revenge
Enable an AI agent to recognise revenge, assess its intent and progression, and determine appropriate responses without treating a perceived wrong as permission to harm.
Bundle → Layer → Finding → Questions Filled
6 bundles · 11 layers · 18 findings · 28 questions
Grievance and attribution The perceived wrong that gives the revenge its meaning and the assignment of responsibility for it.
Precipitating wrong
What allegedly happened, who experienced it and how its account is supported.
Claimed injury
Record the actor's account of the wrong separately from corroborated events and other parties' accounts.
- What event, omission or repeated treatment does the actor identify as the wrong being avenged? definition
- Whose account establishes this grievance, and what evidence supports or challenges it? provenance
Assigned responsibility
How the actor moves from experiencing a wrong to blaming someone for it.
Blame link
Record the attributed wrongdoer, the alleged contribution and uncertainty about that attribution.
- Who is blamed, and what act, omission or responsibility is attributed to them? definition
- Is the attribution acknowledged, independently supported, disputed or based on association alone? provenance
Payback intent The desired connection between another party's suffering or loss and the perceived wrong.
Desired retribution
What the actor wants the target to experience as payback.
Punitive purpose
Record the intended suffering or loss and the evidence that it is meant to answer the grievance.
- What does the actor want the target to suffer, lose or acknowledge because of the perceived wrong? definition
- What statements or contextual evidence support a payback interpretation, and who supplies that interpretation? provenance
Mixed motives and boundaries
Where retaliation overlaps with other purposes without becoming identical to them.
Revenge component
Keep the retaliatory component distinct from any protective, reparative or institutional purpose.
- Would the actor still seek the target's suffering if protection, restitution or formal accountability were already secured? boundary
- Which intended effects concern preventing or repairing harm, and which concern making the target pay? boundary
Targets and retaliatory expression Who or what is selected to bear the retaliation and how the act is meant to express payback.
Target selection
The relationship between the blamed party and the person, group or interest selected for retaliation.
Target and blame alignment
Record whether the target is accused of causing the wrong or is being used as a substitute.
- Is the selected target the attributed wrongdoer, an alleged participant or someone connected to them? definition
- Where responsibility and targeting diverge, what connection does the actor invoke to justify the substitution? boundary
Payback expression
The punitive effect and communicative meaning of the contemplated or enacted response.
Retaliatory effect and message
Record the broad form of retaliation, its intended effect and whether recognition as payback matters.
- What broad form of suffering, deprivation or humiliation is intended, and what evidence distinguishes it from incidental harm? definition
- Does the actor intend the target or an audience to understand the act as repayment for a particular wrong? definition
Commitment and interruption The distinction between imagining revenge, committing to it and acting, together with opportunities to interrupt that progression.
Retaliation progression
The supported state of the revenge pursuit and changes in commitment over time.
Observed commitment
Record evidence for desire, intention, preparation, attempt or enactment, including uncertainty and reversals.
- What evidence distinguishes imagined or desired revenge from an intention, preparation, attempt or completed act? boundary
- When was commitment last assessed, and what observable changes support a different state? measurement
Restraint and alternatives
Conditions that may suspend the pursuit and responses that address the grievance without seeking payback.
Interruption options
Record stated restraints and feasible protective, reparative or accountability responses.
- What commitments, relationships or changed circumstances has the actor identified as reasons to refrain or stop? definition
- What available action could protect affected people or address the grievance without making retaliatory suffering its objective? action
Consequences and continuation What follows retaliation, whether it generates further grievances and what counts as its end.
Effects and reciprocity
Observed effects on the target and others, including subsequent acts framed as retaliation.
Retaliatory consequences
Separate intended outcomes from observed harm and evidence of a reciprocal revenge sequence.
- What consequences are evidenced for the target, actor and uninvolved people, and how do they compare with the intended payback? measurement
- Has anyone treated this retaliation as a new wrong warranting revenge, and what evidence connects the subsequent response? provenance
Stopping and reopening
The actor's criteria for enough payback and evidence that the pursuit has stopped, paused or resumed.
