Nietzsche's On the

Genealogy ofMorals
Critical Essays on the Classics
Series Editor: Steven M. Cahn

The volumes in this series offer insightful and accessible essays that shed light on the classics
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Plato's Republic: Critical Essays

edited by Richard Kraut
I'la£O's Euthyphro, Apology, and Crito: Critical Essays
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Aris£Ode's Ethics: Critical Essays
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The Empiricists: Critical Essays on Locke, Berkeley, and Hume
edited by Margaret Atherton
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Kant's Groundwork on the Metaphysics ofMorals: Critical Essays
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Mill's On Liberty: Critical Essays
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Mill's Utilitarianism: Critical Essays
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Nietzsche's On the Genealogy ofMorals: Critical Essays
edited by Christa Davis Acampora
Heidegger's Being and Time: Critical Essays
edited by Richard Polt
The Existentialists: Critical Essays on Kierkegaard, Nietzsche,
Hcidegger, and Sanre
edited by Charles Guignon
Nietzsche's On the
Genealogy ofMorals
Critical Essays

Edited by
Christa Davis Acampora

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Nietzsche's On the genealogy of morals: critical essays / edited by Christa Davis
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ISBN-13: 978-0-7425-4262-4 (cloth: alk. paper)
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ISBN-13: 978-0-7425-4263-1 (pbk. : alk. paper)
ISBN-IO: 0-7425-4263-7 (pbk. : alk. paper)
I. Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, 1844-1900. Zur Geneologie der Moral.
2. Ethics. I. Acampora, Christa Davis, 1967- II. Series.
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Contents

Acknowledgmenrs VII

Abbreviations, Citations, and Translations of Nietzsche's Works XI

Introduction
In the Beginning: Reading Nietzsche's
On the Genealogy ofMorals from the Starr
Christa Davis Acampora

Part I. On Genealogy
A "Dionysian Drama on the 'Fate of the Soul''': An Inrroduction to
Reading On the Genealogy ofMorality 19
Keith Ansell Pearson
2 Nietzsche, Re-evaluation, and the Turn to Genealogy 39
David Owen
3 The Genealogy of Genealogy: Interpretation in Nietzsche's Second
Untimely Meditation and in On the Genealogy ofMorals 57
Alexander Nehamas
4 Nietzsche's Style of Affirmation: The Metaphors of Genealogy 67
Eric Blondel
5 Nietzsche and the Re-evaluation of Values 77
Aaron Ridley
6 Genealogy, the Will to Power, and the Problem of a Past 93
Tracy B. Strong

Part II. Reading Nietzsche's Genealogy-Focused Analyses

of Parts and Passages
7 Slave Morality, Socrates, and the Bushmen: A Critical
Imroducrion to 011 the Genealogy ofMorality, Essay I 109
Mark Migotti

v
VI Contents

8 Lighming and Flash, Agent and Deed (GM 1:6-17) 131

Robert B. Pippin
9 On Sovereignty and Overhumani[y: Why It Maners
How We Read Nie[zsche's Genealogy II:2 147
Christa Davis Acampora
10 Finding [he Obermensch in Nierzsche's
Genealogy of Morality 163
Paul S. Loeb
11 The Genealogy of Morals and Righ[ Reading: On [he Nierzschean
Aphorism and [he An of [he Polemic 177
Babette E. Babich
12 "We Remain of Necessi[y Strangers [0 Ourselves": The Key Message
of Nie[zsche's Genealogy 191
Ken Gemes
13 Nihilism as Will [0 No[hingness 209
Wolfgang Muller-Lauter

Part III. Critiquing Genealogy

14 The Emwinemenr of My[h and Enligh[enmem 223
Jiirgen Habermas
15 Transla[ing, Repea[ing, Naming: Foucaul[. Derrida,
and [he Genealogy of Morals 233
Gary Shapiro
16 Nierzsche. Ddcuzc. and [he Genealogical Critique of Psychoanalysis:
Between Church and Stare 245
Alan D. Schrift

