The status idea is important because it is the one case, I believe, where payback gives you what you want. If what you are focused on is not the murder, or theft, or rape itself, but only the way it has affected your relative status in the world, then by pushing the wrongdoer relatively lower, you really do push yourself relatively higher. And if relative status is all you care about, you needn’t be worried that the underlying harms caused by the wrongful act (murder, rape, theft) have not been made good. If you’re thinking only about relative status, then, payback sort of makes sense. Many
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