Nietzsche the thinker/Chapter XVI

by William Mackintire Salter

 

CHAPTER XVI

CRITICISM OF MORALITY. INTRODUCTORY

I

It was a saying of Goethe that a bold and free work of art should be contemplated in the spirit in which it was originally conceived. This is something to have in mind as we turn to Nietzsche's final ethical and social views—perhaps the most characteristic product of his genius. He is daring, loves strong and telling expressions, easily exaggerates or seems to—and if we do not make allowances, we may often be offended and think it hardly worth while to give him the attentive study he requires. We need for the moment to be touched with a little of his own geniality, and to exercise toward him something of the persistent "good will" which Emerson says gives "insight." He speaks as freely about himself as about other subjects. Once after noting that every society has a tendency to caricature its opponents, as we do today the "criminal," as Roman aristocratic society did the Jew, as artists do the bourgeois type, as pious people do the man who is godless, and aristocrats the man of the people, he says that immoralists—his class—incline to caricature the moralist and gives as an instance his own references to Plato.^[1] Plainly we must read between the lines and not press every word in dealing with such a man.

I begin with the ethical views. The material to be considered falls naturally under two heads: criticism and construction. Constructive effort is much more pronounced in this period than in the preceding, and yet criticism continues—indeed, it is more keen and mordant than ever. The two things really go hand in hand, and even his construction is not as complete—or even as unmistakable in meaning—as we could wish; his end came too early to allow him to leave more than torsos in any department of thought. The consideration of the criticism will require several chapters, the present one being a kind of introduction to the general subject.

 

II

Nietzsche notes that modern Europe (really the Western world in general) is in a kind of chaos as to moral conceptions. The old morality was built on the God-idea, and this is passing away—indeed is already dead,^[2] i.e., for the intellectual circles of which he takes account. It is naïve to think that the morality can long remain when the sanctioning God is lacking—the "beyond" being necessary, if belief in it is to be unimpaired.^[3] We are in a "moral interregum"^[4]—Nietzsche might have assented to Matthew Arnold's language, describing us as wanderers between two worlds, one dead, the other powerless to be born. The dissolving of the old morality is leading to the atomistic individual as a practical consequence, and even further—to the breaking up of the individual himself, so that he becomes several things rather than one; a state of absolute flux.^[5] Superficial critics think that this is a result in which Nietzsche found satisfaction, being opposed to "all ideals and all faith";^[6] but he calls it "something fearful." The passage in which he says this is worth quoting: "I see something fearful ahead—chaos in the first instance, everything fluid. Nothing that has value in itself, nothing that commands "Thou oughtst." It is a condition of things not to be borne; to the spectacle of this destruction we must oppose creation; to these wandering aims we must oppose one aim—create it."^[7] The passage paraphrased immediately before ends, "On this account an aim is now more needed than ever and love, a new love."

Nietzsche gives several illustrations of the existing chaos. Here is one man for whom a morality is proved by its utility, and there one for whom a morality is refuted, if its origin in utility is shown.^[8] Now an action is held in esteem because it comes hard to the doer, and now one because it is done easily; one action is valued because it is unusual, another because it is customary; one, because a man thereby shows his regard for his best good, another because he does not think of himself at all; one because it is duty, another because it is inclination; one because it is instinct, another because it is clearest reason.^[9] There is another list of contrarieties, covering somewhat the same ground, but adding the following particulars: we call a mild conciliatory person good, but also one who is brave, unbending, and strict; we call the unconditional friend of truth good, but also the man of piety who transfigures things; we call one who obeys himself good, but also one who is devout; we call the superior, the noble man good, but also one who does not despise or look down; we call a good-natured man, one who avoids strife good, but also one who is eager for strife and victory; we call one who will ever be first good, but also one who wishes no precedence over others.^[10] In other words, there are different moralities in us today, different standards and ideas of good.^[11] And not only do men disagree with one another, but individuals disagree with themselves, now judging from one standard of valuation and now from another.^[12] We are really a kind of mishmash (this is to Nietzsche one of the characteristic marks of modernity)—we are so intellectually and we are perhaps so physically, differing races and old-time social castes being mingled in us. We are not without moral feeling, we have an immense fund of it, immense force, but no common aim in the pursuit of which this may be turned to account.^{[13] a} How to transcend the present moral anarchy becomes a driving motive with Nietzsche, particularly in this last period of his life.