Part IV. On Politics and Community

17 Nie[zsche's Genealogy: Of Beaury and Community 259
Salim Kemal
18 Nie[zsche and [he Jews: The Suuc[ure of an Ambivalence 277
Yirmiyahu Yovel
19 Nierzschean Vinue E[hics 291
Christine Swanton
20 How We Became Wha[ We Are: Tracking [he "Beas[s of Prey" 305
Daniel W Conway

Bibliography 321
Index 327
Abou[ [he Contributors 335
Acknowledgments

I am grateful [0 Steven Cahn for suggesting I consider the project, to Eve DeVaro
for her reception to the idea, and, especially, to Tessa Fallon and Emily Ross for
assistance with a variety of technical questions and tasks. Frank Kirkland made pos-
sible some administrative assistance during various stages of manuscript preparation,
and Nathan Metzger provided early research assistance and collection of materials
that proved very helpful. Special thanks are owed to Ben Abelson, Brian Crowley,
Adele Sarli, and Catherine Schoeder, who read most if not all of the nearly one
hundred articles and book chapters that were considered for possible inclusion in
the book. My weekly discussions with them were always informative and interesting.
Brian Crowley and David Pereplyotchik graciously aided with the preparation of the
index. Persons too numerous to name generously discussed the book's contents and
arrangement with me over the past year, most notably Keith Ansell Pearson. Several
contributors took additional time to edit their essays for publication here. I am par-
ticularly grateful for the assistance of Keith Ansell Pearson, Babette E. Babich, Dan
Conway, Ken Gemes, Paul Loeb, Mark Migotti, David Owen, Alan Schrift, Gary
Shapiro, and Tracy B. Strong. Finally, I wish to thank my family for patiently listening
to my nearly daily recounting of both thrilling insights and complaints about permis-
sions edirors. To those not responsible for the latter, I extend my sincere gratitude.
All of the material presented in this volume has been edited. In many cases, pre-
viously published pieces were edited and/or revised by the authors. In the acknowl-
edgements below, I indicate whether contributions were excerpted and edited and/
or revised by the author. Contents not listed below are now published for the first
time.

"Nietzsche, Re-evaluation, and the Turn to Genealogy," David Owen. Edited by

the author after its original publication in European Journal of Philosophy 11:3
(2003): 249-72. Reprinted with permission of Blackwell Publishing, Ltd.

VII
V1ll Acknowledgments

"The Genealogy of Genealogy: Interpretation in Nietzsche's Second Untimely Medi-

tation and in On the Genealogy ofMorals," Alexander Nehamas. Excerpted from Lit-
erary Theory and Philosophy, edited by Richard Freadman and Lloyd Reinhardt
(London: Macmillan, 1991), 269-83. Reproduced with permission of Pal grave
Macmillan.

"Nietzsche's Style of Affirmation: The Metaphors of Genealogy," Eric Blonde!.

Excerpted from Nietzsche as Affirmative Thinker, edited by Y. Yovel (The Hague:
Marrinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1986), 136-46. Excerpt reprinted with permission of
Springer.

"Nietzsche and the Re-evaluation of Values," Aaron Ridley. Edited by the aurhor
after its original publication in Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 105 (2005),
171-91. Reprinted by courtesy of the Editor of the Aristotelian Society, copyright
2005.

"Slave Morality, Socrates, and the Bushmen: A Critical Introduction to On the

r
Genealogy of Morality, Essay Mark Migo[(i. Revised and excerpted by the author
after its publication in Philosophy 6- Phenomenological Research 58:4 (December
1998): 745-80.

"Lighming and Flash, Agent and Deed (GM 1:6-17)," Robert B. Pippin in Friedrich
Nietzsche, Genea/ogie der Moral, edited by Otfried Hoffe (Berlin: Akademie Verlag,
20(4),47-63. Reprinted with permission of the author.

"On Sovereignty and Overhumanity: Why It Matters How We Read Nietzsche's

Genealogy II:2," Christa Davis Acampora. Revised by the author from its original
publication in International Studies in Philosophy 36:3 (Fall 2(04): 127-45.

