Over years, I have become convinced about "corrective reciprocation" being the safest moral principle that an individual or a group can employ. Reciprocation is a principle where you treat others the way they treat you. So, you expect to be treated the way you treat them. You will do unto them what they did to you. There is a flaw in the principle of reciprocation. Let us say there is an encroacher. He kept on encroaching your territory from ages and you start reciprocating, once he realises it, the encroacher stops encroaching and wants to come to a treaty with you to stop mutual destruction. If you agree, then it is your loss because you have already lost a lot of territory to him since he has started exploiting a lot earlier than you started encroaching him. Let us say china & pakistan are encroaching indian territory. They have been doing it from a long time, then india starts reacting and starts claiming it back and then they come to the table and in the name of peace want all of us to stop encroaching on each others territory but if india agrees then india got fooled because after few years, they will do it again because if they encroach 20km and you start reciprocating and claim back 10km, they come to peace talks and all agree to stop encroachment, then they still gained 10km from you. 2 steps forward, 1 step back == 1 step forward. This is the weakness of recriprocation. Corrective reciprocation is something where you keep reciprocating untill 1 of 2 things happen. 1) reciprocation for a time period == the time duration of opponents act 2) untill you get back what you lost. 2nd one is more sensible and accurate since it is result & impact based. However to be on a safer side, I suggest vengeful reciprocation where you reciprocate the opponent's behaviour against him untill you not only gain what you lost but you get back with interest. If they took 10, you take your 10 back and a bit more, usually at least 10%. I choose 3.
- Reciprocation
- Corrective reciprocation
- vengeful reciprocation
