Lesson 11: Nietzsche and Morality Intro to Philosophy Lesson 11: Nietzsche and Morality

Friedrich Nietzsche 1844 – 1900 CE Röcken, Germany (near Leipzig) The Genealogy of Morals Thus Spoke Zarathustra The Will to Power

“God is Dead” God is dead! God remains dead! And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?

Prolegomena Schopenhauer posited that the will, not reason, was what was essentially human—specifically the will to live. Nietzsche agreed that the will was what was essential, but that it was a will to power—to exercise one’s capacities without regulation.

Genealogy of Morals Responsibility (the basis of moral judgments) originates in a creditor/debtor relationships in which one person possesses what another doesn’t, and therefore creates the basis of an exchange of the will to power. The Greek term for ‘good’ (kalos) connoted nobility, as opposed to morality in the modern sense. Nietzsche sees this “nobility” as, in essence, the “will to power” (i.e., the affirmation of the ego contrary to others). This nobility is prior because it is engrained in our nature. To be human is to exercise power over others—and this exercise is life affirming. This “nobility” has been upended by the “morality of the common man.” Ressentiment (resentment) is the jealousy that the common person held for the nobility. Nobility affirms life; morality rejects it by saying ‘No’ to an external enemy (e.g., the world, pagans, corporations, etc.) In order to thrive, morality must make nobility as weak as it is by imposing limits from within.

Genealogy Cont’d. As society develops the individual debtor/creditors are displaced by the society as a whole. The society is now the creditor and each individual submits to the power of society in exchange for a sense of security and a medium of the exercise of power in the form of law and punishment The laws that a society invents and then upholds become internalized and create a conscience by which people intuitively judge between good and evil. This conscience, or soul, is the invention of the interior life by which morality could be made meaningful. God eventually replaces the community as the creditor, and guilt becomes the reversal of the will to power because we exercise power over ourselves, as opposed to power over others. Nietzsche’s genealogy concludes with the call for (or prophecy of) an anti- Christ or “uber-mensch” that might be able to break free of the illusory bonds of morality and exhibit in his own person the original nobility natural to humans.

Critique of Christianity Morality finds its apex in Christianity, which elevates suffering and pain to a virtue and identifies a logic of suffering—this was the original inversion of values. Christianity, therefore, upholds the ideals of morality by promoting passivity as virtue (see: Sermon on the Mount), while at the same time subtlely giving in to nobility by positing future domination and punishment for those who inflict pain in the present.

Morality as a Medium of Power Nietzsche’s basic criticism is that morality (of almost any variety) is really just a means of exercising power by the weak. The terms ‘good’ and ‘evil’ are functions of a myth that allows people without real power to exercise what power they can. Morality thus becomes a method of superiority—typified in Christian morality as love. Love is thus a function of power—it is a framework that allows the “weak” to view themselves as superior to others, and to exercise this authority over others.

Love as Antagonism “By prescribing ‘love of the neighbor,’ the ascetic priest prescribes fundamentally an excitement of the strongest, most life-affirming drive, even if in the most cautious does—namely, of the will to power. The happiness of ‘slight superiority,’ involved in doing good, being useful, helping, and rewarding, is the most effective means of consolation for the physiologically inhibited, and widely employed by them when they are well advised: otherwise they hurt one another, obedient, of course, to the same basic instinct.”

The Transvaluation of Values The phrase “God is dead” is an aphorism meant to communicate that human beings lack any universal, foundational means of knowledge. This leads inevitably to nihilism—the idea that everything ultimately leads to nothing. Nietzsche’s philosophy can be thought of as a struggle against nihilism. Nietzsche’s alternative to nihilism and morality is the affirmation of the will to power in its original noble guise. Human beings, by nature, strive to express themselves in terms of will over- against something else. Thus, exploitation, domination, injury to the weak, destruction and appropriation are all forms of inherently human activity— and are thus life-affirming. Nietzsche posits a variety of “moralities” that guide human behavior in terms of the will to power depending on one’s circumstances. Humans that are thriving should behave in terms of the will—humans who are not thriving should assume the role of the weaker and allow the thriving humans to thrive.

Critical Thoughts Nietzsche should be read in terms of his psychological insight, not necessarily his philosophical or historical insight. All forms of behavior are in essence affirmations and rejections (even the “noble” forms Nietzsche likes). Nietzsche is the ultimate offender of the naturalistic fallacy His genealogy is questionable as a linear argument (for instance, how is God a product of society as opposed to a product of human projection?) Is pride the ultimate sin or the ultimate good?