Can revenge be just or otherwise justified? GILEAD BAR-ELL1 AND DAVID HEYD (The Hebrew University) zyxw I REVENGE is a universal pattern of behavior. It is also an ineradi- cable feature of our emotional lives. We appeal to the concept of revenge in the explanation of reasons for an action and in our moral judgment of human behavior and practice. Revenge also has a central role in some ethical theories, especially those of retributive punishment. It is therefore surprising that apart from the numerous cursory remarks of many philosophers-past and present-only a very few accounts of that all-too-human form of conduct have been undertaken. There is a certain air of paradox in our attitude to revenge. On the one hand we usually tend to condemn acts of revenge and disapprove of the vengeful character; yet, on the other, we consider the very classification of an act as ‘revenge’ to provide not only a reason for the action but also a zyxwv justifying ground. Although in our cool moments of objective theorizing we tend to deplore acts of revenge, we may find ourselves in sympathy with such acts in a case of an immediate reaction to the deeds of someone with whom we are personally acquainted, primarily our own selves. Furthermore, this sympathy is specifically of a moral nature. It seems that the act z A recent exception is a book by zyxwvu [8]. wholly devoted to the evolution of revenge. However, Jacoby does not deal with any of the conceptual and ethical problems connected with the theoretical grounding of revenge. She does not suggest even a tentative definition or list of conditions for revenge, and seems to be interested more in the wider (and vaguer) idea of vindictiveness as a desire to retaliate than in the strict notion of revenge as a pattern of behavior. She therefore falls into the trap of viewing revenge as a wild form of justice and justice as a restrained form of revenge. This view will be challenged in our paper.