How Smart (and Just) Is Ressentiment?

The article argues that attention to Nietzsche’s analysis of ressentiment in the third essay of On the Genealogy of Morals reveals a hitherto unnoticed feature of ressentiment, namely, that ressentiment comes with degrees of epistemic acuity—a varying ability to correctly identify and focus on the object that gives rise to it in the first place. After showing how internally and externally induced ressentiment differ with regard to their epistemic acuity, the paper turns to focus on the relation between ressentiment and justice and explains Nietzsche’s claim, in the second essay of the Genealogy, that justice’s origin cannot be traced back to ressentiment.