Nietzsche Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy 2022

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Nietzsche is arguably most famous for his criticisms of traditional European moral commitments,

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together with their foundations in christianity

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this critique is very wide ranging; it aims to undermine not just religious faith or philosophical moral theory, but also

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many central aspects of ordinary moral consciousness

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central aspects of ordinary moral consciousness, some of which are difficult to imagine doing without (altruistic concern, guilt for wrong doing

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moral responsibility, the value of compassion, the demand for equal consideration of persons, and so on)

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his doubts of Christian underpinnings for moral and cultural life are not offered in a sunny spirit of anticipated liberation, nor does he present

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a sober but basically confident call to develop secular understanding of morality; instead, he launches the famous, aggressive and paradoxical pronouncement that “god is dead”

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The idea is not so much that atheism is true

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“the belief in a christian God has become unbelievable”

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everything that was “built upon this faith, propped up by it, grown into it” including “the whole of our European morality”

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is destined for “collapse”

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a basis for collective life that has turned out to be not only less stable than we assumed, but

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incomprehensibly mortal- and in fact, already lost. the response called for by such a turn of events is morning and deep disorientation

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not only do standard moral commitments lack a foundation we though they had, but stripped of their veneer of unquestionable authority

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they prove to be baseless and positively harmful

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unfortunately, the moralisation of our lives had insidiously attached itself to genuine psychological needs- some basic to our condition, others cultivated by the conditions

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of life under morality- so its corrosive effects cannot simply be removed without further psychological damage

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still worse, the damaging side of morality has implanted itself in us in the form of

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genuine self-understanding

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we are faced with a long term restoration projects in which the most cherished aspects of our way of life

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must be ruthlessly investigated, dismantled, and then reconstructed in a healthier form

Question 12

On the Genealogy of Morality, which consists of three treatise which consists of three treatise each devoted to the

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psychological examination of a central moral idea

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in the first treatise, Nietzsche takes up the idea that moral consciousness consists of fundamentally in

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altruistic concern for others

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he begins by observing a striking fact, namely, that this widespread conception of what morality is al about- while entirely commonsensical-

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is not the essence of any possible morality, but historical innovation

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to make the basis for historical change, he identifies two patterns of ethical assessment, each associated with a basic pair of evaluative terms

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a good/bad pattern and a good/evil pattern

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goodness originated in privilege: the good were first understood to be those of

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the higher social order, but then eventually the idea of goodness was ‘internalised’ i.e. transferred from social class itself to traits of character and other personal excellences that were typically associated with the privileged caste

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there is no thought that everyone should be excellent- the very idea makes no sense-

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since to be excellent is to be distinguished from the ordinary run of people

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“pathos of difference” expressing the

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superiority excellent people feel over ordinary ones, and it gives rise to a ‘noble morality’

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The good/ evil pattern of valuation is quite different

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it focuses its negative evaluation (evil) on violations of the interests or well-being of others- and consequently its positive evaluation (good) on altruistic concern for their welfare

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[good/evil] universalistic pretensions: if it is to promote and protect the welfare of all, its restrictions and injunctions must apply to

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everyone equally

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[good/ evil] amenable to ideas of basic human equality, starting from the thought that each person has an equal

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claim to morality and respect

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these are familiar ideas in the modern context

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9…) Nieztsche observes how easily we confuse them with “the moral manner of valuation as such”

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the universalist structure, altruistic sentiments, and egalitarian tendency of those values mark an obvious contrast, with the valuation of exclusive

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virtues in the good and bad pattern

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what happened? how did we

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get from widespread acceptance of good/bad valuation to near universal dominance of good/ evil thinking

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he insists that the transformation was the result of a

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‘slave revolt in morality’

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people who suffered from oppression at the hands of the noble, excellent, (but uninhabited) people valorised by

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good/ bad morality- and who were denied any effective recourse against them by relative powerlessness- developed a persistent corrosive emotional pattern of resentful hatred against their enemies

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emotional pattern of resentful hatred against their enemies, which Nietzsche calls

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ressentiment

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the emotion motivated the development of the new moral concept of evil, purpose designed for the moralistic

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condemnation of those enemies

