Nietzsche on Morality by Brian Leiter | Notes & Summary
1. Nietzsche, Naturalist or Postmodernist?
The key argument of this chapter is to establish Nietzsche as a naturalist and not a postmodernist. By naturalism Leiter is going to emphasize its continuity with science (empirical methods of investigation) as opposed to speculative philosophy (German idealism, I think this is Richardson’s approach as reading Nietzsche as having constructed a metaphysical system) and opposed to postmodernism (this is reading Nietzsche as being a strong relativist, emphasizing the subjective).
Leiter gives a breakdown of the naturalist positions: many methodological naturalists are substantive naturalists but not necessarily so.
Methodological Naturalist: continuation with the methods of science (either hard or soft science)
Results continuity: results of philosophy must be supported or justified by the results of science.
Methods continuity: employ the same methods as empirical science.
Substantive Naturalist: the only thing which exists is natural (in varying degrees of strength, ie. Empirical things or things that can be studied by the physical sciences).
Nietzsche is not a substantive naturalist he is a methodological naturalist. And he is both types of methodological naturalist.
Results: he seeks to be aligned with the latest results of the science of the day that man is a natural creature/animal.
Methods: he also relies on methods such as
Believing in certain shapes of human nature. Ie. Will to power: how all action is expression of increasing one’s power.
Treating morality as a natural/physiological response. Like Hume he thinks a lot of our concepts like causation and freedom, we don’t have grounds to believe in them. What makes us want to believe in them are natural explanations.
Question: believing in human nature … im not sure that is a continuation of the methods of science? That almost seems speculative/metaphysical.
Leiter aims to respond to 5 objections of why Nietzsche couldn’t be a naturalist.
Nietzsche’s perspectivism prevents him from holding any objective truths.
Nietzsche’s epistemic views evolve quite a bit. He begins in the Kantian position but then starts to question whether the noumenal realm is intelligible. When he concludes that it isn’t the phenomenal realm is rescued again because the phenomenal realm is only an illusion when compared to the standards of the objective realm. Nietzsche rejects Kant’s noumenal realm because it is unintelligible. It doesn’t make sense to think about what a perspective-less reality could be like.
Nietzsche’s perspectivism isn’t an issue because his point is simply that all reality is partial it’s from a certain perspective there is no perspective-less reality. But that doesn’t mean that some perspectives aren’t distorted or some perspectives dont have a certain vantage point. Most importantly that doesn’t mean that certain perspectives don’t have common features that they can all agree upon the good example is how sight works when we look at a common object.
Question: is it fair to understand this as a middle way between kantianism (there is an objective reality) and relativism.
Nietzsche dismisses science as just one amongst many perspectives … even stronger he was anti science.
Nietzsche started off pro-science. Then became anti-science because science couldn’t get to the thing-in-itself but he was pro-science again because he rejected that Kantian divide.
So science is just one amongst many perspectives but back to the original point some perspectives are more privileged/better suited than others for certain tasks.
Nietzsche was skeptical of causation
He was skeptical of in-itself causation or that the mind can reach into that. But that doesn’t mean one cannot speak of cause in a meaningful way in the phenomenal world.
Nietzsche was hostile towards materialism
Only hostile to materialism of the substantive naturalists.
Nietzsche was skeptical about human nature and essence
There doesn’t need to be a metaphysical nature/essence in order to speak of human nature and essence. Even in the phenomenal world certain explanatory facts have primacy over others.
Leiter understands Nietzsche’s project to be a revaluation of values.
The morality common is a challenge to human greatness … greatness Nietzsche defines as the ability for one to create instead of just passively taking in.
Question: the issue he has with is not with morality per se but morality as practiced then and there right? Maybe it is with morality itself this very concept of responsibility to others.
2. Intellectual history and background
This chapter gives an overview of Nietzsche intellectual influences
Training in classical philology
Birth of Tragedy (first book) gave him poor reputation because he wanted to answer big questions and ignored scholarly conventions. From that point on he abandoned writing to a scholarly audience to write about whatever concerned himself deeply.
But he had deep respect for scholarly methods. Contra the deconstructivist/postmodern reading (which held that many incompatible readings of a singular text could all be right) Nietzsche was very concerned.