"Finding the Ubermensch in Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morality," Paul S. Loeb.

Excerpted and revised by the author from its original publication in Journal ofNietz-
sche Studies 30 (Autumn 2(05): 70-10 1. Reprimed with permission of the Pennsyl-
vania State University Press.

"Nihilism as Will to Nothingness," Wolfgang Muller-Laurer. In Nietzsche: His Phi-

losophy of Contradictions and Contradictions of His Philosophy, written by Wolfgang
Muller-Laurer and translated by David J. Parem (Chicago: University of Illinois
Press, 1999),41-49. Reprinted with permission of the University ofIlJinois Press.

"The Entwinemenr of Myth and Enlightenmenr," Jiirgen Habermas. Excerpted

from The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity, written by JUrgen Habermas and
rranslated by Frederick Lawrence (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1987), 120-30.
Excerpt published here with the permission of the author, MIT Press, and Polity
Press.
 Acknowledgments IX

"Translating, Repeating, Naming: Foucault, Derrida, and the Genealogy of Mor-

aIs," Gary Shapiro. Excerpted by the author from its original publication in Nietz-
sche as Postmodemist: Essays Pro and Con, edited by Clayton Koelb (Albany, NY:
State University of New York Press), 39-55. Reprimed with permission of SUNY
Press.

"Nietzsche, Deleuze, and the Genealogical Critique of Psychoanalysis: Between

Church and State," Alan D. Schrift. Edited and revised by the author after its origi-
nal publication as "Between Church and State: Nietzsche, Deleuze, and the Critique
of Psychoanalysis" in Intemational Studies in Philosophy 24:2 (Summer 1992): 41-
52. Reprinted with the permission of the publisher.

"Nietzsche's Genealogy: Of Beauty and Community," Salim Kemal in Journal of

the British Society for Phenomenology 21:3 (October 1990): 234-49. Reprinted with
the permission of the journal editor.

"Nietzsche and the Jews: The Structure of an Ambivalence," Yirmiyahu Yovel in

Nietzsche and Jewish Culture, edited by Jacob Golumb (New York: Routledge,
1997), 117-34. Reprinted with permission of Routledge.

"Nietzschean Virtue Ethics," Christine Swamon in Virtue Ethics: Old and New,
edited by Steven M. Gardiner (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2005), 179-
92. Reprinted with permission of the author and Cornell University Press.

"How We Became What We Are: Tracking the 'Beasts of Prey,''' Daniel Conway.
Revised by the author from its original publication in A Nietzschean Bestiary: Becom-
ing Animal Beyond Docile and Brutal, edited by Christa Davis Acampora and Ralph
R. Acampora (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2004), 156-
77. Published with permission of the author and publisher.
Abbreviations, Citations, and Translations
of Nietzsche's Works

ABBREVIATIONS AND CITATIONS

The essays that follow have been edited so as to use the same citation format
throughour. References are given in the body of the book. Redundant references to
the German texts for Nietzsche's published writings have been deleted, since these
are easily identifiable in the now standard editions. References to Nietzsche's unpub-
lished writings have been standardized, whenever possible, to refer to the most acces-
sible edition of Nietzsche's notebooks and publications, the Kritische Studienausgabe
(KSA), compiled under the general editorship of Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Monti-
nari. References to the edition of letters in this collection are cited as KSAB.
Roman numerals denote the volume number of a set of collected works or stan-
dard subdivision within a single work, and Arabic numerals denote the relevant sec-
tion number. In cases in which Nietzsche's prefaces are cited, the letter "P" is used
followed by the relevant section number, where applicable. When a section is too
long for the section number alone to be useful, the page number of the relevant
translation is also provided. In the cases in which the KGWand KSA are cited, refer-
ences provide the volume number (and part for KGW) followed by the relevant frag-
ment number and any relevant aphorism (e.g., KSA 10:12[1].37 refers to volume
10, fragment 12 [1], aphorism 37). The following abbreviations are used for citations
of Nietzsche's writings.

