“Carl Schmitt was a man of polemical treatises, controversial articles, pamphlets. It found its true literary form in what the French call brûlot: an incendiary text, literally a "fire-ship", i.e. a ship loaded with flammable material intended to burn enemy ships. Such a brûlot is his work on the “tyranny of values.” Its title already contains the entire thesis. Values cannot provide a solid foundation for society and its rights; rather, they exacerbate its problems. Especially when they are expected to justify community, values have a destructive effect. […] Schmitt thus chastises the young Federal Republic, which, after deep uncertainty due to National Socialism and the war, made so much reference to values. And the clearer his central thesis becomes, the more additional questions the reader has. At what level of argumentation does Schmitt actually think? Are we talking about political philosophy, about general ethics, or about constitutional law and the jurisdiction of constitutional courts? Schmitt himself hints at the answer when he speaks of “a lawyer’s reflections on the philosophy of values.” […] His text from the very beginning chooses a difficult intermediate position between philosophy and jurisprudence. The author wants to say something to philosophers and lawyers, but at the same time, however, he risks disappointing both.” (From the afterword by Christoph Schönberger)