Nietzsche’s Genealogy as Enlightenment Lecture Four Dr. Peter Kail St. Peter’s College, Oxford

‘Immoralism’ ‘Morality as the danger of dangers’ (GM Preface 6) To whom? What kind of threat? How does it operate?

‘Immoralism’ Two kinds of threat The death of God and nihilism The internalization of MPS and the disjointed self

The Death of God and Nihilism BGE 55 and the final stage of cruelty “To sacrifice God for nothingness- that paradoxical mystery of the final cruelty has been reserved for the race that is now approaching: by now we all know something about this” The Madman and the Death of God (GS 125) The few prone to such nihilism But the possible source of counter-ideal

To whom? Potential ‘higher types’, those whose drives impose themselves on the world Nietzsche’s earlier optimism and later elitism ‘The ideas of the herd should rule in the herd - but not reach beyond it’ (WTP 287)

The Threat Outlined Internalizing morality threatens privileged natured and position of those master types Otherwise they are such that they can embrace themselves in good conscience and ‘overcome’ themselves, i.e. accept their nature for what it is through evaluative interpretation The unfortunate as ‘poisoning the conscience of the fortunate with their own misery…so that they will be ashamed of their good fortune’ (GM III 14)

Nietzsche’s Strategy Nietzsche argues against the values of morality in various places and in different ways Often highly rhetorical. The strategy is to change the valuations of higher types

Nietzsche’s Strategy II Happiness/Suffering (GS 338; Z III. 1; BGE 202, 225) Altruism/Self-love (GS 328, 345; Z III 10; GM preface 5; TI IX 35; EH III, D 2 and IV.7) Equality/Inequality (GS 377; Z IV 13; BGE 257; TI IX 48; A 43; WTP 752) Pity/Indifference to Suffering (D 132 et seq; GS 338; Z III. 9; GM Preface 5; A7

Example: Pity Schopenhauer, Atheism and Pity (GM preface 5) Increases net suffering (D 134) Shows Contempt (D 135) Threatens identity (D 137)

Nietzsche’s Positive Ideal Self-creation ‘We…want to become those we are – human beings who are new, unique, incomparable, who give themselves laws, who create themselves’ (GS 335) What does your conscience say? - ‘You should become what you are’ (GS 270) The subtitle of EH ‘How to become what you are’

Nietzsche’s Positive Ideal II Freedom What is the seal of having becoming free? – No longer to be ashamed before one’s self. (GS 275) The Sovereign Individual as ‘Lord of freewill’ The ‘instinct for freedom’ (GM II 18)

Problem! Nietzsche apparently denies that there is a self (e.g. BGE 12, 17) Nietzsche’s rejection of freewill (e.g. The Four Great Errors 7, TI) How could there be self-creation and freedom?

Solution A new concept of self: a a ‘subject multiplicity’, ‘a society constructed out of drives and affects’ (BGE 12). Self as collection of drives as opposed to self as an integrated set of drives Becoming who one is is successful integration

Character, Style and Self- Creation GS 290 One thing is needful! i.survey all the strengths and weaknesses that their nature has to offer ii.fit them into an artistic plan until each appears as art and reason and even weaknesses delight the eye iii.the force of a single taste [rules and shapes] everything great and small -whether the tastes was good or bad means less than one may think; it’s enough that it is one taste! iv. ‘strong and domineering natures who experience their most exquisite pleasure in being bound and perfected under their own law’

Selves and Conscience Persons are self-conscious, self-evaluating, bundles of drives (cf. conscience and the ‘interesting animal) Nietzsche’s ideal; the sovereign individual who is capable of fully embracing the drives that compose themselves Sovereign individual as in full good conscience, unaffected by the demands of morality Full embracement of themselves as the source of value -a ‘master’ morality

Freedom Not a metaphysical conception of freedom What is the seal of having becoming free? – No longer to be ashamed before one’s self. (GS 275) Free individual is one who is not alienated from his drives