The Bible’s lex talionis – “Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot” (Exodus 21:24-27) – has captured the human creativeness for millennia. This concept of equity has been a mannequin for guaranteeing justice when bodily hurt is inflicted.
Due to the work of linguists, historians, archaeologists and anthropologists, researchers know so much about how completely different physique components are appraised in societies each small and huge, from historical instances to the current day.
However the place did such legal guidelines originate?
In accordance with one faculty of thought, legal guidelines are cultural constructions – which means they fluctuate throughout cultures and historic durations, adapting to native customs and social practices. By this logic, legal guidelines about bodily harm would differ considerably between cultures.
Our new research explored a unique chance – that legal guidelines about bodily harm are rooted in one thing common about human nature: shared intuitions concerning the worth of physique components.
Do individuals throughout cultures and all through historical past agree on which physique components are kind of precious? Till now, nobody had systematically examined whether or not physique components are valued equally throughout area, time and ranges of authorized experience – that’s, amongst laypeople versus lawmakers.
We’re psychologists who research evaluative processes and social interactions. In earlier analysis, we now have recognized regularities in how individuals consider completely different wrongful actions, private traits, pals and meals. The physique is maybe an individual’s Most worthy asset, and on this research we analyzed how individuals worth its completely different components. We investigated hyperlinks between intuitions concerning the worth of physique components and legal guidelines about bodily harm.
The human physique and its components seem many times in human thought and tradition over time.
(A) Physique: Venus of Willendorf, Austria, ~29,500 years in the past, Pure Historical past Museum, Vienna, Austria. Photograph by M. Kabel (Multi-license with GFDL and Inventive Commons) (B) Head: Olmec colossal head, San Lorenzo, Veracruz, Mexico, 1200 to 600 BCE, Nationwide Museum of Anthropology, Mexico Metropolis, Mexico. (C) Torso: Bust of Nefertiti, Egypt, 14th century BCE, Neues Museum, Berlin, Germany. (D) Head, shoulders, knees, and toes: Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes: kids’s music, illustrated by M. R. Johnson, written by S. Silver, revealed by Barefoot Books. (E) Eye: Film nonetheless of L. Buñuel’s An Andalusian Canine (67), photograph by A. Duverger and J. Berliet. (F) Eye: Eye on the reverse facet of the US $1 invoice. (G) Mouth: Rolling Stones emblem, designed by J. Pasche, The Rolling Stones. Shutterstock. (H) Coronary heart: Aztec Codex Magliabechiano, roughly mid-Sixteenth century, Nationwide Central Library, Florence, Italy. (I) Hand and eye: Hamsa amulet towards the evil eye, North Africa and Center East. (J) Thumb: Fb Like button. Wikimedia Commons. (Ok) Legs: Agora, by M. Abakanowicz, Grant Park, Chicago, photograph by R. Mines. (L) Opening folio of the Legislation of Æthelberht, Kingdom of Kent, roughly 600 CE, Kent County Archives, Maidstone, England., CC BY-NC
How essential is a physique half or its operate?
We started with a easy remark: Completely different physique components and features have completely different results on the percentages that an individual will survive and thrive. Life with out a toe is a nuisance. However life with out a head is not possible. Would possibly individuals intuitively perceive that completely different physique components are have completely different values?
Realizing the worth of physique components provides you an edge. For instance, in case you or a beloved one has suffered a number of accidents, you may deal with probably the most precious physique half first, or allocate a larger share of restricted assets to its remedy.
This data may additionally play a task in negotiations when one particular person has injured one other. When particular person A injures particular person B, B or B’s household can declare compensation from A or A’s household. This follow seems around the globe: among the many Mesopotamians, the Chinese language through the Tang dynasty, the Enga of Papua New Guinea, the Nuer of Sudan, the Montenegrins and plenty of others. The Anglo-Saxon phrase “wergild,” which means “man price,” now designates normally the follow of paying for physique components.
‘Hand for hand’ is one embodiment of truthful retribution.
mikroman6/Second through Getty Photos
However how a lot compensation is truthful? Claiming too little results in loss, whereas claiming an excessive amount of dangers retaliation. To stroll the positive line between the 2, victims would declare compensation in Goldilocks vogue: excellent, based mostly on the consensus worth that victims, offenders and third events in the neighborhood connect to the physique half in query.
