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On Guilt and Punishment

In society today, guilt and punishment go hand in hand. The guilty are punished and the

punished feel guilty. But which came first in this relationship, if eitherguilt or punishment? In

Nietzsches second essay in On the Genealogy of Morals, he says that the intended purpose of

punishment is to possess the value of awakening the feeling of guilt in the guilty. (81) In

laymens terms: punishment causes the feeling of guilt. But with further research, it is easy to see

that, in fact, punishment is the result of guilt and not the other way around as Nietzsche claims.

This statement can be proved through the discussion of the internalization of man and the origin

of the bad conscience, religions role in punishment and guilt, and the reasons for punishment.

The bad conscience, in Nietzsches terms, is the serious illness that man was bound to

contract under the stress of the most fundamental change he ever experiencedthat which

occurred when he found himself finally enclosed within the walls of society and peace. (84) It

was the domestication of man and the restraints put on him by society that made man want to

revolt against the system. He was not used to having such rules, and his first instinct is to, of

course, fight against them. But he was unable todoing so would have been chaotic and

harmful to society (and man is not a stupid being.) So instead, man kept all of these feelings and

wanted actions inside him. Thus came the internalization of man. All instincts that do not

discharge themselves outward turn inwardthis is what I call the internalizationof man. (84)

Because of this internalization, man was able to think clearly about his choices. He was able to

realize which choices were good and which were bad. It was through the internalization of man

that the soul originated, and the souls main purpose was to make man feel guilty about his bad

conscience. All the feelings caused by the bad consciencehostility, cruelty, joy in

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persecuting, in attacking, in destruction (83) were quelled by the soul of man, and he felt

guilty about them. The animal soul turned against itself, taking sides against itself (85)

Nietzsche says. And when the soul takes sides against itself, it is punishing itself due to the guilt

caused by the bad conscience. Even at the basic, internal level, punishment is caused by guilt.

Man feels guilty about what he feels towards society (his bad conscience), so he punishes

himself to make himself feel less ashamed about these thoughts - the gravest and uncanniest

illness from which humanity has not yet recoveredmans suffering of man himself. (85)

Religion plays a large and looming role in the relationship between guilt and punishment.

Because of his bad conscience and the guilt because of it, man looked for anything to help aid in

the punishment of himself. He found help in the form of religion.

The creaturewho invented the bad conscience in order to hurt himself after the

more natural vent for this desire to hurt had been blocked this man of the bad

conscience has seized upon the presupposition of religion so as to drive his self-torture to

its most gruesome pitch of severity and rigor. (92)

The origins of punishment in religion, however, go back to the beginning of the history of man,

when mankind felt a kind of debt towards the earlier generations for creating a safe environment

and stable livelihood in which the present generation could live. They felt guilty because of this

debt however; and the debt itself would never go away, as there was always an earlier generation

to be thankful for. one has to pay them back with sacrifices and accomplishments: one thus

recognized a debt that grows constantly greater. (89) But how to pay back this debt and

relieve themselves of the feeling of guilt? Through punishment is how. The present generation

felt such guilt at the size of the debt they owed to the earlier generation that they saw self-

punishment as the only way to relieve themselves of this debt. [The debt]leads to the

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Thus, the reasons for punishment would include the payment of a debt (which causes a feeling of

guilt), and to hinder the feelings of guilt.

The exact true meanings behind the reasons for punishment are unknown, however, as

Nietzsche points out. Today it is impossible to say for certain why people are really punished:

all concepts in which an entire process is semiotically concentrated elude definition. (80) There

are a multitude of reasons for punishment (of which Nietzsche lists many), all equally viable.

(One of the reasons for punishment listed is, in fact, the repayment of a debt.) While this is true,

it is just as easy to say that the original reason punishment was devised because of the feeling of

guilt. In the history of humanity, there has always been a sense of indebtedness to the former

generation, as discussed above, and therefore a sense of guilt. Its quite possible that punishment

developed as a way to rid ourselves of this guilt, and then its other functions evolved along with

humanity.

In his essays in On the Genealogy of Morals, Nietzsche discusses in depth the

relationship between punishment and guilt, and how guilt is the result of punishment. Through

further examination, however, it is now easy to see that punishment is, in fact, the result of guilt.

Mans soul and feeling of guilt was made possible through the bad conscience and the

internalization of man, and he punished himself because of the guilt brought about by the bad

conscience. Through religion, mans feeling of guilt was only intensified because of the debt he

felt to his ancestors and the deities of his religion. By looking at the reasons for punishment, it

can be deduced that the true reasons are for the payment of a debt and for the stifling of guilt.

Nietzsche may claim that guilt is the result of punishment, and perhaps he is correct, but in this

case it is easy to see that punishment is the result of guilt.