Revenge Proportionality Boundary / 复仇比例边界

Definition

Revenge proportionality boundary / 复仇比例边界 is the distinction between answering a grievance and deliberately inflicting suffering beyond any defensible corrective or protective purpose.

Current Synthesis

Hanji 194 part 2 grounds the concept in 吕雉’s treatment of 戚姬 / 戚夫人. The episode recognizes a real succession conflict: 刘邦 favored Qi Ji and 刘如意, while Lu Zhi and 刘盈 could read replacement as a threat to status and survival. That context can explain resentment, fear, and even a perceived need to neutralize a rival, but it cannot make torture proportionate.

The source links this limit to the contrast between “以德报怨” and “以直报怨.” Straight response does not require passive forgiveness, yet it also does not authorize cruelty without limit. The associated positive case is Liu Ying’s reported refusal to retaliate against former succession rivals despite later holding power; the host treats restrained power, not helpless moral purity, as the stronger test.

The narrated sequence and its comparison case place Qi Ji’s mutilation and display after Liu Ruyi’s poisoning, then compare Lu Zhi’s violence with Liu Bang’s postmortem treatment of 彭越. The episode’s broader “power corrupts humanity” language is rhetoric rather than a general causal law, but the paired cases reinforce the narrower boundary between removing a political threat and making suffering or bodily desecration an expressive end.

Key Claims

• A genuine grievance can explain retaliation without morally justifying every method or degree of harm.
• Revenge crosses the proportionality boundary when suffering becomes an end rather than a means of protection, correction, or settlement.
• “以直报怨” is presented as bounded response, not as either passive forgiveness or unlimited vengeance.
• Possessing the power to retaliate while refusing excess can be evidence of moral restraint.
• Political context and psychological pressure should remain visible without being converted into exculpation.

Evidence

Succession grievance and explanatory context:

• Hanji 194 part 2 links Lu Zhi’s fear to Liu Bang’s affection-driven effort to elevate Qi Ji and Liu Ruyi over the established heir branch.

Excess beyond neutralization:

• Hanji 194 part 2 distinguishes killing a remembered enemy from the deliberate prolonging of suffering in the “human swine” punishment.
• Hanji 194 part 1 supplies the reported poisoning-then-mutilation sequence and compares the atrocity with Liu Bang’s treatment of Peng Yue.

Restraint under power:

• Hanji 194 part 2 presents Liu Ying’s lack of retaliation against former succession rivals as the episode’s positive counterexample.

Counterevidence & Qualifications

The concept is currently grounded in two adjacent parts of one podcast episode and should not be treated as a complete theory of punishment, self-defense, or transitional justice. The sources’ judgments about what Qi Ji “deserved,” why Lu Zhi acted, whether Liu Ying’s non-retaliation arose from virtue or powerlessness, and whether power struggle generally destroys humanity are interpretations rather than independently established mental states or causal laws. Exact injuries, sequence, and the Peng Yue comparison remain episode-attributed. Proportionality also does not mean that killing would automatically have been just; the comparison identifies excess within the source’s moral argument rather than endorsing a lesser violence.

What Changed

• Created the concept from the episode’s distinction between grievance, bounded redress, and suffering imposed for its own sake.
• Added the narrated sequence and Peng Yue comparison while narrowing the host’s general power-corruption rhetoric to the evidence-supported proportionality claim.

Related Concepts

• 以直报怨式平反 - parallel model of active correction that refuses total retaliation.
• 宠幸驱动的废嫡立庶 - supplies the succession conflict behind the grievance in the source case.
• 备位继承人保护失灵 - explains why the favored rival branch remains exposed after the replacement attempt fails.
• 连坐与牵连惩罚 - adjacent excess problem in which punishment spreads beyond demonstrated responsibility.
• 暴行反噬式动员 - political consequence when excessive violence creates further opposition or moral revulsion.