ENTRE NIETZSCHE E GIRARD: A CATARSE NA PUNIÇÃO

Abstract

Why does society take pleasure when a criminal receives punishment? Seeking answers to this question is what motivated this philosophical essay. Some hypotheses were proposed, from which, after deductive qualitative analysis, two were considered admissible: the first, based on Nietzsche's thought, justifies the social pleasure of punishments in the human inherent pleasure in punishing and seeing suffer. The other, based on the work of René Girard, places the sacrificial expectation in punishments as a determining factor in the pleasure felt by the social group in the face of the criminal's conviction. Finally, a brief comment was made on the cathartic effects of punishment, from which it was concluded that the Aristotelian catharsis is compatible with the emotions produced in both hypotheses and that, therefore, it can be the reason for the pleasure felt by society when criminal justice works.