Eye for an eye / William Ian Miller.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 243-257) and index.

Cover -- Contents -- Preface: A Theory of Justice? -- ONE: Introductory Themes: Images of Evenness -- The Scales of Justice -- Just about words -- Even and Odd -- Just, Even, Quite, and Mere -- Paying for Peace -- TWO: The Talion -- Getting Even? -- The Compensation Principle -- The Euphony of Eyes and Teeth -- THREE: The Talionic Mint: Funny Money -- Body Parts and Money -- Paying Gods in Bodies and Blood -- Cutting Up Bread, Cutting Up the Body -- FOUR: The Proper Price of Property in an Eye -- Property Rules and Liability Rules -- Life Is Cheap? -- FIVE:Teaching a Lesson: Pain and Poetic Justice -- Instruction on Feeling Another's Pain -- Deuteronomy's Artful Talionic Lesson -- Coda: Mixing Metaphors: Paying Back and Paying For -- SIX: A Pound of Flesh -- Shearing fleece and eating (human) flesh -- Have Mercy -- The Humanizing Force of Vengefulness -- SEVEN: Remember Me: Mnemonics, Debts (of Blood), and the Making of the Person -- Burning in the Memory.

Bloody Tokens and the Relics of the Unavenged Dead -- Remembering the Dead and Not Forgetting Oneself -- The Happy Dead -- Grief, Guilt, and Tormenting Ghosts -- The Mnemonics of Wergeld and the Fragility of Well-Being -- EIGHT: Dismemberment and Price Lists -- Slave Values -- The Sum of the Parts -- Flipping the Bird -- NINE: Of Hands, Hospitality, Personal Space, and Holiness -- Hospitality and Mund -- Hands and Reach -- Wholly Holy -- TEN: Satisfaction Not Guaranteed -- Release of Pressure, or Filling the Void Up Full? -- Serving Up Revenge: Bitter or Sweet -- The Mind of the Vengeance Target: Regret, Remorse, Cluelessness -- Killing Him or Keeping Him Alive for Scoffing, and Other Fine Points -- ELEVEN: Comparing Values and the Ranking Game -- The Politics of Comparing Values, or What's Eating the Incommensuralists -- The Ranking Game -- Ranking at a Viking Feast -- TWELVE: Filthy Lucre and Holy Dollars -- Dirty Dollars and the Making of Pricelessness.

Buying Back and the Sacred -- Everything for Sale -- Conclusion -- Notes -- One. Introductory Themes: Images of Evenness -- Two. The Talion -- Three. The Talionic Mint: Funny Money -- Four. The Proper Price of Property in an Eye -- Five. Teaching a Lesson: Pain and Poetic Justice -- Six. A Pound of Flesh -- Seven. Remember Me: Mnemonics, Debts (of Blood), and the Making of the Person -- Eight. Dismemberment and Price Lists -- Nine. Of Hands, Hospitality, Personal Space, and Holiness -- Ten. Satisfaction Not Guaranteed -- Eleven. Comparing Values and the Ranking Game -- Twelve. Filthy Lucre and Holy Dollars -- Works Cited.

Presents a historical and philosophical study of revenge, and includes a discussion defending retributive justice.

Print version record.

English.

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