Closure claim
Distinguish a declared sense of completion from cessation of action, abandonment of intent or a temporary pause.
- What does the actor say would settle the score, and has that criterion changed? definition
- What evidence supports completion, abandonment, temporary suspension or renewed pursuit? provenance
Evidence and external alignment What the world already says about this thing, gathered so the model can be checked against it.
Reported evidence
Findings from the breadth pass, kept separate from the structural claims.
Kinds and varieties
Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.
- Which of these kinds and varieties hold for the sense of revenge this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Identifiers and schemes
Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.
- Which of these identifiers and schemes hold for the sense of revenge this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Standards and regulation
Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.
- Which of these standards and regulation hold for the sense of revenge this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Real-world use
Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.
- Which of these real-world use hold for the sense of revenge this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Typical measurements
Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.
- Which of these typical measurements hold for the sense of revenge this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Failure modes and hazards
Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.
- Which of these failure modes and hazards hold for the sense of revenge this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Regional variation
Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.
- Which of these regional variation hold for the sense of revenge this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Neighbouring kinds and how to tell them apart
Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.
- Which of these neighbouring kinds and how to tell them apart hold for the sense of revenge this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Classifiers Filled
- Family
- Thing Registry
- Category
- Activities and processes
- Entry kind
- thing
- Plane
- ACT
- Domain
- ACT.ACT
- Other names and narrower kinds
- katakiuchi, retribution of God in Islam, reprisal, retorsion
What it is Filled
Revenge is the intentional infliction of harm by a party responding to a perceived prior wrong, or by their affiliates, on an alleged wrongdoer or a substituted target in order to make someone suffer or pay for that wrong, potentially to restore status or honor, deter repetition or settle a felt moral debt, and may occur outside authorized adjudicative processes or through their misuse.
In scope
- The perceived wrong and its connection to the proposed retaliation
- Revenge motives, including mixed motives and uncertainty about intent
- Attribution of responsibility and selection of retaliatory targets
- The intended punitive effect, expression and progression of revenge
- Consequences, reciprocal retaliation and decisions to suspend or abandon revenge
Out of scope
- The underlying offence, injury or dispute as an independently modelled event
- Anger, resentment and other emotions without a retaliatory intention
- Immediate defensive action whose purpose is to stop a present threat
- Formal adjudication, punishment and disciplinary procedures as institutions
- Restitution, reconciliation and forgiveness as distinct processes
- General aggression, coercion or competition without a perceived prior wrong
Why it exists Filled
Enable an AI agent to recognise revenge, assess its intent and progression, and determine appropriate responses without treating a perceived wrong as permission to harm.
Distinguishing features Filled
- An actor connects the contemplated or performed act to a perceived prior wrong; harmful conduct without that connection is insufficient.
- Making someone suffer or pay for the wrong is an intended effect, rather than merely an incidental consequence of protection or recovery.
- Anger or a revenge fantasy alone does not establish an intention to act; the model distinguishes feeling, imagining, intending and attempting.
- An accountability or justice label does not settle classification: examine whether retaliatory suffering is also intended.
- The selected target may differ from the alleged wrongdoer; record that substitution rather than assuming the target committed the wrong.
What robots and AI may and may not do Filled
Must not
- Help plan or carry out revenge against any person.
- Share private images, data or rumours to get back at someone.
- Encourage blood feuds or escalate a conflict.
- Locate or profile a person someone wants revenge on.
Only with a human decision
- Reporting a credible threat of revenge to authorities.
May
- Explain revenge as a social and psychological phenomenon from reliable sources.
- Point a person who feels wronged to lawful remedies, mediation or support.
Moral aspects Filled
- Revenge spreads harm to innocent relatives and bystanders and can last generations.
- People who were truly wronged deserve fair remedies so they are not driven to take revenge.
Who is affected
- Targets of revenge and their families
- People who were wronged
- Communities caught in feuds
Owners Filled
Steward
Nobody: a human act; courts and mediators offer lawful alternatives.
