[Edgeworth's voice gentles, at least. He thinks that Mitchell is on the other side of the equation. A wronged party. Someone who's lost someone.]
But justice is retribution. It's not revenge. We don't enjoy it; we do not like to kill, to hurt, any one of us. So it has to be a strictly calibrated thing - a punishment to fit the crime, to cause all to fear being caught without straying into cruelty.
Even if we might want to cause those who have done harm to truly suffer, we cannot, because that will leave us worse for it. It will rob us of that which we discussed before: humanity. Mercy. Decency. So instead, it must be civilized, and cool-headed, because when we go to excess because we want to that is when we do it because we enjoy it. And that is when we are no longer just; that is when we are murderers ourselves.
[voice]
[Edgeworth's voice gentles, at least. He thinks that Mitchell is on the other side of the equation. A wronged party. Someone who's lost someone.]
But justice is retribution. It's not revenge. We don't enjoy it; we do not like to kill, to hurt, any one of us. So it has to be a strictly calibrated thing - a punishment to fit the crime, to cause all to fear being caught without straying into cruelty.
Even if we might want to cause those who have done harm to truly suffer, we cannot, because that will leave us worse for it. It will rob us of that which we discussed before: humanity. Mercy. Decency. So instead, it must be civilized, and cool-headed, because when we go to excess because we want to that is when we do it because we enjoy it. And that is when we are no longer just; that is when we are murderers ourselves.