Justice and Ressentiment (Marginal Notes on F.Nietzsche’ On the Genealogy of Morality)

Abstract

The paper deals with three approaches to the problem of reactive origins and manifestations of the sense of justice proposed by F.Nietzsche in the polemical tract On the Genealogy of Morality. The first approach treats an appeal to justice as a way to conceal hatred and the drive for revenge under the guise of promoting objective values and observing objective principles. The second approach interpreted justice as a counterbalance to the unrestricted drive for revenge, as a basis for restraining and overcoming reactive affects (ressentiment). The third approach presupposes that the one part of current views of justice is generated and infected by ressentiment but the other part is free from the influence of reactive affects. Later each of the approaches was adopted by ethical theories that criticize and rehabilitate the sense of justice.