Abstract This paper is a response to Christopher Lewis’s recent paper on lex talionis. I claim that Lewis’s interpretation cannot answer some of the questions that it needs to. In particular, we need to understand what our fundamental motivation is for subscribing to a principle of proportionality in the first place. Facing this kind of question head on is the only way to rehabilitate the principle of lex talionis—if indeed, it merits rehabilitation.
Christopher R. Bennett (Thu,) studied this question.