Nietzsche - subject and action
N says that resentment wrongly separates subject from action. The subject is a tag-along to action. He means is that the strong are their actions. There is no homunculus down there deciding to persecute the weak.
I have more thoughts on this... But do you self-antirealists agree that you're beyond good and evil? Wosret?
I have more thoughts on this... But do you self-antirealists agree that you're beyond good and evil? Wosret?
Comments (64)
Ressentiment could also backfire; someone who becomes conscious of or identifies their frustration with their environment does not necessarily reach a capacity to challenge the 'Master' and this failure enables a 'spiritual hate' or a hatred of himself for this subjective emasculation that he feels due to his powerlessness. He is left with a choice; to revolt against the conditions that have caused his frustrations through philosophical creativity, or a nihilistic attempt to ignore the emasculation by empowering his ego with vicious, political games.
Likewise, in return, I would like to ask you what is strength? Is strength being able to defeat an enemy with a sword or is it being able to turn the other cheek?
'Turning the other cheek' is 'slave mentality' for Nietsche.
This is such a misreading :-d - in fact quite the contrary, for Nietzsche taking the sword and cutting their head off is slave morality based on ressentiment.
And I'm saying this even though I disagree with Nietzsche on this point. Turning the other cheek is right in some circumstances, and taking the sword is right in others (for example Jesus using a whip to drive out the money changers from the temple). Strength is being able to execute the right option.
I don't think that you can tell everyone the same things. Some people need to slow down, other speed up, some shut up, others speak up, some turn the other cheek, others pick up the sword.
"Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword." - Jebus.
Master morality and slave morality cannot be deduced from the act alone. One could crush their enemies as either a master or a slave, and one can turn the other cheek as either a master or a slave.
My favorite example for master/slave morality is giving to the poor -- a master gives to the poor out noble emotions like magnanimity and to display power. A slave gives to the poor out of ignoble emotions like guilt in order to fulfill some code of goodness set before them.
I'm just noting this because it makes no sense to say whether this or that action is always a master or a slave action. This way of thinking, at least according to my understanding of N., is to still be thinking "within" good or evil, as the clear analogue here is that master=good, and slave=evil when we say this or that action is a master/slave action.
I'm not sure if I'd count or not as the target of the OP, but I'd say I don't believe I'm beyond good and evil, though I have doubts, at least, about the self -- depending on what we mean, etc. etc.
So...no subject, no moral responsibility and no valid reason for resentment? The salient point, then. seems to be whether there can be valid, or only invalid (in terms of envy, say), reasons for resentment. If there can be valid reasons for resentment, then, would it not follow that no one can be justifiably thought to be beyond good and evil?
But I would not say I am beyond good and evil at all, in spite of that. In fact I don't know if I could connect the two notions. It seems to me that I could both have a self or not have a self and yet either be beyond good and evil or not. While there is this notion of creating oneself, like a work of art, in Nietzsche -- and I agree where you say that N pretty much says that those who do this are strong -- I'd also say that this notion of his is different from his stance on morality. It seems to me that the former is more prescriptive in N than the latter.
I think it's that they all go together. So imagine there's some group that's dominant and in a position to run rough shod over others. Let's say it's Australia. Resentment splits the real Australia from some ideal (I guess) version that is nice and friendly. The ideal Australia never commits atrocities (apparently for the fun of it or to make Australians feel less impotent).
Nietzsche is saying this ideal Australia doesn't exist. The real Australia's hostile actions are completely in line with its nature. It's a predator. It does what predatory creatures do. Think of it as a force of nature and there's nothing to resent (as there's nothing to resent about a volcano or thunderstorm).
So a person who has resentment can't be a self-antirealist without being in contradiction. Does that make sense?
What is morality to you? Is it more about ought statements? Or about guilt, sin, and redemption?
Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Nietzsche's Moral and Political Philosophy: 3.2 Nietzsche's Anti-Realism
[quote=Nietzsche]The “inner world” is full of phantoms…: the will is one of them. The will no longer moves anything, hence does not explain anything either — it merely accompanies events; it can also be absent. The so-called motive: another error. Merely a surface phenomenon of consciousness — something alongside the deed that is more likely to cover up the antecedents of the deeds than to represent them….
