beside you, and sought to win my wife while I was still alive, fearing neither the immortal gods who hold the wide heaven, nor any resentment sprung from men to be yours in the future. Now upon you all the terms of destruction are fastened. […] [A]ll that you have now, and what you could add from elsewhere, even so, I would not stay my hands from the slaughter, until I had taken revenge for all the suitors’ transgression. Now the choice has been set before you, either to fight me or run, if any of you can escape death and its spirits. But I think not one man will escape from sheer destruction. ( Odyssey: 22.35-41, …show more content…
This claim is based on the presence of divine intervention within each work. In the Odyssey, Athena is a fundamental factor in Odysseus’ quest home, and eventual slaughter of his wife’s suitors. Her intervention creates an unfair advantage for Odysseus, thus making his retribution against the suitors not fully just. In the Oresteia, the forced intervention of Apollo telling Orestes to commit Matricide is what causes the Furies to flock to Orestes, claiming that he needs to be punished. Orestes’ trial for redemption was also a forced win due to Athena’s intervention of an automatic vote for mortals. Both of these situations intervened in an otherwise innocent Orestes’ life. These representations of divine intervention condole determinism, suggesting that the gods reign over all mortals, making their fate preconceived and therefore unchangeable. Justice has a premise of free-will in choosing to sin, which divine intervention directly conflicts with. The retribution of these sins become redundant
Retribution is used to enforce this balance and ground Homer’s society by helping characters develop a sense of what is just and unjust. To understand the attitude towards retribution, there must also be a definition of what the punishable acts are in the cultural context of the work. Scenes of betrayal, thievery, and violations of etiquette all end with the fatal punishment of death:
You dogs, you never thought I would any more come back from the land of Troy, and because of that you despoiled my household, and forcibly took my serving women to sleep beside you, and sought to win my wife while I was still alive, fearing neither the immortal gods who hold the wide heaven, nor any resentment sprung from men to be yours in the future. Now upon you all the terms of destruction are fastened. […] [A]ll that you have now, and what you could add from elsewhere, even so, I would not stay my hands from the slaughter, until I had taken revenge for all the suitors’ transgression. Now the choice has been set before you, either to fight me or run, if any of you can escape death and its spirits. But I think not one man will escape from sheer destruction. ( Odyssey: 22.35-41, …show more content…
This claim is based on the presence of divine intervention within each work. In the Odyssey, Athena is a fundamental factor in Odysseus’ quest home, and eventual slaughter of his wife’s suitors. Her intervention creates an unfair advantage for Odysseus, thus making his retribution against the suitors not fully just. In the Oresteia, the forced intervention of Apollo telling Orestes to commit Matricide is what causes the Furies to flock to Orestes, claiming that he needs to be punished. Orestes’ trial for redemption was also a forced win due to Athena’s intervention of an automatic vote for mortals. Both of these situations intervened in an otherwise innocent Orestes’ life. These representations of divine intervention condole determinism, suggesting that the gods reign over all mortals, making their fate preconceived and therefore unchangeable. Justice has a premise of free-will in choosing to sin, which divine intervention directly conflicts with. The retribution of these sins become redundant