The concept of retribution as justice goes far back beyond medieval, to at least the Bronze Age (see Hammurabi).
In addition, it seems a common component across cultures. The utilitarian view is by no means nearly as universal.
Here is a modern example: every few years you hear about some former Nazi Concentration Camp guard that was arrested. From a utilitarian point of view it is completely useless. The old guard is never ever going to take part in anything like that again. However, from a justice as retribution for misdeeds, it make perfect sense.
Punishment achieves fairness and deterrence.
So I wouldn't call them dark.
Retribution had a place - in Babylonian times, when eye for an eye was the rule. Things have moved on.
If you're interested in a defense of retributive justice, read Kant:
> Punishment by a court can never be inflicted merely as a means to promote some other good for the criminal himself or for civil society. Punishment can only be inflicted in response to a crime committed, i.e., retributive justice only. A human being ought never to be treated merely as a means to an end as all human beings have an innate personality even thought they may be condemned to lose their civil personality. The law of punishment is a categorical imperative, and woe to him who crawls through the windings of eudaemonism in order to discover something that releases the criminal from punishment or even reduces its amount by the advantage it promises, in accordance with the pharisaical saying, “It is better for one man to die than for an entire people to perish.” For if justice goes, then so does the value of human beings. However, what if a proposal comes forwards to preserve the life of a criminal sentenced to death in exchange for allowing dangerous experiments to be performed, so that physicians can learn something of benefit to the commonwealth? A court would reject with contempt such a proposal form a medical college, for justice ceases to be justice if it can be bought for any price whatsoever.
An anecdote that frames my thinking: the most recent crime I've suffered was when I've been assaulted on the street - bikejacked, in fact, pulled off my motorcycle at a stop light by one hoodlum, kicked in the head (though helmeted), while another rode off on my bike. In the moment, there's anger at the perpetrators. But more than that, I feel pity; pity that their lives are so empty that the only way they see to get their kicks is to do this kind of thing.
They should suffer consequences (i.e. a deterrent), sure, but I don't really want retribution. Revenge wouldn't have brought back my bike (I'd put months of work into that bike, getting it back on the road, but when the bike was recovered it had been crashed into a parked car). It certainly wouldn't have made me feel safer on the road; if anything, it would have made the us (well paid) vs them (aimless, hopeless poor youth) dichotomy worse, not better.
As it turned out, the London police are much worse than the hoodlums. Didn't get a line-up of faces until more than 4 months after the fact, long after any hope of remembering anything. I have a lot more anger at the police than I do at those hoodlums.
I want that kind of crime to no longer be a risk. That requires a systematic solution, not a point fix of retribution, which I don't want - I don't and didn't want those kids' lives ruined. They'll just do even worse things.
I can imagine different crimes where retribution and revenge might play a larger part in the emotions of the victim. I think those crimes are a small minority of total crime, and even then justice is and needs to be rational, not emotional. Revenge, as a reaction, overreacts. Justice needs to be balanced. So I'm not sure it can be a principal component even for that minority of crime.
Turn the other cheek; violence begets violence; etc. But some people seem to use the word "justice" and mean "revenge".
It seems right to me. In my opinion, justice comes from the concept of reciprocity. In other words, if someone does bad, it is just that bad is done to them (retribution). The reverse is also true: it is just that good things occur to people who do good deeds.
> Justice is a deep concept - https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/justice/ is an overview, and it's not short - but on plain sight, I'd say that the fact that it is the public, through the medium of government, that enforces justice, it should do so with a utilitarian view.
It's wrong to write as if this is a closed question. There are plenty of philosophers who aren't utilitarians and who see justice grounded elsewhere than "whatever I think will be good for society".