Presocratics and the Sophists
Nietzsche admired the Greeks but saw socrates as marking a decline.
What he admired most about the pre-socratics were:
Methodological Naturalism: Thales treated man as extension of nature, don’t appeal to weird forms and concepts and instead use things like water.
Limitations of Knowledge: despite his respect for science, Nietzsche thought the philosopher was after wisdom and scientist just knowledge. The former could create values which oriented life. Which meant that there are certain pieces of knowledge that’s not good for us to know even if it is true.
Empiricism: this is a middle way between relativism (focusing too much on subjectivity) and idealism (which doesn’t give enough weight to subjective experience and instead tries to reach at the objective).
Realism: (as in Real-politik) what he liked about someone like Thales is that he attributes egoistic real motives to political life and does not dress it up in moral language.
Socrates obviously would go against all of these qualities of the pre-socratics.
Schopenhauer
For S. The world was just the will but that was a negative thing. Because this will was unending it was unsatisfiable. And it made the justification of life difficult. Nietzsche would rebel against this pessimism and take on the challenge trying to argue that aesthetics is what makes life worth living.
Nietzsche also Rebels against S. Emphasis on compassion and altruism. S. Took this part on because egoism is a misunderstanding of the world … like Kant in the noumenal realm we are all one (buddhist idea too). Of course Nietzsche would reject the metaphysics and also the ethics too.
What Nietzsche will take on from S. Is theory of agency and character. Neither believed that man had free will. Practically there is fate/character that strongly determines what type of person we will become. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t quite a bit of pruning to do.
German Materialism
The dominant school of thought in mid 19th century (reaction against Hegel) was strict materialism. Nietzsche considered him encountering the work of Lange (History of Materialism, a work of intellectual history) to be as significant as Kant and Schopenhauer.
Nietzche would take on much of the materialist perspective. But he would rebel against the idea that natural science put an end to philosophy and not subscribe to reductionism. Even if natural forces have explanatory primacy that doesn’t mean they can capture the qualia of experience.
In short here are the six influences Nietzsche picked up:
Reading texts properly and getting them “right”.
Human beings can be explained in scientific terms.
Commitment to empiricism.
Focus on the real (egoistic) motives of human activity.
We lack agency.
The problem of suffering is a central challenge.
3. Nietzsche's Critique of Morality 1
This chapter is to describe what types of moral systems Nietzsche is critiquing and why focusing on the presuppositions the systems need to draw on (next chapter is on the content).
Nietzsche doesn’t critique morality in general (clearly as he suggests there are higher moralities and he provides his own). What he is doing is highlighting a specific morality to critique. He could be critiquing morality on four different grounds:
Content: what the specific content is
Origin: what the motives are (essentially resentment) this is the imminent critique.
Universality: the fact that it is applied to all
Presuppositions: what metaphysical/philosophical commitments they make.
Leiter’s claim is that its presuppositions and content that ground Nietzsche’s critique. Specifically if
It presupposes
Free will - Capable of free and autonomous choice.
Transparency of the self - motives can be distinguished
Essential similarity of people
In the content embraces norms that harm the “highest men” while benefiting the “lowest”.
Nietzsche’s view is that moral agents hold norms / want to hold norms because it favors their interests and they hold presuppositions / metaphysical doctrines that benefit those norms/morals. Leiter retreats a bit and says that just the content is enough to make a morality object of critique but that the content often/usually is accompanied by these specific presuppositions.
Nietzsche’s fatalism is causal essentialism.
Classical determinism: billiard ball causality.
Classical fatalism: even if through non-deterministic measures certain things are fated to happen (e.g. think prophecy).
Causal essentialism: people are extremely bounded by their essence which determines the range of possibilities which they can become.
Nietzsche’s critique of free will (first presupposition)
Two arguments:
We aren’t self-caused so we can’t be autonomous agent.
All consciousness (including the will) is emergent 1-1 from naturalistic causes (biological/environment factors) which means they have no causal agency even if they can’t be fully reduced down to the material.
(Nehamas disagrees with Leiter’s interpretation)
Leads to a very odd understanding of autonomy. Which is autonomy is when you are only caused by factors internal to yourself and not due to external conditions.