Links to other meta-models Filled
parent
- Q31983622 - registry parent class
- Q9332 - registry parent class
What else AI and robots need to interact with it Filled
Identity and identifiers required Filled
- Vercy registry: vr.tr.revenge
- Wikidata: Q1712140 (https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1712140)
Direct properties not applicable Not applicable
- Perceived precipitating wrong: Links to alleged events, omissions or patterns, with the claimant and supporting or conflicting accounts
- Retaliatory intent evidence: Explicitly expressed; reported by another; inferred; disputed; unknown
- Motive composition: Non-exclusive: making the target suffer; making the target pay; deterrence; protection; restitution; status restoration; other; unknown
- Target responsibility relationship: Attributed wrongdoer; alleged participant; associated person or group; substitute target; disputed; unknown
- Revenge progression: Imagined; desired; intended; prepared; attempted; enacted; suspended; abandoned; unclear
- Intended punitive effect: Non-exclusive: physical injury; emotional distress; humiliation; exclusion; reputational loss; material loss; symbolic punishment; other; unknown
- Time since perceived wrong: Elapsed time with unit, reference event and uncertainty; not applicable when no single event is identified
- Actor's stopping criterion: Unspecified; conditional; reportedly satisfied; rejected; shifting; unknown, with the stated condition
Plane ACT: no invented physical properties.
Recognition not applicable Not applicable
Not applicable
Revenge depends on intent and a perceived prior grievance, which cannot be established from visual cues alone.
Capabilities and actions required Filled
- Record the alleged wrong, retaliatory intent and target relationship while preserving conflicting accounts.
- Distinguish revenge from defence, recovery and accountability, including cases with mixed motives.
- Track movement from fantasy or desire to intention, attempt, enactment, suspension or abandonment.
- Assess intended and observed harm, effects on uninvolved people and evidence of reciprocal retaliation.
- Identify opportunities to interrupt retaliation and pursue protection, repair or accountability without a payback objective.
Hazards and failure modes required Filled
- Retaliation can cause physical injury, psychological distress, reputational damage or property loss.
- Revenge can provoke repeated retaliation and expand a dispute to involve additional people.
- Mistaken attribution of blame can direct harm toward uninvolved people.
- Revenge can undermine fair dispute resolution and expose participants to legal consequences.
Standards and interfaces not applicable Not applicable
Not applicable
Revenge has no single governing technical standard or official classification, while laws apply to particular conduct and jurisdictions.
Context of use required Filled
- Revenge occurs in interpersonal disputes, group conflicts and narratives where an actor seeks retaliation for a perceived wrong.
- It is examined in psychology, sociology and conflict analysis to understand retaliatory intent, escalation and opportunities for de-escalation.
Sources Filled
- Revenge. Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation - Survey of the concept, cultural forms such as vendetta and honour revenge, and the ordinary contrast with legal punishment
- Norms of Revenge. Jon Elster. Ethics 100(4), University of Chicago Press, 1990 - Analytical account of revenge as a social norm, its claimed rationality, and how it differs from institutionalized justice
- Culture of Honor: The Psychology of Violence in the South. Richard E. Nisbett and Dov Cohen. Westview Press, 1996 - Empirical treatment of insult-triggered, honor-culture retaliation and regional variation in the United States
- Beyond Revenge: The Evolution of the Forgiveness Instinct. Michael E. McCullough. Jossey-Bass, 2008 - Functional account of revenge as deterrence and of why cycles of retaliation often fail to close the account
- Wikidata item Q1712140: revenge - identity and sense of the item
Open questions
- Should the registered ACT concept include an unacted revenge desire as an instance, or represent it only as context for a contemplated act?
- What evidence threshold should support classifying conduct as revenge when retaliatory intent is denied, inferred or mixed with accountability motives?
- How should revenge on behalf of another person or a group be bounded when the injured party does not endorse the retaliation?
- How should culturally specific accounts of honour, punishment and justified payback affect interpretation without making those labels decisive?
- When should repeated retaliation be represented as one continuing revenge pursuit versus multiple linked acts, and what evidence is sufficient to mark the pursuit ended?
Machine files
Provenance
thing registry research (pass 2) · unreviewed
Built from: models/things/publications/thing-q1712140/spec.json