Ingratitude and Justice

Ingratitude and Justice October 28, 2014

Polybius wrote, “when a man who has been helped when in danger by another does not show gratitude to his preserver, but even goes to the length of attempting to do him injury, it is clear that those who become aware of it will naturally be displeased and offended by such conduct, sharing the resentment of their injured neighbor and imagining themselves in the same situation. From all this there arises in everyone a notion of the meaning and theory of duty, which is the beginning and end of justice.”

Ingratitude is the source of the sense of justice, through an intriguing series of steps: Ingratitude is a failure to respond rightly to a kindness. The one who does not receive a grateful response is considered a victim of harm even before he is the subject of an injury, when literally nothing has been done to him. Ingratitude is seen to flower out in actual injury.

More, the injury isn’t limited to the person receiving the non-gratitude; it extends to those who “become aware.” Ingratitude arouses the resentment not only of the injured party but of the whole community, and it is from this resentment over ungrateful behavior that the community begins to form notions of duty and justice – justice clearly being defined here in terms of a grateful response to a benefit. Those who can imagine themselves being treated with ingratitude share the resentment of the injured party, and this fosters their sense of duty, their expectation of reciprocity, perhaps their insistence on revenge.

What a different sort of justice would arise from this: Give, without expecting to receive again.


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