ABSTRACT
Of all the philosophers who have looked beyond punishment to the motives and forces which lie behind it, both as a moral concept and as a social institution, Friedrich Nietzsche is the most prominent. However, as with the other themes we have explored in previous chapters, it is easy to overlook or misunderstand some of his most important ideas when the setting within which they were developed is disregarded. In this final chapter, Nietzsche’s thinking on justice and punishment will be seen in the context of his dialogue with several contemporary writers. One of these has already been mentioned - Eugen Diihring, an influential thinker at one time in ethics and politics, as well as metaphysics. The other is Paul Rée, whose personal relationship to Nietzsche has often been discussed, but whose importance here lies in his ‘historical’ approach to morality, which opened the way towards what Nietzsche later called a ‘genealogy of morals’.
