Substantial parts of this interesting target article by three psychologists, McCullough, Kurzban, and Tabak (McCullough et al.), are strikingly congruent with studies of revenge conducted by anthropologists over the last three decades. Among the most important publications in this arena are the four volumes edited by French legal anthropologist Raymond Verdier and his collaborators (Verdier Reference Verdier1981a; Reference Verdier1986; Verdier & Poly Reference Verdier and Poly1984; cf. Courtois Reference Courtois1984). In his introduction to that work, Verdier (Reference Verdier and Verdier1981b) points out that in many (perhaps most) societies vengeance is spoken of in terms of debt and repayment, the vocabulary in which people talk about the owing and paying of goods and services – and most importantly, the same terms in which the exchange of women as brides is discussed. Indeed, one of the most common means of terminating an actual or potential blood feud is for the family or lineage of the killer to turn over one of its daughters as a wife to the family or lineage of the homicide victim, the woman's life-giving capacity being taken as compensation for the life than was taken. This perspective potentially amplifies the applicability of the Welfare Tradeoff Ratio (WTR) to include all fitness relevant exchanges, comprehending benefits as well as costs in a single calculation.
Another area of convergence arises from the authors' remark that “we expect revenge to be less likely in the context of kin, people with whom one has an ongoing exchange relationship (…), friends and allies (…), and long term mates” (target article, sect. 4.1, para. 3). Verdier (Reference Verdier and Verdier1981b; Reference Verdier, Beckerman and Valentine2008) distinguishes three increasingly distant categories of social relations – identity, adversity (by which he means that the actors on the poles of the relationship are adversaries, but not usually permanent enemies), and hostility – each marked by a characteristic form of retribution. (These categories map rather well to the three spheres of reciprocity – generalized, balanced, and negative – proposed by Sahlins (Reference Sahlins1972) to classify the varieties of material exchange.) Within identity, the first and closest category of social relations (e.g., the family, the clan), violent revenge is forbidden. To kill or injure someone in that tight circle would only be to compound the initial injury to oneself. Retribution is characteristically left to the workings of supernatural forces.
It is in the second category, adversity, (e.g., different clans within the same tribe, neighboring tribes that intermarry) that the cultural elaboration of revenge flourishes, often with elaborate rules stipulating what constitutes an injury calling for revenge, who ought (or must) take revenge, who is eligible and who is ineligible as a target, and where and when and how it is permissible to take revenge, and what sort of revenge is mandated. The typical goal in this realm of adversity is to achieve a balance of injuries, after which peaceful relations and their mutual benefits are resumed.
In the most distant category, that of hostility, there are no ongoing beneficial relations between the groups involved (e.g., strangers, invaders, etc.), no attempts at a balance of injuries, and no ameliorating rules. The goal is to crush, if not exterminate, the enemy who committed the initial injury.
From this viewpoint, it is perhaps inaccurate to expect that “revenge is more frequently used in societies in which social institutions for settling grievances are generally viewed as weak” (target article, sect. 3.2.2, para. 3). A more ethnographic approach might assert that revenge, in the sphere of adversity, is a means of settling grievances – and further, that revenge, in addition to its individual purpose of raising one's WTR with respect to a previous adversary, has the social purpose of restoring peaceful relations between adversaries. Perhaps the best example of this function of revenge is found in Exodus 21:23. “A life for a life, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.” The explicit point of this passage is that once the proportional act of revenge has taken place, the exchange is to be considered closed and no further hostilities are permitted.
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Substantial parts of this interesting target article by three psychologists, McCullough, Kurzban, and Tabak (McCullough et al.), are strikingly congruent with studies of revenge conducted by anthropologists over the last three decades. Among the most important publications in this arena are the four volumes edited by French legal anthropologist Raymond Verdier and his collaborators (Verdier Reference Verdier1981a; Reference Verdier1986; Verdier & Poly Reference Verdier and Poly1984; cf. Courtois Reference Courtois1984). In his introduction to that work, Verdier (Reference Verdier and Verdier1981b) points out that in many (perhaps most) societies vengeance is spoken of in terms of debt and repayment, the vocabulary in which people talk about the owing and paying of goods and services – and most importantly, the same terms in which the exchange of women as brides is discussed. Indeed, one of the most common means of terminating an actual or potential blood feud is for the family or lineage of the killer to turn over one of its daughters as a wife to the family or lineage of the homicide victim, the woman's life-giving capacity being taken as compensation for the life than was taken. This perspective potentially amplifies the applicability of the Welfare Tradeoff Ratio (WTR) to include all fitness relevant exchanges, comprehending benefits as well as costs in a single calculation.
Another area of convergence arises from the authors' remark that “we expect revenge to be less likely in the context of kin, people with whom one has an ongoing exchange relationship (…), friends and allies (…), and long term mates” (target article, sect. 4.1, para. 3). Verdier (Reference Verdier and Verdier1981b; Reference Verdier, Beckerman and Valentine2008) distinguishes three increasingly distant categories of social relations – identity, adversity (by which he means that the actors on the poles of the relationship are adversaries, but not usually permanent enemies), and hostility – each marked by a characteristic form of retribution. (These categories map rather well to the three spheres of reciprocity – generalized, balanced, and negative – proposed by Sahlins (Reference Sahlins1972) to classify the varieties of material exchange.) Within identity, the first and closest category of social relations (e.g., the family, the clan), violent revenge is forbidden. To kill or injure someone in that tight circle would only be to compound the initial injury to oneself. Retribution is characteristically left to the workings of supernatural forces.
It is in the second category, adversity, (e.g., different clans within the same tribe, neighboring tribes that intermarry) that the cultural elaboration of revenge flourishes, often with elaborate rules stipulating what constitutes an injury calling for revenge, who ought (or must) take revenge, who is eligible and who is ineligible as a target, and where and when and how it is permissible to take revenge, and what sort of revenge is mandated. The typical goal in this realm of adversity is to achieve a balance of injuries, after which peaceful relations and their mutual benefits are resumed.
In the most distant category, that of hostility, there are no ongoing beneficial relations between the groups involved (e.g., strangers, invaders, etc.), no attempts at a balance of injuries, and no ameliorating rules. The goal is to crush, if not exterminate, the enemy who committed the initial injury.
From this viewpoint, it is perhaps inaccurate to expect that “revenge is more frequently used in societies in which social institutions for settling grievances are generally viewed as weak” (target article, sect. 3.2.2, para. 3). A more ethnographic approach might assert that revenge, in the sphere of adversity, is a means of settling grievances – and further, that revenge, in addition to its individual purpose of raising one's WTR with respect to a previous adversary, has the social purpose of restoring peaceful relations between adversaries. Perhaps the best example of this function of revenge is found in Exodus 21:23. “A life for a life, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.” The explicit point of this passage is that once the proportional act of revenge has taken place, the exchange is to be considered closed and no further hostilities are permitted.