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magfrump comments on Rationality & Criminal Law: Some Questions - Less Wrong
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No one in this thread seems to consider the idea that less vengeful people actually gain utility in this system by way of less vengeance.
I don't mean to say that this is a strong argument--I'm not a very vengeful person but I'm certainly only willing to put up with a very small chance of being murdered compared to how strongly I hold that conviction--just that I feel that the "perverse" (if you like people who are less vengeful!) incentives should be weighted against satisfying people's preferences.
I have considered this, but I have spoken about protection, not utility. Some people may prefer less revenge, but somehow I think we need social mechanisms which prevent the criminals from abusing this situation.
To illustrate my intuition, imagine a situation where a thief breaks into a house and steals an equivalent of 100€ (it is the thief's first crime). Afterwards he is caught and is tried. Now, the house owner at the trial testifies that he we cannot afford having such dangerous thiefs roaming around, that the amount was low but once you are a thief you are forever a thief and in the future there will be much more money stolen, and so that he wants the thief to be imprisoned forever. Such attitude makes me sympathise with the thief and I really don't want the victim's preferences even partially satisfied. I don't want to support unreasonable vengefulness.
Sure but adding on or subtracting say 10% from the sentence would make both a more vengeful and less vengeful victim feel empowered and somewhat satisfy their preferences without leaving too much room for those sorts of abuses.
I hope it didn't sound like I was endorsing the idea that a victim should fully decide punishment. For example, the Athenian idea seems much better than that, but also a more structured approach like asking for a marginally increased or decreased penalty seems attractive to me.
Speaking about abuses, I would expect that in practice the division line between victims suggesting high penalties and those suggesting low penalties would separate the brave from the cowards, rather than the vengeful from the merciful. Thoughts about the criminal waiting in front of my home with words "you swine, you made me spend two more years in jail" aren't for the faint-hearted.
You could somewhat mitigate that by shifting police forces automatically around prison releases and/or by creating stiff penalties for such vengeance, but I can see your point.