 

III

First, however, and all the more because of this ultimate aim, he feels the need of moral criticism—a path on which, as we have seen, he started in his previous period. He turns morality, the whole circle of conceptions involved, into a problem. In taking this attitude he is unusual, if not unique. ^b The common view is that morality is something given, self-evident, at least easily made so, that the real difficulties are with practice; or that, if there are theoretic difficulties, these are simply in finding an adequate formula or adequate "basis" for something, the obligation of which is unquestionable. Kant and Schopenhauer take this view—Professor Simmel particularly notes Nietzsche's difference from them in that he does not limit himself to the task of codifying moral demands commonly recognized.^[14] Dr. Dolson also comments on the striking difference between Nietzsche and most ethical writers in this respect.^[15] Schopenhauer had cited neminem laede, immo omnes, quantum potes, juva as if it were a rule which nobody questioned and about which all moral philosophers are agreed; Nietzsche regards him as naïve.^[16] He regards Kant and Hegel also as uncritical. Kant wrote, indeed, the "Critique of Practical Reason," but it is not criticism in the sense in which Nietzsche feels that there is need of it—Kant took our ordinary morality, even Rousseau's extreme democratic formulation of it, for granted, he did not skeptically inquire into it. Hegel's criticism did not touch the moral ideal itself, but only asked whence comes the opposition to it, why it has not been attained or is not demonstrable in small and great.^[17] Spinoza did question the finality of the moral valuations, but it was indirectly only and as a consequence of his theodicy.^[18] English Utilitarianism looked critically into the origin of the moral valuations, but it none the less believed in them as implicitly as the Christian does.^[19] Our latest moral investigators, says Nietzsche, are thoroughly convinced that science has here only to explore a matter of fact, not to criticise.^{[20] c}

The vital omission of these investigators and historians of morality is that they do not ask what it is worth, and hence what binding quality it has for us today. Ethics is a question of norms; it means what we should do—it cannot be reduced to a set of historical or psychological propositions. And where the vital question is envisaged, Nietzsche feels that the reasoning is apt to be superficial. A consensus of peoples, or at least of civilized peoples, as to certain points in morality is asserted, and hence, it is argued, it is unconditionally binding on you and me; or, on the other hand, the differences in the valuations of different peoples are pointed out, and the conclusion is drawn that there is nothing obligatory about morality at all. Both proceedings are childishness. The worth of a prescription "thou oughtst" is independent of opinion about it, as truly as the worth of a medicament is independent of whether one thinks scientifically or like an old woman about medicine. A morality could grow out of an error, and with such an insight the problem of its value would not even be touched.^[21] Even the general principle "we must act and hence must have a rule of action," cannot be taken for granted; the Buddhists said, "we must not act," and thought out a way of deliverance from action [a way to nirvana].^[22] For Nietzsche morality is thus problem from top to bottom. The idea that it constitutes a realm where doubt is impossible, one indeed in which we may take refuge when doubt is assailing us in all other spheres—this idea that has played no small part in the spiritual experience of earnest men in recent times—is to his mind without warrant. There is no helping it—we must extend skeptical inquiry and critical reflection to morality itself. ^d

What particularly presses in this direction is the fact of varying types of morality in the world [not "types of ethical theory" merely, or principally] between which we must choose. Previous ethical writers, including the historians of morality, ordinarily stand quite unsuspectingly under the commando of a special morality and have no idea how limited their vision is. Their good and bad they regard as good and bad itself. Socrates indeed was skeptical and modest, but his disciples did not imitate him.^[23] And this morality, which is so commonly accepted, is simply the morality of the common man, the social-creature man, who lives in and with and for his herd or community as the animal does in, with, and for its. Morality, the prevailing morality, is Heerdenthier morality; and it thinks that it is morality itself, and that there is no other! But history shows that there are other types of morality, and the genuine thinker has to ask, Why this and not that?^[24]

It is only putting this into other language to say that philosophical reflection has been at its poorest in dealing with good and evil. Predominant social forces have always been against thoroughgoing criticism here. Morality has been invested with authority, even visible authority—and authorities are not to be questioned, but obeyed! Indeed to question morality—was it not immoral? Yes, Nietzsche asks, is it not immoral?—does not a similar feeling exist today? There is also something seductive about morality; it throws a kind of spell over us—in face of it the critical will is lamed; he calls it the "Circe of philosophers," citing as instances Kant, with his desire above everything else to clear the way for "majestic moral structures," and Schopenhauer, who was seduced so far that in the name of morality he was ready to turn against life itself.^[25] A result of the unquestioning attitude to morality is to make discourse about it trite—it becomes a twice-told tale. Talking about it, Nietzsche somewhat mockingly remarks, is a good preparation for sleep.^[26] This may be part reason, I may add on my own account, why keen thinkers, who wish to accomplish something with their thinking, sometimes feel no particular attraction to ethics—they want to face problems, and ethics hardly seems to offer any. ^e As I understand Nietzsche, he by no means questions the utility of this matter-of-course morality—it functions most usefully in average society; he simply finds it intellectually uninteresting, or rather first interesting when a sense of the problematical in it is aroused. Then indeed it may become dangerously interesting, so much so that it is perhaps just as well that few regard it in this light.^[27] But however this may be, morality does become a problem to him—I might say, his great and specific problem. "To see and indicate the problem of morality—that seems to me the new task and principal thing. I deny that it has been done in previous moral philosophy."^[28] The most settled and commonplace features of the subject excite his skeptical wonderment. "I wonder at the most recognized things in morality,—and other philosophers, like Schopenhauer, have only been struck by the 'wonders' in morality."^[29] He calls his an "attempt to think about morality, without standing under its spell."^[30]

