The Affective Basis in Penal Justice, and the Psychology of the Judge.: Raffaele Merloni.

This article is, for the most part, a summary of Alexander and Staub's book, The Criminal, the Judge, and the Public. Merloni explains the 'sense of justice' mainly in Alexander and Staub's terms.

The organization and inhibition of the instincts is responsible for the establishment of social life and civilization but the instincts must also be channeled toward useful goals. Aggression may be expressed in socially acceptable forms. Not all aggressive drives are sublimated, however, and so need only some justification in order to be manifested. Such justification is usually due to violated feelings of right and wrong.

Social order equals equilibrium between the renunciation of certain instinctual drives and the assured satisfaction of others. This equilibrium can be broken by the leading class or by individuals. In the former case we have fascism (also when innocents are punished) and forbidden drives are satisfied because the pact between society and the individual has been broken.

When the equilibrium is broken by an individual the situation is more complex. The well-known psychoanalytic formulation of Alexander leans on the common understanding that the same rights and privileges are for all. If an individual breaks this pact, aggression is mobilized in others against the law-breaker in the form of vindictiveness.

Merloni discusses the implications and difficulties involved in treating aggressors—how, for example, the judge wants to be 'just', yet also satisfies his own aggressive drives by 'justification' of the sentences he imposes. In conclusion, he urges that there be a better understanding of personality in the light of psychoanalysis.