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moralistic condemnation using these new values does little by itself to satisfy the motivating desire for

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revenge, but if the new way of thinking could spread, gaining more adherents and impressive- indeed “the most spiritual’ form of revenge

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“radical revelation” that would corrupt the very values that gave

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the noble way of life its character and made it seem admirable in the first place

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our morality amounts to vindictive effort to poison the happiness of the fortunate, instead of a

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high minded, dispassionate, and strictly rational concern for others

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this can seems hard to accept, with as an account of how the valuation of altruistic concern originated and even more as a psychological

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explanation of the basis of altruism in modern people, who are far removed from the social conditions that figure in Nietzsche’s story

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that, said Nietzsche offers two strands of evidence sufficient to give

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pause to an open minded reader

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In the christian context, he points to the surprising prevalence of what one might call the ‘brimstone, hellfire, and damnation diatribe’

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in christian letters and sermons: Nietzsche cites at length a a striking example from Tertullian

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[Tertullian] is the tip of the ice berg, and it is a troubling puzzle what this genre of “vengeful outbursts’ is even

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doing within (what it is supposed to be) a religion of love and forgiveness

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Second, Nietzsche observes with confidence shaking perspicacity how frequently indignant moralistic condemnation of self, whether arising in serious criminal or public matters or from more private personal interactions,

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can detach itself from any measured assessment of the wrong and resolve into a free-floating expression of vengeful resentment against some (real or imagined) perpetrator

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the first treatise does little however to suggest why inhabitants of a noble morality might

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be at all moved by such condemnations

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the second treatise about guilt and bad

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conscience, offers some materials toward an answer to this puzzle

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Nietzsche begins from the insight that guilt bears a close conceptual

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connection to the notion of debt

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just as a debtor’s failure to repay gives the creditor

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the right to seek alternative compensation (whether via some remedy spelled out in a contract, or less formally, through general social or legal sanctions)

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so a guilty party owes the victim some form of response to the violation

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which serves as a kind of compensation for whatever harm was suffered

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given guilts intense internalisation, no connection to to an actual

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victim is essential to it

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any observer of the violation (whether real or ideal) can equally be entitled to

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resent the guilty party

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religious or ideological systems to attach

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guilt to practically any kind of value violation, even when no one is harmed

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free floating guilt can lose its social and moral point and develop into pathological

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desire for self punishment

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The Genealogy’s third treatise explores the identification of such

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self-punishment via the idealisation of asceticism

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the genealogy misses no chances to criticise religious versions of asceticism, but the target is broader-

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including the more rational form asceticism takes in Schopenhauer’s ethics

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self discipline is turned against the agent herself and

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comes to express the person’s commitment to her own fundamental worthlessness

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purified guilt is naturally recruited as a

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tool for developing asceticism

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ascetic strategy is to interpret such suffering as punishment, thereby

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connecting it to the notion of guilt

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this guilt inflicted ascetic self-understanding must be extremely destructive for

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the agent’s sense of self worth, and ultimately for psychological health

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Schopenhauer’s pessimism-

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according to which human life and the world have negative absolute value. (…) such conclusions are entirely consistent with- indeed they seem like warranted responses to- the pessimistic evaluation

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[Schopenhauer] if life is an inherent evil and nothingness is a concrete improvement over existence

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then diminishing or impairing life through asceticism yields a net enhancement of value

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[Schopenhauer] Nietzsche’s concern is not so much to refute that view

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as to diagnose it

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while asceticism imposes self-discipline on the sick practitioner, it simultaneously makes the person sicker

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plunging her into intensified inner conflict

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thus, Nietzsche’s fundamental objection to asceticism

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is that it is psychologically destructive and practically self-defeating, even for those (the sick) for whom it does best work- and this is so even if it remains (from a certain perspective) they can door themselves in their condition.

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for him (…) human beings remain valuing creatures in the last analysis. it follows that no critique of traditional values could be practically effective

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without replacement values capable of meeting our needs as valuers

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his suggestions about alternative values seem scattered or

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telegraphic

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disappointment among commentators in search of ‘positive views” arises from our looking for the wrong things-

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for example seeking a systematically organised axiological theory when Nietzsche himself is sceptical of any such project