This Goldilocks precept is quickly obvious within the actual proportionality of the lex talionis – “eye for eye, tooth for tooth.” Different authorized codes dictate exact values of various physique components however accomplish that in cash or different items. For instance, the Code of Ur-Nammu, written 4,100 years in the past in historical Nippur, present-day Iraq, states {that a} man should pay 40 shekels of silver if he cuts off one other man’s nostril, however solely 2 shekels if he knocks out one other man’s tooth.
Testing the concept throughout cultures and time
If individuals have intuitive data of the values of various physique components, would possibly this information underpin legal guidelines about bodily harm throughout cultures and historic eras?
To check this speculation, we carried out a research involving 614 individuals from the US and India. The contributors learn descriptions of varied physique components, resembling “one arm,” “one foot,” “the nose,” “one eye” and “one molar tooth.” We selected these physique components as a result of they have been featured in authorized codes from 5 completely different cultures and historic durations that we studied: the Legislation of Æthelberht from Kent, England, in 600 C.E., the Guta lag from Gotland, Sweden, in 1220 C.E., and trendy employees’ compensation legal guidelines from the US, South Korea and the United Arab Emirates.
Members answered one query about every physique half they have been proven. We requested some how tough it could be for them to operate in every day life in the event that they misplaced numerous physique components in an accident. Others we requested to think about themselves as lawmakers and decide how a lot compensation an worker ought to obtain if that particular person misplaced numerous physique components in a office accident. Nonetheless others we requested to estimate how offended one other particular person would really feel if the participant broken numerous components of the opposite’s physique. Whereas these questions differ, all of them depend on assessing the worth of various physique components.
To find out whether or not untutored intuitions underpin legal guidelines, we didn’t embrace individuals who had school coaching in medication or legislation.
Then we analyzed whether or not the contributors’ intuitions matched the compensations established by legislation.
Our findings have been placing. The values positioned on physique components by each laypeople and lawmakers have been largely constant. The extra extremely American laypeople tended to worth a given physique half, the extra precious this physique half appeared additionally to Indian laypeople, to American, Korean and Emirati lawmakers, to King Æthelberht and to the authors of the Guta lag. For instance, laypeople and lawmakers throughout cultures and over centuries usually agree that the index finger is extra precious than the ring finger, and that one eye is extra precious than one ear.
However do individuals worth physique components precisely, in a method that corresponds with their precise performance? There are some hints that, sure, they do. For instance, laypeople and lawmakers regard the lack of a single half as much less extreme than the lack of multiples of that half. As well as, laypeople and lawmakers regard the lack of an element as much less extreme than the lack of the entire; the lack of a thumb is much less extreme than the lack of a hand, and the lack of a hand is much less extreme than the lack of an arm.
Further proof of accuracy could be gleaned from historical legal guidelines. For instance, linguist Lisi Oliver notes that in Barbarian Europe, “wounds that may cause permanent incapacitation or disability are fined higher than those which may eventually heal.”
Though individuals usually agree in valuing some physique components greater than others, some smart variations could come up. For example, sight could be extra essential for somebody making a residing as a hunter than as a shaman. The native setting and tradition may also play a task. For instance, higher physique energy might be notably essential in violent areas, the place one must defend oneself towards assaults. These variations stay to be investigated.
Folks’s evaluations are exact: They even agree on the relative worth of every finger.
H. Armstrong Roberts/ClassicStock through Getty Photos
Morality and legislation, throughout time and area
A lot of what counts as ethical or immoral, authorized or unlawful, varies from place to position. Consuming alcohol, consuming meat and cousin marriage, for instance, have been variously condemned or favored in numerous instances and locations.
However latest analysis has additionally proven that, in some domains, there’s far more ethical and authorized consensus about what’s improper, throughout cultures and even all through the millennia. Wrongdoing – arson, theft, fraud, trespassing and disorderly conduct – seems to engender a morality and associated legal guidelines which might be comparable throughout instances and locations. Legal guidelines about bodily harm additionally appear to suit into this class of ethical or authorized universals.
