The Importance of Mutual Injuries : Nietzsche on God, Law, and Impersonal Punishment

The article reads Nietzsche’s analysis of punishment in On the Genealogy of Morals as a critique of the idea of God and its influence on modern politics. I show that Nietzsche locates the genesis of the idea of God in the institution of impersonal, juridical punishment, thus undermining Kant’s explanation of it as stemming from our noumenal moral condition. While punishment is originally a direct means of retribution for personal injuries, juridical punishment idealizes this retribution into an impersonal entity, such as society or God, thus generating a growing burden of psychic energy that is experienced as “eternal punishment.” I connect this analysis to contemporary critiques of basing progressive politics upon impersonal legal categories.