This means that man has absolute no agency whatsoever and so the growth of the self is really an arena of different forces that we dont have control over at all.
Critique against transparency (second supposition)
Nietzsche believes a lot of the forces that give rise to consciousness and that motivate our decisions are not accessible to consciousness. The self is just the struggle of drives.
Critique against universality (third supposition)
Morality is about expressing your power to the maximum.
Some morals are relatively good for some (and that is an objective fact).
4. Nietzsche's Critique of Morality II
This chapter is to talk about the normative content of what makes a morality bad for Nietzsche.
Who are “higher men” that Nietzsche is seeking to defend and cultivate. Mostly they are men of great creativity like Goethe or Wagner but sometimes they are also men of action like Caesar.
Someone who is solitary and treats others as instrumental (means as opposed to ends)to his project
Someone who is building a project a unifying work that is looking for burdens and responsibilities and has vigor
Someone is of good health and resilient which entails a non-pessimistic attitude towards life
Someone who is optimistic about life and life-affirming. Who can say “amor-fati” to not just the ups but also the downs of life.
Someone who affirms himself, almost worships himself. Indifference to external opinion.
How does MPS harm the higher man? His answer is going to be.
What is bad morality.
If a morality affirms anything here:
Happiness
Altruism/selflessness
Equality
Peacefulness
tranquillity
Social/communal utility
Pity/compassion
Extirpation of the instincts
Well-being of the “soul
If a morality is against anything here:
Suffering
Self-love or self-interest
Inequality
Danger
That which endangers such utility
Indifference to the suffering
Enjoyment or satisfaction of the instincts
Well-being of the body
Makes it an object of critique for Nietzsche.
Nietzche’s argument is going to be that what morality affirms is either 1. Not good 2. Overstated and what it is against is actually good.
Happiness he thinks not to be an end in itself whereas suffering is not intrinsically good but good to create artistic genius.
Nietzsche believed his ill health actually contributed to his philosophy.
Morality of happiness hurts higher men not by forcing them to stop suffering (not possible to stop someone’s suffering) but by potentially convincing many higher men to chase happiness and run away from suffering.
Egoism is another example where Nietzsche thinks the type of “severe self-love” where someone cares so much about developing one’s capacities to the forefront, to the max is necessary for greatness.
Inequality is helpful because an important driver of makes a higher man develop his faculties is recognizing that he as yet nothing. Ie. Looking down on people is useful at least in the limited case of looking down on oneself.
Why is preserving the higher man so important?
Realist camp wants to say it is objectively more important to produce higher men.
Many try to use the will to power as justification.
The first issue with this is that just because everything is the will to power doesn’t meant that it is the standard of measure of value.
The deeper issue is that will to power is not an all-encompassing claim. Nietzsche is making the limited psychological claim that will-to-power tends to be a powerful psychological force even if it can’t explain everything.
Some try to say that because both higher and lower men aesthetically value higher men that serves as a basis to defend Nietzsche’s claims.
Leiter’s pushback is that it’s precisely because lower men admire and, thus, envy higher men that they want to institute this morality. Ie. Some men want to thwart higher men precisely because they find them revolting and not admirable.
Leiter is in the anti-realist camp.
Herd morality is good for the herd. (I wonder if this is standard reading, because aren’t they also thwarting their own will to power by doing this I think I’m much more interested in investigating this immanent route)
QUESTION: maybe he is not giving enough weight to the immanent critique.
Even the distinction between higher and lower men is subjective.
The preference for higher men is just a preference for Nietzsche. This is why he is so cautious about limiting his audience.
Objections:
Nietzsche writes with a ferocity that does not suggest he is an anti-realist
He tends to be hyperbolic
He doesn’t use language of truth and falsehood when critiquing bad morality
He writes such strong language because he needs to shake people out of their slumber
He may be upset after not receiving so much attention.
If Nietzsche shows that bad morality is reliant on false presuppositions about say free will. Doesn’t that give us a theoretical way to privilege Nietzsche’s position?
No, Nietzsche holds the view that lies/deceits/falsehoods can be productive. What we must judge ta morality on is its consequence to life.
