True Values
On
The Genealogy of Morals
Geoffrey Hamilton
(Feb./11/1995)
Nietzsche wants humanity to realign its understanding of ethical values. A polar
reversal of values is the realignment he seeks where 'good' and 'evil' virtually change
places. The importance of this realignment is indicated when he states, "All sciences are
now under the obligation to prepare the ground for the future task of the philosopher,
which is to solve the problem of value, to determine the true hierarchy of values". He
offers a hierarchy which is primarily a dichotomy: good is the ruling or aristocratic or
esthetic class morality where nobility, freedom, potency, strength and vitality, in the
absence of guilt, exists at its own pleasure; the bad is the slave class morality where
impotency, weakness, guilt, flagellation, asceticism, poison, reaction, hatred of the
powerful and sickness reigns. (The good and bad persons are most often referred to as
the aristocratic and ascetic men respectively.)
The way Nietzsche sets out his argument in support of his moral universe
is by way of a critical genealogy which in turn relies heavily on the assumption
that an etymological search can elicit a true meaning for an idea. This assumption
leaves unanswered two points: the original attempt at naming an idea does not make
that idea true or essential within that word only (so why look for it?), and second,
to find the historical root of something only by written evidence is to ignore oral
roots of that evidence - the root of that root. (Greek words are not exempt from these points.)
Despite this fallacy Nietzsche gives many persuasive arguments for his contention.
The ascetic and the aristocrat, the bad and good respectively, are defined by attitudes, actions
and abilities. By these indicators Nietzsche spends most of his book denigrating the ascetic.
But he has at least one positive thing to say about this ideal,". . . any meaning is better than
none and, in fact, the ascetic ideal has been the best stopgap that ever existed". Human life was
entirely meaningless and full of suffering at the beginning of history. But with the advent of
the ascetic ideal he says, "Suffering had been interpreted, the door to all suicidal nihilism
slammed shut". He characterizes the ideal by saying, ". . . man would sooner have the void
for his purpose than be void of purpose. . . ". The manifestations of the ascetic ideal
are multifarious: it includes most philosophers, as well as Buddhists, Christians and
Jews. Also many laws represent the ideal. He calls it a slave morality because in a
descriptive sense the people who hold its tenets are subject to the treatment that a
slave experiences. It is also the case that if they hold the views of slave morality,
that they deserve to be treated like slaves - to be herded, controlled and abused -
almost anything is permitted.
The aristocratic person is the one both expected and permitted to do the controlling
and abusing. This person should feel no guilt. He is a proactive, creative person
and he benefits mankind by relishing his ownexistence. He works for continued
existence and he affirms the value of existing in the world. He relishes his
animal nature and justifies his actions by virtue of his ability to take those
actions. This person can absorb his own resentment and cannot take seriously
his enemies, nor his own misfortunes and misdeeds. He has plastic curative
power and the curious power of oblivion, which actively ignores his own conscience.
In fact "the welfare of the human species" is associated with the "absolute
supremacy of aristocratic values".
The ascetic hates the powerful because his own will to power was
thwarted and he consoles himself by believing that the powerful are evil.
This will to power is reactive, vindictive and described as a bad conscience.
"In its earliest phase bad conscience is nothing other than the instinct of
freedom forced to become latent, driven underground, and forced to vent its
anger upon itself". This person is no different in terms of his ability to
inflict suffering, he just turns it on himself. Man's animal nature is
manifest in both the noble and slave ideals but the slave ideal turns it
inward; ". . . his sublimated cruelty resulting from the cooping up of his
animal nature within a polity, invented bad conscience in order to hurt
himself, after blocking the more natural outlet of his cruelty".
Then he points out how "to be unable to avenge oneself is called
to be unwilling to avenge oneself", which "gives weakness the appearance
of free choice and one's natural disposition the distinction of merit",
thus one avoids being likewise 'evil'. But the will to power is still
satisfied in the delusion that one day they will have their "Kingdom of God".
Nietzsche thus sets out his description of the slave morality.
"All good things have at one time been considered evil; every
original sin has, at some point, turned into original virtue". Nietzsche's
ethic tries to show this to be true.
The problem is that his ethic relies on the perception that man
has an animal nature and if what he mentions on page is also true, "Our
thoughts should grow out of our values," then many people who find
our 'animal nature' valueless will simply not accept his contention. As
he says in Ecco Homo , "In the end, nobody hears more out of
things, including books, than he knows already".
Nietzsche wants humanity to "reach the peak of magnificence of which he
is capable". Morality, the slave morality, right up to his day had interfered
with that magnificence but had not killed it. Morality had dominated much
thought but had not killed the noble ideal. Like the eagle swooping upon the
weak lamb the noble ideal should exercise its strength upon the slave ideal.
But is the noble ideal truly the stronger ideal?
Nietzsche mentions as part of his genealogy how there was a
historical event lead by the Jews which he calls the "slave revolt".
He says it took two millennia to prevail and arrived by virtue of the
hatred of love, "Love grew out of hatred as the tree's crown, spreading
triumphantly in the purist sunlight, yet having . . . the same
aims - victory. . ." So according to Nietzsche's evidence, for a
period of time at least, the ethic of weakness was stronger than the
ethic of strength. A strange irony that it was so.
The Genealogy of Morals is more than a history of ethics
and rises above such a limitation to make its case. It offers arguments
that probably will only succeed if we value them, but nonetheless are
compelling in that they cast sufficient doubt on popular wisdom.
Nietzsche's ethical goal of "magnificence" may suffer from the question,
'why that in particular?', but his book frees up many ethical issues, not just
from pole to pole, but within the total sphere of ethical possibilities.
(02/11/95) GRH
philosophers
Wikipedia's Nietzsche Overview