What follows from this? There are no mental [geistigen] causes at all. (TI VI:3)[/quote]
This is over my head by it sounds like N. is arguing that free will is an illusion.
Apparently I was adding to my initial response just as you were responding to it. I can't continue right now (work beckons), but I will later. :)
In politics it's a perennial problem of nationalism, what are we for once we win our nation state? What then for Slovakia, or America First? Then I agree with N, there is a terrible vacuity to the slave morality, what will it find of value beyond the overthrow of the supposed Master?
But then, isn't there in what N says a strange yearning for the irretrievable noble, the knightly, like Raymond Chandler novels? I bring you, the Uber Detective who knows all, but has barely a personal answer.
What were his father's convictions? My speculation has been that it was a massive emotional response to Schopenhauer's pessimism. But that can't be all..
Quoting mcdoodle
You nailed Nietzsche's view of it... that resentment is reactive. It's not a type of life that arises from within and expresses outward. It only responds to outward stimulation with "NO!"
Quoting mcdoodle
Could be. There's something about the way he says "blonde beast" that doesn't seem particularly romantic. I wish I could read it in German.
Schopenhauer's flute playing pessimism? :D
Schopenhauer lived a great life I think, all things considered. Definitely a life worth living.
Are you a flute playing pessimist? :-}
And were you also a pessimist while playing the flute? :P
For me, personally?
There's an interpretation of Nietzsche that I feel is applicable here, actually. In Thus Spoke... the section titled On the Three Metamorpheses can be interpretted as stating the journey of one's relationship to moral codes with the death of God in mind: From camel, to lion, to baby. Initially one saddles themselves with principles and desires to take said principles to their limit, as a camel carries a load. Then one rebels against said code and wishes to destroy the master, thereby becoming your own master, as a lion. And then the lion gives way to the baby, because the lion is still defined by the initial code -- only in opposition or rejection. The baby, on the other hand, is entirely innocent and creative of moral codes.
At least when it comes to morality in general I'd say I often feel like the baby, but without any project to create -- merely uncertain.
In particular, though, I'd say I'm more eclectic than anything. It seems to me that guilt, sin, and redemption is a perfectly good way of looking at morality, in certain circumstances, but not in all. I have, before, defended ought-statements as a basis for morality, but I'm less inclined to that line of thinking anymore. These days I mostly think of morality in one of three ways: good character, what is just, and hedonism. And I find that each way of thinking tends to conflict, in some respect, with each other. But these are the more specific topics in moral philosophy that I'm interested in because they all seem relevant to what I'd say is moral, in spite of that conflict. In fact, were I to feel more confident in this approach, I'd probably adopt the thesis that these are moral because of their conflict -- where each one mediates the others into a golden mean of goodness. But, since you're asking personally, it wouldn't be honest to what I actually feel.
I tend to associate the phrase "beyond good and evil" with a kind of morality which comes after good and evil which N seems to reach for. While Nietzsche has some particular suggestions to go to this beyond, I'd say that this new morality isn't something which exists. To be in that "beyond" is to be an uber-mensch, or at least to have been one -- as the uber-mensch not only overcomes good and evil, but also themselves. To worry about master morality or slave morality, to pursue one over the other, is to fall back into thinking in terms of good and evil. Though God is dead and these terms can offer us no help in sorting the good from the bad because of his murder, we do, in fact, think of certain actions, thoughts, etc. etc. as good or evil in spite of this.
Or, at least, this is one way of looking at it. But I'm putting this here as for the reason why I'd say that I am not beyond good and evil -- I certainly think some things are good and some things are evil. These are terms which, while I would rarely use them, do work in certain circumstances. I don't have to have an explanation -- i.e. God -- for the reason why they work, I just know that they do and they are appropriate terms at times.
I agree. I think that people are incapable of thinking of nations or individuals as 'forces of nature' and they inevitably hold attitudes of blame for, and anger and desire for revenge on account of, actions that they think have injured them or their loved ones, their interests or even the interests of their society. It would not make sense to want to blame the earthquake or the shark that took the life of someone close to me, as it does to blame a person that does the same.
All of this presupposes that we impute the existence of a morally responsible self to others.
