Justice as Will to Power: Nietzsche as Philosopher and Sociologist of Law

Although Nietzsche's writings offer no systematic vision of law and justice, they provide important reflections on legal reality. For Nietzsche, law derives from the individual's submission to the community's social rules. The sense of justice is based on the life instinct intrinsic to the living, which Nietzsche calls the "will to power" (Wille zur Macht). This instinct lies not in a lusting for domination but in the production of values and the creation of meanings. With the rise of nihilism, "will" replaces "ought," and the social perspective is converted into axiological solipsism. Where law is concerned, the outcome is " legal nihilism," construed as a restriction of the legal horizon to man's pure will. This may seem to be at odds with Nietzsche's explanation of criminal behaviour as determined rather than free, as if he shared the ideas of positivistic criminology. The article offers a discussion of this apparent contradiction.