5. What is Genealogy and what is the Genealogy?
This chapter is a commentary on the genealogical form.
Genealogy, traditionally conceived, was about identifying noble ancestors. It was supposed to be 1. Positive 2. Draw out the continuity. Nietzsche’s genealogy is going to go against both of these as it is 1. Critical 2. Supposed to create a break.
His genealogy will be naturalistic, that we can explain this genealogy through purely psychological mechanisms.
His genealogy purports to be historical even if it doesn’t observe scholarly conventions because his goal is not scholarly. Although some scholars have reconstructed the scholarly work for Nietzsche and it checks out.
How does Genealogy successfully engage in critique?
The genetic fallacy is to think that the origin of X demonstrates something about the value of X.
Nietzsche is fully aware of this. The danger is that to show that morality started off in wrong origins isn’t going to show us that it’s still motivated by those wrong drives.
The reason Nietzsche still focuses on the origin as critique is really for the rhetorical force. It will enable you to be suspicious of it rhetorically more than it shows you conclusively it is bad. Rhetoric over theory is what Nietzsche has in mind. You attack the origin when you want to communicate an idea rather than to give a perfect argument.
The genealogy is a unified work
The first essay is how resentment engendered christian morality.
The second essay is about how guilt was established.
But the issue is that neither of these two essays gave a reason WHY this transformation happened. All it says is that it did happen.
The third essay is an answer and completion of the former two: the revolts happened because all ascetic morality is will to power. Even that appeals to our will to power.
Leiter thinks the Genealogy gives two different maybe competing accounts of how this came to be. One is that a class staged this revolt (the priests) and another one is that this will to power is attractive in itself.
6. Commentary on the First Essay
The first essay is on how this shift from good/bad morality (GBM) became good/evil morality (GEM).
Nietzsche has in his crosshairs both Jews (who started this revolt) and Christians (who universalized this revolt). He speaks of the battle, for example, between Rome and Judea.
What did we lose sight of?
We clearly have NOT lost sight of the fact that the pagans had a different morality and there was a switch.
What we are blind about is how this transformation has come about. We are blind about the “how.”
Some genealogists, even those who trace it to naturalistic/realistic explanations, they claim that it is because christian morality is useful to the receiver (of charity).
But that doesn’t add up because if that’s really the reason it was praised how could people have forgotten that. Ie. If it was so significant to receive charity such that it could upheave an entire cultural religious system, how could that be forgotten? What he’s really trying to say is that people don’t really care that much about receiving physical goods/aid. That form of gratitude is nowhere near as strong as the drive he’s going to point out (resentment).
Also doesn’t add up because the origin of the word good maps onto noble and bad maps onto base. So it’s clearly pointed at something else.
What are the differences between GBM and GEM.
Genetic
You first establish yourself as good and label the different as bad in GBM. Whereas you first establish the other as evil and then label yourself as good in GEM.
What motivates you is a love of self in GBM vs. a hate of other in GEM.
Evaluative
GBM evaluates the person and the action is something that is seen to flow out of it. GEM evaluates the action and holds the person as morally responsible for such an action.
GBM appreciates nobility while GEM elevates the meek virtues: patience, friendliness, humility, etc.
Metaphysical
Related to the first evaluative point. It focuses on the person.
Noble soul is internal to itself. It’s self-standing.
The example of bird of prey and lamb, it would be ridiculous to say, the eagle is so evil.
Why do people believe in freedom
Might be able to convince the strong of freedom.
We mistake language for reality. When we say (I hit the ball) it makes it sounds like there is a person there that is distinct from the action.
What is the actual force motivating this revolution? Resentiment.
Resentiment îs about a form of displeasure of one’s own state + an inability to do anything about it in action. (Thus, only thing people can do is in thought).
Resentiment haș a positive side because it makes us more interesting animals.
Why did slave morality triumph?
One answer is that resentful people are more clever and noble people are simpleminded and easy targets.
There is another class among the high class which are the priests that will trick them.
Leiter thinks that the first essay is not self-standing. That you need to bring in “guilt” (second essay) and “asceticism” (third essay) to really make sense of why the slave revolt happened.
