  This raises a central problem for resentment as a moral sentiment or passion: unless kept strictly within bounds it devolves into revenge and conflicts with benevolence and virtue. Part of the answer is that however extreme an injury done, and however settled the resentment rising in response, the execution of justice does not supersede the prior obligation of good will we have to all humans insofar as they are capable of happiness and misery. Rather we harm wrong doers to preserve “the quiet and happiness of the world” and this “general and more enlarged obligation destroys a more particular and confined one of the same kind, inconsistent with it. Guilt and injury then does not dispense with or supersede the duty of goodwill,” (Sermon IX §15). Another part of the answer is that since the proper object is the injustice, to resent someone’s whole character as opposed to the particular aspect of character that gave rise to the harm, i.e. to portray them as wholly monstrous, is to move beyond the appropriate bounds. This pitfall is easier to avoid when we recognize our own mixed characters and flaws. Relatedly, and perhaps most importantly one must recognize that self-partiality is often fueling a desire for revenge against those we resent insofar as they have injured us. We ought to attempt to view injuries to us from as distant and unprejudiced a human viewpoint as possible — with full awareness of our own future non-existence and final judgment -- and when we do we will be able to recognize that our enemies are as often as not mistaken or acting inadvertently.