I was reading some of my earlier notes from the beginning of the course, and I came across some notes I wrote about the epic poems by Homer. In Homer’s Iliad, Achilles decides not to participate in the war with Trojans due to his grudge against Agamemnon’s hubris. However, when his dear friend Patroclus dies in battle, he decides participate in the battle and live a short but glorious life. According to the ancient Greek heroic code, Achilles did himself good by both resisting Agamemnon’s hubris and standing up to his lost friend. Achilles is a hero.

The interestingly though, my notes claimed his actions negatively as “revenge” and “retaliation”. I thought that Achilles acted to take revenge for the king’s inappropriate actions by not participating in the war. I believed that he acted out of vengeance when he decided again to participate in the battle, because his anger towards Patroclus’s death and the killer motivated him to take his sword. I did not feel comfortable that Homer seemed to justify and glorify Achilles’ actions of revenge by calling him a hero.

Perhaps I might have been reading too pessimistically, but this led me to think of a series of questions about the application of Achilles’ actions to my real life. Where is the line between a rightful punishment and revenge? Can it ever be justified? Does it in any way allow Eudaimonia?

The word “punishment” gives a feeling of some higher power who has been justified to give a judgement. On the other hand, revenge seems to occur between two beings who are on the same level. Given these definitions, I can draw a conclusion about Achilles. His actions would be considered revenge if you observe him as a human, while he would be the justified punisher if you look at him as a respectable power because of his traits as a hero. The difference between a hero and a revengeful human seems very slim, and only our perception seems to influence how we call them.

Does revenge have any place in a life of Eudaimonia? The intuition is NO. Revenge means to be unforgiving about one’s mistakes, and the feeling of hatred is definitely nowhere near a life full of happiness. Since the pursuit of a happy life should also be happy (or else everything becomes a means to an end), revenge is not a good choice for anyone. What about punishing others for their wrongdoings (as Achilles did to Agamemnon)? I believe that its nature is the same as revenge. You are not forgiving towards others’ mistakes, and you feel that you should be the one to impose what you think should be the consequences of the wrongdoer’s actions. Whatever the motivations, both seems very arrogant to me in that one feels superior enough to think he or she can judge what is right or wrong about others. The only difference may be, however, the fact that when you are justified to punish other people, you do it because you feel it is right, not necessarily because you feel it is good for you in particular. For revenge, you do not necessarily have to feel that your actions are right, but you only have to feel that it is good for you in some way.

Linking this back to the beginning about Achilles, I might have to change my opinion a bit. Achilles would be a hero if he acted each time feeling that his actions are right. He would likely be an avenger if he acted feeling it was for his own good. In both circumstances however, I would have to conclude that imposing ones’ own right or good on others with physical strength and power seems somewhat arrogant.