ABSTRACT
This chapter shows why ressentiment by itself is hardly reliable for the purpose of attaining justice: only by chance could a ressentiment-driven person behave in a just way, i.e., in accordance with what an astute and impartial eye would decide. In the case of distributive justice, where a just allocation of goods is at stake, ressentiment could be claimed to be a response that typically tracks what can be seen from the objective point of view to be genuine injustices. Ressentiment is instinctively outward-looking and does not spontaneously engage in introspection in its search for the cause of one's pain: it is an eye that looks outside and is as a default blind to the inside. The occurrence of ressentiment, by itself, can only serve as a sign that somebody experienced some form of suffering or discomfort—it does not tell us whether its desire for revenge is justified or arises in response to some genuine injustice.