"The I is not the attitude of one being to several (drives, thoughts, etc) but the ego is a plurality of personlike forces, of which now this one now that one stands in the foreground as ego and regards the others as a subject regards an influential and determining external world ... Within ourselves we can also be egoistic or altruistic, hard-hearted, magnanimous, just, lenient, insincere, can cause pain or give pleasure: as the drives are in conflict, the feeling of the I is always strongest where the preponderance is".
Elsewhere: "However far we may drive our self-knowledge, nothing can be more incomplete than the image of the totality of drives that constitute our being. We can scarcely even name the cruder ones: their number and strength, their ebb and flood, their play and counter-play, and above all the laws of their nourishment remain quite unknown to us. their nourishment is thus a matter of chance: our daily experiences throw a piece of prey now to this drive, now to that one, which they seize greedily, but the entire coming and going of these events does not stand in any rational relation to the nutritional requirements of the drives as a whole, with the result that some of them are starved and waste away, with others are overfed".
Ressentiment stems from treating these drives as both unified and cohesive, rather than as the medley of contradictions that they are. To be beyond good and evil, consequently, is to refuse to impart intentionality or calculated action of behalf of the subject, recognizing instead a kind of innocence of the drives, a refusal of to 'hold action against the subject' (which was never 'a' subject to begin with), in the form of a moral debt (of which the 'original sin' is a model of). I definitely think that this is a far more attractive model of ethics than the Christian one that Nietzsche is attacking, but I wonder if the insular/aristocratic alternative that Nietzsche presents is sustainable today. Rather than looking 'inward' at the multiplicity of drives, perhaps looking 'outwards', towards a kind of virtuous community is more amenable to today's interconnected, globalized world.
When N talks about aristocrats, he means military. Someday, when the US descends into social breakdown, the military will take over the country and that entity would be the "aristocrat" N is talking about.
Why is that? Does it have something to do with the generation and maintenance of the ego?
Not quite. The aristocratic in Nietzsche refers to all those who value ranking, or the stratification of society into differing ranks. It is a concept which is opposed to democratic and egalitarian. Hence why Nietzsche will often speak of a aristocratic society, spirit, values or even morality tout court. Consider his quite explicit definition: "Every enhancement of the type "man" has so far been the work of an aristocratic society - and it will be so again and again - a society that believes in the long ladder of an order of rank and differences in value between man and man, and that needs slavery in some sense or other." (BGE §257).
In the Genealogy, he will in fact equate the aristocratic with the noble, to the extent that it simply stands for precisely the morality which is 'beyond good and evil': "what was the real etymological significance of the designations for “good” coined in the various languages? I found they all led back to the same conceptual transformation— that everywhere "noble,” “aristocratic” in the social sense, is the basic concept from which good" in the sense of “with, aristocratic soul,” “noble,” “with a soul of a high order,” “with a privileged soul” necessarily developed: a development which always runs parallel with that other in which "common,” “plebeian," “low” are finely transformed into the concept "bad.” (GoMI, §3).
Very rarely will Nietzsche simply employ the term 'aristocrat' to refer to the military (look though the GoM for every reference to the term if you're reading it now - it will almost always be used in a wider sense, and almost always as a synonym for 'noble'). The aristocratic for Nietzsche is a kind of 'way of life' or approach to morality, and those who come close to that approach are aristocratic.
So I disagree that "noble" comes to mean "good" because it refers to anyone who accepts stratification. A slave can accept stratification, but he's never going to be noble.
Look at the clothes of a 16th Century European aristocrat. It's items that evolved from the padding soldiers wore under armor. I'm not trying to talk past you.. I understand what you're saying. An ancient person wouldn't necessarily have to be a military commander to qualify as the origin of speech about good and evil. I'll insist that you can't leave it out, though. He's saying that the most ancient meaning for good is powerful. The ancient meaning of bad is enslaved. We're talking about physical power here.
