Was Paul Rée merely a footnote to Nietzsche, or a philosopher of natural morality?

Ideas & Philosophy · Published 3 October 2026 Swipe more like this →

In short: History remembers Paul Rée as a satellite to Friedrich Nietzsche, yet he was a pioneer in applying evolutionary biology to ethics. By treating altruism as a biological trait shaped by selection, Rée challenged the metaphysical foundations of morality, leaving behind a legacy that even his most vocal critics could not ignore.

Born in 1849 to a wealthy Prussian landowner, Paul Rée possessed the financial independence to pursue philosophy and law at the University of Leipzig. His intellectual output, characterized by aphoristic psychological observations, sought to ground human nature in empirical reality rather than abstract speculation. By 1875, he had earned his doctorate from Halle with a dissertation on Aristotle's concept of the noble, setting the stage for his later, more controversial work.

Rée’s most significant contribution, The Origin of the Moral Sensations, published in 1877, was an attempt to explain morality through an inductive, naturalistic lens. Drawing on the evolutionary theories of Darwin and Lamarck, he argued that altruism was not a divine gift but an innate drive, strengthened over generations through selection. He famously rejected the existence of free will, positing that our sense of justice is merely a byproduct of two errors: the misinterpretation of punishment as retribution and the mistaken belief in human autonomy.

His radical ideas drew intense scrutiny, most notably from his close friend and eventual intellectual rival, Friedrich Nietzsche. Nietzsche famously claimed he disagreed with Rée's book on every single proposition, yet he did so without malice. Their personal relationship collapsed in 1882, entangled with their mutual connection to Lou Salomé. Rée eventually abandoned professional philosophy to become a physician.

Rée’s life ended in 1901 in the Swiss Alps, where he died after falling into the Charnadüra Gorge. Whether his death was an accident or a final act of philosophical consistency remains a subject of debate. Shortly before he died, Rée remarked that he lived to philosophize, and when the material for thought ran dry, death was the only logical conclusion.

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