by Keith Redfern

Created on: July 27, 2010   Last Updated: July 28, 2010

Two wrongs never make a right. How could they? Wrong and right are opposites. How can two of one thing make one of the opposite?

It's rather like saying if I turn left twice, the result will be a right turn. 

No. If you add together two negatives, you get twice as much negative, and this will be the same no matter what aspect of life you consider.

The origin of the concept of two wrongs making a right would be interesting to discover. In fact it is likely that the negative statement is the original, and my book of proverbs dates 'Two wrongs never make a right' from the 19th century.

This takes us back to Victorian England (if that is where the saying originated), a period of moralising in the extreme. However in this case, the saying gives us sensible and fair-minded advice.

In my mind the suggestion that two wrongs make a right reminds me of the old punishment of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. Whatever is done to you, do exactly the same back and you will be fully justified in doing so. This is the rule of anarchy, for it presupposes that we all have a right to take the law into our own hands. He hit me, so I hit him. Such is likely to be the justification of a playground fight, but a fight between children. Would we expect adults to behave in the same way?

To take an example from the old silent movies: Stan Laurel hits Olly Hardy, so Olly hits Stan back, only harder. So Stan retaliates, harder still, and so it goes on, gradually increasing in ferocity. This is the result of the eye for an eye concept, an increase in the violence and no solution or settlement in sight.

This is how family feuds develop and grow over time. Magnify this onto the international stage and we have one country retaliating against another – the result: war.

This is all about retaliation as punishment. How do people and states justify the death penalty, for example? Often by saying: 'He took a life, therefore we are justified in taking his life.' Any eye for an eye again. Those two wrongs don't make anything right. It is a very simple philosophy and it is totally false.

Jesus is reported to have told his listeners that if we are hit on one cheek, we should immediately offer the other. That is a different response entirely, so how could a state based originally on Christian principles justify an action which directly contradicts what Jesus is supposed to have said?

It is never likely that by retaliating in like form, a positive outcome will be the result. Two wrongs can never make a right.

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