What is at stake is a genealogy of morality, not societies. Hence also why slave morality - and not 'slaves' - is exactly the kind of morality that does not accept social stratification, irrespective of what individual, 'historical slaves' might or might not have accepted. The employment of these terms are conceptual, not historical. Again, Nietzsche will almost always speak of aristocratic values (or an "aristocratic mode of evaluation" - GoMI, §10) as the subject of his discourse, and it would be a reductive misreading to think that every time he does so, he is simply speaking of 'military values' or a 'military mode of evaluation' - especially given Nietzsche's explicit distaste for the military:
"Perhaps a memorable day will come when a nation renowned in wars and victories, distinguished by the highest development of military order and intelligence, and accustomed to make the heaviest sacrifice to these objects, will voluntarily exclaim, "We will break our swords” and will destroy its whole military system, lock, stock, and barrel. Making ourselves defenceless (after having been the most strongly defended) from a loftiness of sentiment — that is the means towards genuine peace, which must always rest upon a pacific disposition" (The Wanderer and His Shadow, §284).
Nietzsche is translating history. Why would you disagree with that?
That's a good question and I'll need to give it some thought. I'm not too confident I'll be able to come up with a satisfactory answer, though.
Jesus is an image of a guy who isn't ensnared in it. I'm suggesting that every little bit of letting-go disintegrates ego.
I haven't read Agamemnon, but quick consultation with Uncle Google discloses that Agamemnon inherited the sin of his father Atreus, on account of a curse the latter was subjected to from his brother Thyestes. It's a secular version of inherited sin, historically generated in time, though, in contrast to the more esoteric Christian idea of original sin; which seems to be conceived in the primordial context of the Original Man turning away from God in Eternity.
If Nietzsche resists ressentiment it is because he wills himself to see it as beneath him. This move, ironically, relies on the formation of a very potent Ego. I think this passage StreetlightX quoted is pertinent:
Quoting StreetlightX
This passage portrays the unconscious, uncreative self, but through self-awareness we may create ourselves, through a process of the aesthetization of the ethical life we can come to identify ourselves with the most noble sentiments and abjure those which are paltry and ignoble, those which lead to the slave morality.
You seem to be suggesting the more Eastern, Schopenhaurian idea of "letting go" of the Will, and the accompanying secular conception of Jesus, as another example of the eastern sage-type. I think both the Schopenhauerian strategy, which relies on denial of the Will, and the Nietzschean, which relies on cultivation of the Will, are understandable as very human attempts at solutions; they both move decisively away from any reliance on the Grace that the Christian sees as operating within the relationship between God and Man.
For me, the interesting question, given that does seem to be a fairly accurate picture of human thinking and behavior, is why this is so. Do we attribute agency or soul to natural events on account of the social attribution of agency which seems to be so necessary to social cohesion? Does this come about due to a human tendency to reify abstract concepts, or do the forms of the abstract concepts themselves reflect deeper, pre-linguistic intuitions?
So, I'm wondering whether Nietzsche gives a justification for his phenomenalism, or whether he merely asserts it is so.
Like if I say a baseball broke the window, the baseball is depicted as an actor. But there's definitely a link between the way we talk about any unconscious actor and the Big Kahuna: the conscious actor. Schopenhauer reasoned that there is only one will. Every actor is a manifestation of it.
I know this was an earlier remark but I've been away, pardon me. This (quote) is of course the view Thrasymachus expresses in Book 1 of the Republic, but which Socrates argues against. To me the 'noble', whether Platonic or Aristotelian, version of the good is not overtly that might is right. It may have an underlying assumption that the stratification of society is unquestioned, and the top layer are the most virtuous or 'good', but that would be different.
I've been wondering whether the analytic distinction between power-over and power-to is at all useful in this debate. Slave morality seeks to overturn the power-over order of things. Master-morality seeks a space in which to exercise power-to.
N mentions Rome repeatedly as the image of master-morality. I think of Marcus Aurelius' view: what's good is a healthy, joyful expression of one's potential. Weakness in general (to the extent it's counter to nature) is a state of disease. So was Marcus Aurelius saying that slavery is inherently a sign of failure? I don't remember if he said that or not.
I think there are other ways to describe the dual/opposing moral frameworks N wants to point out. I'm not sure the Rome/Jew scenario holds too much water. If it's just a way to insinuate the situation, then yes, ok.
Quoting mcdoodle
But slave morality ends up being a perpetual angst. There's never any acceptance and never any attempt to actually change things. The slave just sits everyday bitterly complaining. I think the possessor of slave morality is happy that way. He or she doesn't really want things to change and certainly doesn't want the world to be perfect (because then what?) The master-moralist would be happy in a perfect world.