Another question is: is a psychological explanation of resentment sufficient to explain such a monumental shift?
The first answer is that this is a polemic and not meant to carry explanatory exhaustivity.
The second answer is that it is noteworthy that Christian values were not established through force. Constantine converted, some non-physical (PSYCHOLOGICAL) pathways did play a dominant role.
7. Commentary on the Second Essay
Guilt is what was missing from the account of why the masters fell for this. And this chapter is to explain how guilt came to be. It has three stages:
How conscience developed
How bad conscience developed
How guilt developed
How conscience developed (1-3)
What is required for conscience is regularity (answerable in the future/predictable) and what caused this (and thus what gave to morality) was customs (not respect for moral law).
What is also important is memory. It’s significant that memory needs to be given an account because Nietzsche thinks forgetfulness and repression are such strong drives. The origin of memory is going to be pain and punishment that’s how you get someone to remember.
How do we get from conscience to bad conscience
Nietzsche thinks that there is a natural drive to be cruel. When the conquerors enslaved large populations, those populations had no one to be cruel to other than themselves. That is how we developed self-cruelty.
This is not entirely bad because this internalized cruelty gave man an inner world.
Interesting point about how suffering is extra bad when it’s senseless. (Maybe that’s another reason we invent Gods)
How do we get from bad conscience to guilt
Guilt is when you moralize this bad conscience.
Guilt requires freedom. The greeks like Oedipus felt shame (when one fails to measure to one’s internal standards) even if the action was fated. Guilt is when you transgress norms when you know you can do otherwise. Example of bad conscience is “I’m so ugly or I’m so stupid.” Example of guilt is “I’m at fault for being so ugly or so stupid.”
Guilt comes from Religion. First it began as ancestors which we owed our allegiance to and then it became gods. Then we fantasized the God who created everything so we can be most guilty. It’s the best self-torturing tool.
But there are better and worse ways to invent gods. Greeks invented gods who were responsible for causing all this trouble or inventing cosmic things such as fate. It kept bad conscience at bay because it could direct blame outwards.
So here’ the question and this is why the second essay is incomplete on its own: why didn’t we develop the greek gods. Why did we develop a god that was good and we who were debtors. It’s because we were attracted to ascetic ideal. The Greek gods were the most noble animal expressions of man… whereas modern man wants to disown the desire for food and sex. We fell in love with asceticism. And that’s what sets up the third essay.
8. Commentary on the Third Essay
The question this third essay is supposed to answer is: why did bad conscience develop into guilt (second essay) and why did the masters succumb to slave morality (first essay)?
Why is asceticism appealing to…
Artists
He examines Wagner’s praise of chastity in Parsifal and concludes that artists never stand independently they are mere functions of philosophers.
Philosophers
On the spiritual level philosophers need to reign in their worldly desires if they are to achieve best existence and fine productivity. Schopenhauer struggled with his own desires a lot and asceticism was a way to escape that.
On the practical level they need to imitate priests to show people they are dangerous. Ie. Be willing to engage in self-mortification to show that they have teeth.
Therefore we need to examine the priests who created this type of morality.
Priests
Priests are advocates of the ascetic ideal and also achieve their maximum will to power through this ascetic ideal.
Priests represent life (the will to power) against life (natural impulses) they are about negating everything that has to do with being an animal.
But the priests will to power isn’t just about maximizing his own but it also makes life possible for others… which we have to invetigate next.
Why does asceticism aid life.
Nietzsche following Schopenhauer (and the buddhists) takes suffering to be a key part about human existence. And conceive of his project as addressing problem of human suffering. Not alleviating it but justifying it.
Suffering only leads to “suicidal nihilism” when it is meaningless.
Resentment is wide-spread. Most people suffer from it. This is because suffering gives rise in people for someone to blame.
Nietzsche believes that suffering needs to be released, it needs to be discharged.
Someone must be to blame. This is how you make suffering meaningful.
The priest has many ways to give meaning to suffering
An innocent way is to dampen awareness of suffering and have us focus on the “little things.”
But the real instrument of who is to blame is yourself. To make yourself responsible. To make yourself GUILTY.
In doing so, the priest alleviates us from suicidal nihilism but at the cost of giving us more/deeper suffering. “Man was saved, he had a meaning.”
This answers the two questions:
Why did bad conscience develop into guilt?
By making ourselves guilty, we were given someone to blame someone to give meaning to our struggles.
Why did the masters succumb to slave morality?
Nietzsche says that before ascetic ideal we couldn’t make sense of our suffering. Why did Oedipus have to kill his father and have sex with his mother. Fate doesn’t help here. There’s no grand narrative and conclusion. But when the christians come along and say “you are guilty” that gives an object for you to push on. This is why the moralization of the natural world also imbued it with meaning. That’s why they succumbed. It was comforting for the masters as well.
This answer also sets us up to understand Nietzsche’s positive project in thus spoke. If the issue really is suicidal nihilism then eternal return and the ability to affirm it removes sucide as a possibility. It is an ideal to replace the ascetic ideal because to affirm the eternal return (which also shows that there is no meaning to your suffering, because 1. You aren’t responsible so you can’t be guilty 2. This suffering is NOT building up to something) is to recognize the meaninglessness of suffering and be able to will against that.
The greeks thought suffering could have a meaning but didn’t have one.
The ascetic/christians gave suffering a meaning in self-denial.
Zarathustra makes you will and live in the absence of any meaning of suffering.
Critique of valuing truth ULTIMATELY
Science for Nietzsche is an extension of the aesthetic ideal. Because it’s seeking truth at all costs, even at the expense of life (think of these materialists who think we are all particles floating around).
Atheism is an extension of christianity. It’s not rejection of Christianity its extension of it (like Girard). Atheism is about let’s get at what’s true regardless of the demands of life.
Another reason why will to truth is anti-life is that the truth that scientists are after (grand unified theory of everything) that’s anti-perspectival, that’s the objective truth. But ceasing to be from a perspective means that you are choosing death.
Two ways to interpret Nietzsche’s rejection of the noumenal world 1. Metaphysically: there is no such thing as the noumenal world its unintelligible. The very idea is unintelligible. 2. Pragmatically: what you want when you want objective knowledge is a knowledge that none of us could have and, even if we could, would have no bearing on us.
Not only is the truth seeker abandoning life he is also abandoning reason. Kant in the noumenal world. He claims that even reason cannot get at the capital-T truth.
Nietzsche doesn’t indict himself because he’s not after truths for truth sake but truth to liberate us to better live life.
Nietzsche thinks that the pursuit of philosophy is rarely motivated by the pursuit of truth (weak drive) its for glory, recognition, politics, money, sex, etc.
9. Nietzsche since 1900
Nietzsche has been white-washed due to his perceived association with nazism and less than palatable political views. He is treated either as a metaphysician/postmodern deconstructivist or a benign secular humanist. This chapter is to rescue Nietzsche as primarily a moral theorist concerned about values.
People try to construct a political philosophy for Nietzsche but it’s not a good fit because Nietzsche was extremely hostile to politics throughout his entire career. He only cared about the flourishing of a few great souls and that had to be done as far away from politics as possible. He has strong views of human flourishing but no political philosophy to speak of.
It’s tempting to pushback against Nietzsche that its lack of morality/lack of justice that is stifling greatness.
Nietzsche’s first response is to remind you he agrees there is lack of morality but the real issue is the guise of morality it proceeds through. It’s the affirmation of morality that he is worried will lead great men astray.
But Nietzsche’s challenge to us is a serious one that especially if people became more moral we would be even more screwed. It’s not a challenge that we can just dismiss easily. Nietzsche’s elitism presents a serious challenge to our egalitarianism:
Why are moralities of renunciation (sexual and otherwise) so prevalent among human beings?
What would a culture suffused with morality actually look like, and would it be one that we would admire?
Can a Beethoven or a Goethe really take moral demands seriously?
Does commitment to morality preclude the cultivation of certain traits and talents?
Is moral conscience severable from the pleasure in cruelty?
Is the psychology of “love of truth” the same as the psychology of self-denial?
Are human excellence and moral commitment in fundamental tension?
How, in fact, can human beings be reconciled with the fact of suffering?
What are the alternatives to the ascetic ideal, and for whom will they work?