Hunting - not only of wild animals, but also of humans - has not yet been an independent topic of philosophical ethics or epistemology. In contrast, European tales, poetry, myths and the visual arts are still haunted by traces of the ancient Greek legend of the hunter Actaeon, who is hunted and killed by the goddess of the hunt, Artemis. Does Actaeon have to die because he sees through the insubstantiality of a deified hunt that is only concerned with killing in itself? The author explores the question of whether a hitherto unconsidered phenomenon of European nihilism is behind this motif of hunting the hunter.