Comments on: 101

By: Hegel (Simple)

Hegel (Simple) — Thu, 24 Sep 2026 10:51:48 +0000

§ 101: Retribution

Punishment is retribution. It violates the violation. And because crime has a definite measure, punishment should have a definite measure too.

Everyone feels this:

All peoples have felt it this way: What the wrongdoer did should happen to him. The Greek goddesses of revenge sleep. Only crime wakes them. It is the wrongdoer’s own deed that comes back to him.

Does that mean an eye for an eye?

No. Whoever takes that literally soon ends up in the absurd. What if the wrongdoer has only one eye? Or no teeth left? And how would you pay back fraud with fraud?

Deed and punishment need not be equal in their shape. They must be equal in their value. Theft and a fine, robbery and prison look quite different. But both sides are violations. So we can compare them by their value.

How exactly can we fix this?

Never quite exactly. In external things there is no absolute limit. No concept tells whether a theft is worth one year in prison or one and a half. Here the understanding must keep coming closer. It never quite reaches the goal.

And with murder?

With murder it is different. Life is the whole of existence. It has no value that could weigh it up. That is why the punishment for murder is necessarily death.

Summary: Retribution means equality in value, not in outward shape. The exact measure remains an approximation. Only with murder does equality demand life itself.

By: Eduard Gans (Additions)

Eduard Gans (Additions) — Wed, 29 May 1833 13:24:45 +0000

Retribution is the inner connection and the identity of two determinations that appear as different and also have a different external existence in relation to one another. When the criminal is repaid, this has the appearance of an alien determination that does not belong to him; but punishment is, as we have seen, only the manifestation of the crime, that is, the other half which the one necessarily presupposes. What retribution has against it at first is that it appears as something immoral, as revenge, and that it can thus pass for something personal. But it is not the personal element but the concept itself that carries out retribution. “Vengeance is mine,” says God in the Bible, and if one wanted to associate with the word retribution the notion of some particular caprice of the subjective will, it must be said that it means only the reversal of the very shape of the crime turned against itself. The Eumenides sleep, but the crime awakens them, and so it is the deed itself that asserts itself. Now if in retribution one cannot proceed by specific equality, this is nevertheless different in the case of murder, for which the death penalty necessarily applies. For since life is the whole compass of existence, the punishment cannot consist in some value—since none exists for it—but again only in the deprivation of life.

By: Hegel (Notes)

Hegel (Notes) — Mon, 16 Dec 1822 08:06:32 +0000

[zu] § 101. Common sense[:] as one has done, so shall it be done to him.
The jurists could no longer get by with common sense; – it would indeed be right, if only it could be demonstrated, comprehended –
As he has done, so shall it be done to him, – inner connection – in universality, reason – that [is what is contained] in the preceding §
Retribution expresses this. Page in the preceding §.
α) As he has done, so shall it be done to him – being posited – it is his will, his law. What he has done becomes a power hostile to him, – he has aroused it – the Eumenides sleep – only then step forth – summoned. It is his own deed that asserts itself against him — the universal, to which he is now the particular – previously he subsumed another under it – now he is subsumed under it. This is not how he meant it – but done as reason, as will – he did not reckon his particularity as particularity – a reversal against him.
This argumentum ad hominem – from his own principles, arguments –
Only apparent – subjective particular side – therefore not in itself –
β) Ad hominem – but is it so in itself?
Namely
α) his positive will is the crime, violation of freedom – this one lets pass in his own sense – but in itself it is precisely the opposite – he is punished from the same principle – the only difference being that it is turned against him – negatively; – a negative comes upon his will –
formally, that his deed [becomes a] universal rule, and that he is subsumed under it – this connection, this bond appears as something external. – In itself the content is positive – the deed – reversal in negative form – appearance.
But
β) in itself, already from the first the action is null – acid, alkali – the one is already in itself neutral, so too this.
Universality of determinacy in man – [he] is to receive determinately what he has done – this extent of nullity is to be manifested.
(Retribution as something personal [is] immoral – only the law should punish … )

[zu § 101 Anm.] Moral side – guilt – freedom, willing as the inner [aspect] of the action – its scope in this regard belongs there –
[in the margin:] α) is appearance on account of opposition – αα) positive deed, will, ββ) negative afterward, through something else, coming upon him.