That wasn't exactly using your suggestion.. I'm still thinking about it.
Yes, I also wonder what Nietzsche means in saying "people separate the lightning from its flash, and interpret the latter as a thing done, as the working of a subject which is called lightning". What is Nietzsche intimating that people think the "subject which is called lightning" is? And does Nietzsche want to say it is nothing at all apart from the flash? Would that not amount to some form of phenomenalism? I haven't read Nietzsche for years, but I seem to recall statements to the effect that 'reality is the appearances'.
If this is what N wants to say then it relates to what he wants to say about the ressentiment of slave morality, insofar as it is Christianity which emphasizes the free and responsible soul which stand behind deeds. It would seem to be precisely this free and responsible soul (subject) which N wants to deny, just as he wants to deny the "subject which is called lightning". He seems to want to allow human acts just the same status as the acts of animals and other natural forces.
Was N phenomenalist? Again, I've assumed that since he was a Schopenhauer fan, he was basically Kantian (particularly the TA).
It seems to me that Nietzsche wants to equate the subject with actions. Like it is not the subject which acts but rather the subject which is the actions. The lightning which is the flash, and so on. A question that always came up for me when reading Nietzsche was 'Is he consistent?'
Is he consistent? He's not an analytical philosopher that's for sure. I find his philosophy kind of dream-like.
Causes are not observed as such, though. Don't we understand causes to involve energy exchanges which can never be directly observed but can only be inferred?
On one hand I found Nietzsche's philosophy kind of mystical or romantic; which I guess could also be read as 'dreamlike'. I think he got a lot right with his emphasis on radical creativity. But I think he also reads as an utter determinist, and this seems to be an irresolvable inconsistency in this thought. But it is a long time since I read him!
Analytical philosophers are consistently consistent???
After it's all said and done, Schopenhauer has only mapped out the contours of thought. He has pointed out certain statements that are indubitable. But what does the way we're bound to think (as indicated by indubitability) have to do with the way the world is? What would your answer be?
So, it sounds like his pointing out certain statements that are indubitable is much like Kant's project of identifying synthetic a priori principles which form the basis of all experience and judgement. Kant allowed that these principles must be operating if there is to be a coherent empirical world. But he did not endorse their provenance when it comes to the noumenal. I see the world as being a symbolic representation of spirit, but to say with Hegel, that the spirit is the rational, and the rational is the real would be to objectify spirit, I think. So, for me, characterizing it as the Will would also be to objectify it, and to understand it as being subject to deterministic forces and thus, would be, ultimately, to deny the possibility of any freedom which is not merely an illusion for us. I disagree with this objectification, and believe that the spirit may only be known intuitively, that is gnostically, and not via inductive, abductive or deductive reasoning; the proper ambit of these is the empirical.
Like Kant did for practical reasons, I take this as the working of faith, but I don't accept the 'imperative', his concept of duty. So, I would say that we can determine what the world is, in the empirical sense, but we cannot determine what spirit is. The world is an expression of spirit, but that expression tells us nothing about what spirit is, because the question really has no sense. Spirit is known directly through faith, intuition and creativity. I think that's the closest thing I can offer as an answer to your question.
He did want to say that the thing-in-itself is the Will, but he later backed off of that and agreed with Kant that it's unknowable.
Quoting John
But in lesser ways we can follow the course from thesis/antithesis to synthesis, right?
Human
Male -- Female
Both
Human
But in each of these lesser cases, the starting point is itself a product of analysis. The scheme leads us to contemplate the Big Kahuna, and in that's how we end up with the concept of the Absolute, which lays somewhere beyond the mind's grasp. There is no vantage point on it.
If you say it expresses itself as the world, hasn't it been analyzed to speaker and expression?
Yes, I agree
Quoting Mongrel
Perhaps 'creator' and 'creation' would be closer, but the nature of the expression is a mystery, not something analyzable. Just as it is a mystery as to exactly what a work of art reveals about its creator, and also as to how it is even possible that it is an expression of her spirit (although I think we know it is).
Well what's the relationship between a human psyche and spirit?
Not sure exactly how to parse this question. Individual psychology would be an expression of, but not the same thing as the spirit of a person, I guess, because the former is also influenced by social conditions and circumstances. The creative spirit can be inhibited or even occluded by negative psychological factors.
