system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Was Nietzsche A Liberal On Criminal Justice?

I mean, take passages like this:

>66.
PUNISHABLE, BUT NEVER PUNISHED.—Our crime against criminals lies in the fact that we treat them like rascals.


>70.
EXECUTION.—How is it that every execution offends us more than does a murder ? It is the coldness of the judges, the painful preparations, the conviction that a human being is here being used as a warning to scare others. For the guilt is not punished, even if it existed—it lies with educators, parents, surroundings, in ourselves, not in the murderer—I mean the determining circumstances.

-F. Nietzsche, *Human All-Too Human*




These, and similar statements expressing sympathy with criminals and those who are condemned as "evil" by society, can be found throughout Nietzsche's works. Was Nietzsche an early advocate of rehabilitation? I specifically remember him remarking (perhaps in *The Dawn*) that it would be better for society if criminals were put to work instead of being allowed to rot in prison. Can we safely account this as part of Nietzsche's transvaluation of values?
gpt
There's not much to account for, really.  This seems to follow from Nietzsche's general skepticism about moral responsibility and free will.  Nietzsche argues that it is impossible to be responsible for yourself in any ultimate way, so it seems natural that he would object to the ways in which the justice system pretends like it can hold people responsible for themselves while not holding everyone else to blame.