A = The Antichrist
AOM = Assorted Opinions and Maxims
BGE = Beyond Good and Evil
BT = The Birth o/Tragedy
CW = The Case o/Wagner

Xl
XII Abbreviations, Citations, and Translations

D = Daybreak
DD = Dionysian Dithyrambs
DS = David Strauss, the Writer and Confossor
EH = Ecce Homo [sections abbreviated "Wise," "Clever," "Books," "Destiny").
Abbreviations for titles discussed in "Books" are indicated instead of "Books"
where relevant (e.g., EH "GM").
FE! = "On the Future of Our Educational Institutions"
GM = On the Genealogy ofMorals
GS = The Gay Science
HC = "Homer's Contest"
HCP = "Homer and Classical Philology"
HH = Human, All Too Human
HL = On the Use and Disadvantage ofHistory for Life
1M = "Idylls from Messina"
KGW = Kritische Gesamtausgabe
KSA = Kritische Studienausgabe
KSAB = Kritische Studienausgabe Briefo
LR = "Lectures on Rhetoric"
NCW = Nietzsche Contra Wagner
PN = Portable Nietzsche
PTAG = Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks
RWB = Richard Wagner in Bayreuth
SE = Schopenhauer as Educator
Tl = Twilight of the Idols [sections abbreviated "Maxims," "Socrates," "Reason,"
"World," "Morality," "Errors," "Improvers," "Germans," "Skirmishes,"
"Ancients," "Han1mer")
TL = "On Truth and Lies in an Extra-moral Sense"
UM = Untimely Meditations (when referenced as a whole)
WP = The Will to Power
WPh = "We Philologists"
WS = The Wanderer and His Shadow
Z = Thus Spoke Zarathustra [References to Z list the parr number and chapter tirle
followed by the relevant section number when applicable.)

TRANSLATIONS

The following translations of Nietzsche's works are utilized in this volume. Aurhors
acknowledge the relevant translators as occasions require. In cases in which no trans-
lation is indicated, the author has supplied his or her own translation.

The Antichrist (written in 1888). In The Portable Nietzsche. Ed. and trans. Walter
Kaufmann. New York: Viking Press, 1968. Also translated as The Anti-Christ. In
 Abbreviations, Citations, and Translations XIII

Twilight ofthe Idols/The Anti-Christ. Trans. R. J. Hollingdale. New York: Viking

Penguin, 1968.
Assorted Opinions and Maxims (1879). Vol. 2, part I of Human, All Too Human.
Trans. R. J. Hollingdale. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986.
Beyond Good and EviL· Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future (I 886). Trans. Walter
Kaufmann. New York: Vintage Books, 1966. Also trans. R. J. Hollingdale. Lon-
don: Penguin Books, 1990. Also trans. Judith Norman. Ed. Rolf-Peter Horst-
mann and Judith Norman. Cambridge University Press, 2002.
The Birth of Tragedy, Or: Hellenism and Pessimism (I872). In The Birth of Tragedy
and The Case of Wagner. Trans. Walter Kaufmann. New York: Vintage Books,
1967. Also The Birth of Tragedy. Trans. Francis GoWing. New York: Anchor
Books, 1956. And The Birth of Tragedy. Trans. Shallll Whiteside. London: Pen-
guin Books, 1993.
Daybreak: Thoughts on the Prejudices of Morality (J 881). Trans. R. J. Hollingdale.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982.
Ecce Homo: How One Becomes What One Is (written in 1888). In On the Genealogy
of Morals and Ecce Homo. Trans. Walter Kaufmann. New York: Vintage Books,
1969.
The Gay Science: With a Prelude in German Rhymes and an Appendix ofSongs (1882
and 1887 [Book V added]). Trans. Walter Kaufmann. New York: Vintage Books,
1974. Also trans. Josefine Nauckhoff and Adrian Del Caro. Ed. by Bernard Wil-
liams. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
David Strauss: The Writer and the Confessor (1873). Trans. by R. J. Hollingdale.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983.
"Homer's Contest" (written in 1871). Trans. Christa Davis Acampora. Nietzscheana
5/6, 1996. Excerpts also translated as "Homer's Contest." In The Portable Nietz-
sche. Ed. and trans. Walter Kaufmann. New York: Viking Press, 1968.
Human, All Too Human: A Book for Free Spirits, Vol. 1 (1878). Trans. R. J. Holling-
dale. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986.
On the Genealogy ofMorals (I887). In On the Genealogy of Morals and Ecce Homo.
Trans. Walter Kaufmann and R. J. Hollingdale. New York: Vintage Books, 1969.
Also On the Genealogy of Morality. Trans. Carol Diethe. Ed. by Keith Ansell-
Pearson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994; revised edition forth-
coming, 2006. Also On the Genealogy ofMorality. Trans. Maudemarie Clark and
Alan J. Swensen. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 1998.
"On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense" (wrinen in 1873). In Philosophy and
Truth: Selections from the Notebooks ofthe 1810s. Trans. Daniel Breazeale. Atlantic
Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, 1979.
On the Use and Disadvantage of History for Life (1874). In Untimely Meditations.
Trans. R. J. Hollingdale. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983.
Richard Wagner in Bayreuth. (1875) Trans. Richard T. Gray. In The Complete Works
of Friedrich Nietzsche, Volume 2: UlIfoshionable Observations. Stanford: Stanford
University Press, 1995.
XIV Abbreviations, Citations, ,md Translations