I know it's not a popular view these days, but I tend to believe that a person's nature is not exhaustively determined by genetics and environment; there is 'something else', and that 'something else' is what I refer to as 'spirit'.
That sounds right, but instead of saying it's "part of a person" I'd probably say that is the person, or the essence of the person, so it's not just 'the realm of pure potential' but pure actuality as well. So, that an occlusion of spirit is also an expression of spirit. It's not easy to speak about such things without falling into paradox. Should we be afraid of falling into paradox? I wonder if Nietzsche would be afraid of falling into paradox.
I'm interested to know how Schopenhauer's philosophy may be thought as paradoxical. All I can think of is that his notion of noumenon or Will as blind undifferentiated striving seems to suggest that all individual wills are a kind of illusion and that they are ultimately one will, and yet there does not seem to be any way to make sense of that conception if the one will is understood to be blind and purposeless.
[quote=Schopenhauer, WWR]Thus we see, on the one hand, the existence of the whole world necessarily dependent on the first knowing being, however imperfect it be; on the other hand, this first knowing animal just as necessarily wholly dependent on the long chain of causes and effects which has preceded it, and in which it itself appear as a small link. These two contradictory views, to each of which we are lead with equal necessity, might certainly be called an antinomy in our faculty of knowledge.[/quote]
I don't know if that's the kind of thing Mongrel had in mind, or whether it's relevant to your conversation, but it strikes me as quite paradoxical.
But on the other hand, it's equally indubitable that you somehow stand apart from that world. However you work out what it means that you have apriori knowledge about the basic conceptual framework of the world, there's this: you have a vantage point on it. And we just stepped over into paradox. You are an inextricable element of the world.. and that's you observing the fact.
And the next move is basic Hegel (I think.. you could expand?). Just as cause and effect are interdependent concepts, unity and disunity are. I want to say that trying to pull unity and disunity apart results in the infinite regress of observers.
S doesn't try to solve the paradox. He just gives it a name: multiplicity. When he talks about the rawness of subjective experience, he's preparing to say something pretty startling about who and what you are.
Unrelatedly... N says we should contemplate Napoleon: "the synthesis of Monster and overman." He says Napoleon is the incarnate problem of the aristocratic ideal. I'm trying to figure out what that's supposed to mean.
I'm not an anti-realist in any sense (whatever you meant by it - you did not define it), though there is value in 'being unreal' - it contributing to 'diversity' which is a critical factor in broader survival in a deadly universe (where people walking around in mental fantasies may be the ones who 'survive'). Here I want to bring you (and the world) up to speed on 'good and evil' (and what better place than in a philosophy forum - grass-roots dissemination has its peculiar satisfaction).
ON GOOD AND EVIL
Good and evil are goal-driven. Whatever your goal is, you will define good and evil by it (others may not agree).
Now we get to the deplorable state of philosophy (which is in the toilet). It has offered no Ultimate Objective Value in life - it is still in a wishy-washy, mentally limp-wristed, hazy and nebulous state of affairs, claiming that it can do no better than Subjectivism. That is pathetic, and it is why you asked, "Do you think you are above good and evil?" which would never be asked by an enlightened mind (don't feel bad, we still swim in a sea of philosophical stupidity).
Enter me.
Here is the first Ultimate Objective Value for mankind (I've identified three Objective Values, in descending order): Higher Consciousness (currently embodied in humans). (the other two are, in descending order, 'consciousness' (the level of current animals) and 'non-conscious life' (vegetation and microbes) - their value being based on the assumption that they too can attain higher consciousness status (via biological evolution, or by our interdiction).
Why is an Ultimate Objective (universal) (core) (ultimate) Value so important? (need I ask?) - because it gives us an associated Ultimate Goal of Life (which, in general terms, is to secure the Ultimate Value of Life; and in our specific case, it is to "secure higher consciousness against a harsh and deadly universe").
Now that we have an Ultimate Goal in Life, we can clearly and quickly determine good from evil (both being goal-defined, and we have identified the Ultimate Goal, hence we now have the Ultimate Arbitrator).
So now you can clearly see why saying 'I am above good and evil' is a clueless and foolish statement (born of a clueless and foolish past) (my philosophy is for future minds - I've given-up on my contemporaries).