Punishment

A Discussion Paper
Submitted to
Chase Porter

In Partial Fulfillment
Of the Requirements for
PSC 205
University of Alabama

By
Anna Yslava
November 17, 2015

Discuss Nietzsche’s explanation for how we derive punishment and what role it serves. Do you agree or disagree with its analysis.
We are generally tempted to see things as having inherent meanings. For instance, punishment is at once the act of punishing and the reason behind the punishment. However, Nietzsche argues, these things have had different meanings at different times. For instance, the act of punishment has been at times a celebration of one's power, at times an act of cruelty, at times a simple tit-for-tat. We cannot understand a thing, and we certainly cannot understand its origin, if we assume that it has always held the same meaning.
Punishment was not meted out on the basis of guilt, but simply as a reprisal. The concept of punishment, for instance, has an aspect that is enduring and an aspect that is fluid. Contrary to what we might otherwise assume, Nietzsche suggests that the act of punishing is what endures, and the purpose for which we punish is what is fluid. Punishment has such a long history that it's no longer clear exactly why we punish. Nietzsche provides a long list of different "meanings" that punishment has had over the ages. In this list, Nietzsche nowhere mentions the development of "bad conscience," and suggests that even today, punishment does not awaken a feeling of guilt. Punishment arouses the sense of "something has gone unexpectedly wrong" not of "I should not have done that."
Punishment is treated as a misfortune, and serves to make us more prudent and tame. Nietzsche spells this point out in the case of punishment. The act of punishing has always been the same, but the meaning of that act has changed radically. The barbarians of ancient time had very different wills than the modern slave morality endorses. As a result, though the act of punishing and the word "punishment" have remained unchanged, they have been interpreted very differently. Nietzsche is showing that what is significant to us about punishment is not the act itself, but the meaning that we attach to it. Because this meaning is independent of and inessential to the act itself, we could potentially come to understand punishment as meaning pretty much anything. Because conventional wisdom sees the world in terms of things and deeds rather than forces and wills, we are unable to separate the meanings of punishment from the deed itself, and assume that the deed has always had the same meaning.
Nietzsche raises the same point with pretty much all our moral concepts, showing that, while the words "good," "conscience," "guilt," or "justice" have been around for a long time, they have, unnoticed by us, taken on very different meanings depending on the wills that were interpreting them. The only constant is that we, and everything else, are constantly striving for more power, and the only constant virtue is a will that is powerful, and free from bad conscience, hatred, and ressentiment. Nietzsche's main project in the Genealogy is to question the value of our morality. Ultimately, he argues that our present morality is born out of a resentment and hatred that was felt toward anything that was powerful, strong, or healthy. By contrast, the man of ressentiment distorts what he sees so as to present the noble man in as bad a light as possible, and thereby to gain reassurance.

Works Cited
Nietzsche. 1996. “The Genealogy of Morals.” in Princeton Readings in Political Thought. Mitchell Cohen and Nicole Fermon, eds. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.