Schopenhauer as Educator (1874). In Untimely Meditations. Trans. R. J. Hollingdale.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983.
Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1883 [Parts 1-21; 1884 [Pan 3]; 1885 [Pan 4]). In The
Portable Nietzsche. Ed. and {[ans. Walter Kaufmann. New York: Viking Press,
1968.
Twilight ofthe Idols (written in 1888). In The Portable Nietzsche. Ed. and trans. Wal-
ter Kaufmann. New York: Viking Press, 1968. Also Twilight ofthe Idols: Or How
to Philosophize with a Hammer. Trans. Duncan Large. Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1998. Also trans. in Twilight ofthe Idols/The Anti-Christ. Trans. R. J. Hol-
lingdale. New York: Viking Penguin, 1968.
The Wanderer and His Shadow (1880). Vol. 2, part 2 of Human, All Too Human.
Trans. R.]. Hollingdale. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986.
The Will to Power (selected notes from 1883-1888). Ed. Walter Kaufmann. Trans.
Walter Kaufmann and R.]. Hollingdale. New York: Vintage Books, 1967.

Nietzsche's Works in German

Kritische Studienausgabe. Ed. Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Mominari. Berlin and New
York: Walter de Gruyter, 1967-1988.
Kritische Studienausgabe Siimtfiche Briefe. Ed. Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Monrinari.
Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1986.
Kritische Gesamtattsgabe, Ed. Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Montinari. Berlin and New
York: Walrer de Gruyter, 1967-.
Werke in drei Biinden. Ed. Karl Schlechta. 3 vols. Munich: Carl Hanser, 1954-1956.
Introduction

In the Beginning
Reading Nietzsche's On the Genealogy ofMorals from
the Start

Christa Davis Acampora

"Ler us sran again, from rhe beginning"

(GMIII:l)

Right from rhe start, Nietzsche's On the Genealogy ofMorals presenrs us wirh some
imriguing quesrions. Simply considering its tide-and the choices that translators
have made in rendering it imo English-opens a number of them. Although several
essays in this volume discuss these issues, I shall briefly mention them here because
they raise concerns that from the outset will direcr readers down difterent parhs. At
stake is Nietzsche's general task, how it stands in relation to what might be consid-
ered related works or approaches, and how it has been appropriated (and mighr be
exrended in rhe fumre) in philosophy, political theory, history, and the orher relared
areas of inquiry rhat have raken to rhe notion of "genealogical" investigation. So,
we shall begin with that very beginning.
The original German title reads: Zur Genealogie der Moral: Eine Streitschrift. The
German preposition zur-a contraction of zu and the article der-is common
enough. It can mean "toward the" or "on the." In a helpful article annotating the
Gellealogy, David S. Thatcher recounts Walter Kaufmann's reasons for preferring
"on" in the translation he completed with R. J. Hollingdalel-a survey of other
uses of zur by Nietzsche suggests he does not use it to intend "toward"-and other
rranslators have followed this lead. 2 I do nor find this to be conclusive evidence,
though, and it does make a difference whether Nietzsche thought he was conrribut-
2 Introduction

