Proportion

Punishment can rise until it is equal to the full harm that an act really causes, consequences included, and no more. The measure is the harm that the act did, not the thing that the offender took. The ceiling for a thief is the loss of all the property of the thief. Because the thief took the property of a different agent, the thief loses the protection of their own property. When a theft goes sufficiently deep to cost lives, because the theft removed resources until persons died, the harm is death. Then death becomes the ceiling in proportion. An act that harms no person gets no punishment at all. Words that only offend take no body, no property, and no freedom. Thus there is no death for an insult to a prophet, a god, or a ruler. Proportion is a ceiling, not a duty. The victim can always collect less: the victim can forgive, or can stop before the ceiling. But no person can punish above the harm that the offender caused. To punish above it is revenge, and the person who increases the force becomes an aggressor, with a victim of their own. Because of proportion, a nomocracy can meet each wrong act with force equal to its weight. It uses small force for the small act, total force for the deadly act, and no force for the act that harms no person. The force is not blind, and it has limits.