 

IV

As just stated, he does not recommend his attitude to all. The question as to the origin and root meaning of good and evil he speaks of as a "stilles Problem" which "addresses itself selectively to only a few ears."^[31] "We are the exception and the danger" and "forever need justification," he admits, adding that something may be said in favor of the exception, provided that it does not seek to become the rule.^[32] There is perhaps also a suggestion of the dangerousness of his undertaking in an aphorism labeled "Casuistic": "There is a bitter (bitterböse) alternative to which every man's courage and character are not equal: as passengers on a ship to discover that captain and pilot are making dangerous errors, and that in nautical knowledge we are superior to them—and now to ask ourselves: How is it, should you not incite a mutiny against them and have them both imprisoned? Does not your superiority obligate you to do this? And on the other hand, are they not in the right in locking you up, since you undermine authority? This is a parable for higher and worse situations; whereby the question still remains what guarantees to us our superiority, our faith in ourselves in such cases. The result? But for this we must do the thing that carries all the dangers with it—and not only dangers for us, but for the ship."^[33] Hence Nietzsche takes responsibility solely—or if he wishes companions, it is only men of like temper and mind with himself; his writings are chiefly to find out persons of this type—not to persuade others. He is a law for his own, not for all.^[34] His ground is

"Glattes Eis,
Ein Paradeis
Für den, der gut zu tanzen weiss."^[35]

And the positions he finally reaches are often themselves frankly tentative, experimental. ^f

In this ethical field as elsewhere Nietzsche gives us little in order. There is a somewhat connected treatment of certain themes in Genealogy of Morals; but aside from this we have only a mass of aphorisms and notes, written at different times, in different moods, and from different angles of vision. At times I have been almost in despair over the multifariousness of my subject-matter, and I can only offer as orderly and consistent a statement as the refractory character of it will allow. It is like trying to make a cosmos out of the chaos of the world itself; perhaps the world is chaos rather than cosmos; and yet, on the other hand, it may be that the trouble is with us and that finer perception and a larger outlook would discover unities in difference that now escape us.

1. Will to Power, $ 374.
2. Joyful Science, § 343.
3. Will to Power, § 253.
4. Dawn of Day, § 452.
5. Werke, XII, 358, § 674.
6. For example, Paul Elmer More, op. cit., p. 66. Cf. Nietzsche's language with regard to eternal recurrence, "I teach you redemption from the eternal flux" (Werke, XII, 369, § 723).
7. Werke, XII, 358-9, § 675. Nietzsche had noted the mere fact of varying standards earlier (without urging a corrective as now), see e.g., ibid., XI. 193-8.
8. Dawn of Day, § 230.
9. Werke, XI, 195, § 100.
10. Ibid., XII, 81, § 157.
11. Beyond Good and Evil, § 215.
12. Will to Power § 259.
13. Werke, XIII, 358, § 673; cf. Beyond Good and Evil, § 200.
14. Georg Simmel, Schopenhauer und Nietzsche, pp. 230-1.
15. Op. cit., p. 97.
16. Beyond Good and Evil, § 186; cf. Werke, XIII, 106.
17. Will to Power, § 253.
18. Ibid., § 410.
19. Ibid., § 253.
20. Werke, XIII, 117.
21. See Genealogy etc., preface, § 5; Werke, XIV, 401-2, § 278; Joyful Science, § 345.
22. Will to Power, § 458.
23. Joyful Science, § 345; Werke, XIII, 96.
24. Cf. Werke, XIV, 67-8, § 134; Will to Power, § 458.
25. Dawn of Day, preface, § 3; Werke, XIII, 117; Genealogy etc., preface, §§ 5, 6; Will to Power, §§ 461, 401. Cf., on Christian morality and its seductive influence on thinkers, Ecce Homo, IV, § 6.
26. Zarathustra, III, xii, § 2; cf. Beyond Good and Evil, § 228.
27. So in effect Beyond Good and Evil, § 228.
28. Will to Power, § 263.
29. Werke, XIII, 16, § 33.
30. Will to Power, § 253; cf. Joyful Science, §§ 359, 375; Beyond Good and Evil, § 33.
31. Genealogy etc., I, § 5.
32. Joyful Science, S 76.
33. Dawn of Day, § 436.
34. Zarathustra, IV, xii.
35. "Scherz, List, und Rache," § 13, prefixed to Joyful Science.