ing to (a body of work on) genealogy, whether he was writing on (but not himself
doing) genealogy from which he was distancing himself, or whether he thought he
was leading liS toward something that we are not yet in a position ro do or ro see.
These are not mutually exclusive goals and, regardless of the precise translation upon
which we settle, it is appropriate ro see Nietzsche as having each of these aims. He
is contributing ro a cenain body of work devoted ro determining the development
of human beings such that they became social creatures who developed what we
today call "morality." And he is distancing himself from panicular ways in which
some of his contemporaries have endeavored {O do this, as I mention briefly below.
But it is also clear that Nietzsche thinks he is leading liS or preparing liS for some-
thing we have not yet been able to do, to begin a new inquiry, namely, ro understand
something about ourselves in terms of what we are now and what our future possi-
bilities might be, and perhaps also {O exhibit a way of investigating a variety of facets
of human existence and how those features have acquired their meanings. Any doubt
that Nietzsche's aims include being 011 the way toward something, should be dis-
pelled when we read the very first lines of the book: Nietzsche, evoking a line from
one of his favorite philosophers, Heraclitus, tells us that, "We are unknown to our-
selves," suggesting that part of his enterprise involves helping us, as readers, to
become less of "strangers ro ourselves" (an idea Ken Gemes discusses at length in
his "Strangers [0 Ourselves" in this volume).l We are so because "we have never
sought ourselves."
Heraclitus is reported to have made the uncanny claim, "I went seeking myself."4
This thought is IIncanny because it would seem that nothing is closer, and perhaps
least in need of being sought, than ourselves. Faith in the transparency of the self
seems to be one of the key ideas in modern philosophy--consider, for instance, the
grist of self-knowledge in Descartes' Meditations. Gemes explores what is uncanny
or, in the German lI11heimlich--literally "un-home-Iy"; we might also think of it
as "unsettling," "disturbing," or "uprooting"-about Nietzsche's project in On the
Genealogy ofMorals.
The Genealogy is supposed to be about liS, about drawing us into a project aimed
at knowing ourselves bener, as Gemes elaborates in detail, and Robert B. Pippin and
Tracy B. Strong treat in their essays. Pippin's "Lightning and Flash" explicates the
curious passage in the first essay where Nietzsche seems to deny that we are "selves"
at all (GMI:13). Strong, in his "Genealogy, the Will to Power, and the Problem of
a Past" describes how "weak" and "strong" wills relate to the degree to which one
manages to listen to "knowing conscience" and "become the one you are" (GS 270).
Nietzsche's opening indicates that the story of the book might resonate in some
way with the story of ourselves. The same paragraph continues with a citation from
the first book of the New Testament, Matthew 6:21: "Where your treasure is, there
will your heart be also." In other words, your highest aims (i.e., what you treasure)
will direct your desires (i.e., what you pursue and how you go about it). Many of
Nietzsche's books aim to call our attention to asking the question of what our high-
est aims are and how we might produce (by artistically creating visions of) that to
 Introduction 3

