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Is Punishment Morally Justified? Developing Nietzsche's Critique of Compatibilism in The Wanderer and His Shadow, Section 23

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 October 2016

GUY ELGAT
GUY ELGAT*
Affiliation:
SCHOOL OF THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO [email protected]
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Abstract:

Nietzsche is mostly known for denying moral responsibility on account of lack of libertarian free will, thus betraying an incompatibilist approach to moral responsibility. In this paper, however, I focus on a different, less familiar argument by Nietzsche, one that I interpret as a critique of a compatibilist conception of moral responsibility. The critique shows why punishment and our moral sanctions in general are morally unjustified by the compatibilist's own lights. In addition, I articulate what I call Nietzsche's explanatory challenge, which challenges the compatibilist to explain the performance of an immoral action without appealing to conditions that would exempt or excuse the wrongdoer or otherwise relieve the wrongdoer from responsibility and would thus make punishing the wrongdoer morally unjustified. By drawing on the work of R. Jay Wallace, I reconstruct Nietzsche's anticompatibilist argument and defend it against four possible objections.

Keywords

Nietzschecompatibilismresponsibilitypunishmentdesert
Type
Articles
Information
Journal of the American Philosophical Association , Volume 2 , Issue 3 , Fall 2016 , pp. 420 - 436
Copyright
Copyright © American Philosophical Association 2016 

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References

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BGE: Beyond Good and Evil. Translated by Kaufmann, Walter (New York: Vintage), 1966.Google Scholar
GS: Gay Science. Translated by Kaufmann, Walter (New York: Vintage), 1974.Google Scholar
HH: Human, All Too Human. Translated by Hollingdale, John R. (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press), 1986.Google Scholar
WS: The Wanderer and His Shadow . Translated by Hollingdale, John R.. In Human all too Human (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press), 1986.Google Scholar
KSA: Kritische Studienausgabe . Compiled under the general editorship of Colli, G. and Montinari, M. (Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter), 1999.Google Scholar
Abbey, R. (2000) Nietzsche's Middle Period. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Brink, D. O., and Nelkin, D. K. (2013) ‘Fairness and the Architecture of Responsibility’. In Shoemaker, D. (ed.), Oxford Studies in Agency and Responsibility, Volume 1 (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 284–314.Google Scholar
Dries, M. (2015) ‘Freedom, Resistance, Agency’. In Dries, M. and Kail, P. J. E. (eds.), Nietzsche on Mind and Nature (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 142–62.Google Scholar
Fischer, J. H. (2012) ‘Semicompatibilism and Its Rivals’. Journal of Ethics, 16, 117–43.Google Scholar
Fischer, J. H., and Ravizza, S. J.. (1998) Responsibility and Control: A Theory of Moral Responsibility. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Franco, P. (2011) Nietzsche's Enlightenment. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gemes, K. (2009) ‘Nietzsche on Free Will, Autonomy and the Sovereign Individual’. In Gemes, K. and May, S. (eds.), Nietzsche on Freedom and Autonomy (New York: Oxford University Press), 33–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leiter, B. (2002) Nietzsche on Morality. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Leiter, B. (2007) ‘Nietzsche's Theory of the Will’. Philosophers’ Imprint, 7, 1–14.Google Scholar
Raffoul, F. (2010) The Origins of Responsibility. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Sedgwick, P. (2013) Nietzsche's Justice: Naturalism in Search of an Ethics. Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press.Google Scholar
Wallace, R. J. (1994) Responsibility and the Moral Sentiments. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Williams, B. (1984) Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar