Piety and Punishment: The Problem of Punitive Justice in Nietzsche’s Daybreak

• In Event: Community and Cohesion in German Political Thought

Abstract

Daybreak presents Nietzsche’s mature view of punitive justice for the first time in his corpus. Yet, most scholars fail to identify and reconcile its intrinsic tensions. First, Nietzsche demonstrates how punishment facilitated the Christian interpretation of existence as a salvation-mechanism, where piety leads to reward, and guilt to punishment. But while Nietzsche’s ideal society would seemingly eradicate punishment and its “slandering of the world,” Nietsche’s genealogy reveals punishment as a necessary aspect of social organization. These tensions also play out in his discussion of vengeance, specifically between his acknowledgement of its intrinsic role in human nature and his call to eradicate it. This discrepancy is not a theoretical oversight, but instead is intentional and didactic. Nietzsche’s deeper argument suggests not abolishing punishment and vengeance, but rather using them in the service of higher, world-affirming drives. Ultimately, my analysis clarifies the mechanisms of Nietzsche’s alternative morality, and shows how punishment can be used to solve the problem of redemption.

Author

• Thomas Randall Meredith, Santa Clara University