| > The justice system is, and should be, always primarily about punishment Not in Europe, since "Dei delitti e delle pene" (On Crimes and Punishments ) from Cesare Beccaria. It was 1764, we were already aware of that. Justice is not a way to inflict punishment, the sentence, as Beccaria put it "should be in degree to the severity of the crime" and should work as deterrent, not as retribution (which is usually the case in US especially the death penalty, that have the purpose of giving "an eye for an eye" to the victim's family). > Humans have a strong natural instinct towards justice No, they don't. Homō hominī lupus, men are very social animals, it doesn't mean they lean naturally towards justice, they just defend their communities against other communities. > This worked pretty well for thousands of years It didn't actually. That's why we constantly reformed our justice system. Think about the code of Ammurabi, does this work in your opinion? "If the wife of a man has been caught lying with another man, they shall bind them and throw them into the waters. If the owner of the wife would save his wife then in turn the king could save his servant." It never really worked, especially for the regular folks, still today has a lot of flaws let alone thousands of years ago. In Italy it was legal to kill the wife that cheated (but not the husband who did the same), it was called "honor killing" and it was abolished only in 1981. So, no. > The right to revenge is one of the most important human rights of all It is its greatest fault indeed. And it is what makes USA a country where the risk of being killed by a stranger is 10 times higher than in Italy (5.63/100,000 vs 0.55/100.000), it is higher than many third world countries or countries that are at war like Sudan, Kenya, Niger, Libya, Syria or Iran. |