The Doctrine of Right, Duties and Religion for the Lower Class

[p. 245]

§ 21

Retaliation, however, is not to be exercised by the individual injured party or by his relatives, because in them the universal regard for right is bound up at the same time with the contingency of passion. It must be the action of a third party holding power, who merely makes the universal valid and carries it out. To that extent it is punishment.

Explanation. Revenge and punishment are distinguished from one another in that revenge is a retaliation insofar as it is exercised by the injured party, punishment, however, insofar as it is exercised by the judge. Retaliation must therefore be exercised as punishment, because in revenge passion has influence and right is thereby clouded. Further, revenge does not have the form of right but that of arbitrary will, since the injured party always acts from feeling or a subjective motive. For this reason right, exercised as revenge, is again a new offence, is felt only as an individual action, and so propagates itself unreconciled to infinity.

Second Chapter
The Society of the State

Cross-reference: Worked out later in § 257 ff. (the state) and, as regards the right of necessity and the administration of justice, in § 127 and § 209 ff.

§ 22

The concept of right, as the power that holds force, independent of the motives of individuality, has actuality only in the society of the state.

§ 23

The family is the natural society, whose members are bound by love, trust and natural obedience (piety).

Explanation. The family is a natural society

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