which a human life might vibrantly aspire. But alrhough Nietzsche cites the book
of Matthew here, he does not simply reiterate its answer. Nietzsche's "good news,"
we must imagine, will involve a transformation or a revaluation of what are identi-
fied as the treasure and the heart of Christianity (that is, it involves a deep exploration
of what is prized or valued most highly and the desire or passion that motivates the
pursuit of such).
Nietzsche's Genealogy constitutes a new beginning, some kind of seeking; it is on
the way (Oward something, perhaps the discovery of a new "treasure." And, in case
we need further convincing of this point, at the end of the second essay of the Gene-
alogy, following Nietzsche's account of the development of modern morality and
what he calls "rhe bad conscience," he evokes the image of "the man of the future,
who will redeem us" from the mess he has just described, and he ties this redemptive
image (0 the name of his Zarathustra (GM II:24 and 25). Paul S. Loeb in his "Find-
ing the Obermensch in Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morality" goes (0 great lengths (0
show how this is so and the difference it makes for how we think about what is the
future alternative for which Nietzsche argues. All of this is followed by an elaborate
analysis, specifically an exegesis of the nature of ascetic ideals (about which Wolfgang
Muller-Lauter sheds considerable light in his "Nihilism as Will to Nothingness").
And that discussion concludes with consideration of whether (and, if so, how) it is
possible to generate meaning and significance in any way other than through ascetic
practices, which Nietzsche considers to be destructive and ultimately self-undermining.
So, it is clear that Nietzsche's project is on its way toward somewhere but that it
does not ultimately reach its conclusion. This is not Nietzsche's last word on the
matter, and he does nor consider his account complete.
There is no disagreement among translarors about the translation of Genealogie,
naturally, but as one can see when reading the essays collected here, the relation of
genealogy ro hisrory, ro the "English psychologists" Nietzsche dismisses in his pref-
ace and first essay, to the work of his former friend Paul Ree, and to "genealogy" as
practiced by those inspired by Michel Foucault are considerably contentious issues.
Numerous authors included here treat facets of these concerns (e.g., Alexander Neh-
amas in "The Genealogy of Genealogy: Interpretation in Nietzsche's Second
Untimely Meditation and in On the Genealogy ofMorals," Gary Shapiro in "Translat-
ing, Repeating, Naming: Foucault, Derrida, and the Genealogy of Morals," and
Alan D. Schrift in "Nietzsche, Deleuze, and the Genealogical Critique of Psycho-
analysis: Between Church and State"}.5 How does this influence the reader from the
very start? The matter concerns what counts as a "start," because there is consider-
able variation in how certain key words relating to beginnings and origins in Zur
Genealogie der Moral are translated. These words give us some clues about just what
Nietzsche intends by "genealogy" and whether and how he is practicing or applying
it (and there is disagreement about whether genealogy is a method or an interpreta-
tive activity that one practices in an exemplary fashion-see Babette E. Babich, "The
Genealogy of Morals and Right Reading: On the Nietzschean Aphorism and the Art
of the Polemic" on this point). 6
4 Introduction

The problematic words in question are Herkunfi, Ursprung, and Entstehung, and
their compounds. Roughly, these words could be translated as "descent," "origin,"
and "emergence" in that order. How we think about Nietzsche's use of these words
is related to what we consider his project to be in On the Genealogy of Morals.? Is
Nietzsche providing us with his own view of the "descent of man" in the form of a
developmental story that is similar to or at odds with the "descent of man" as pro-
vided by Charles Darwin and other evolutionary theorists? Is Nietzsche offering a
story about an "original condition," something like the "state of nature" that early
modern philosophers provided in their political philosophies? Is he endeavoring to
disclose the "true origins" of morality in order to show that religious morality, par-
ticularly, is not what we think it is? Is he tracing the emergence of nobility (and/or
slavishness) in the manner of a pedigree? Is he giving us a naturalistic account of the
emergence of morality among human beings? Is genealogy chiefly critique, and is it
supposed to be different from (and more effective than) making a logical argument
against that which is criticized? And if the latter, is there any way to legitimately
make judgments about the superioriry of differing genealogical critiques, if universal
reasoning about these matters has been undermined? These are questions that we
confront when we consider from the beginning what Nietzsche intends by "gene-
alogy."
The first section of this volume addresses the nature of Nietzsche's genealogical
project. Keith Ansell Pearson's "A 'Dionysian Drama on the "Fate of the Soul"':
An Introduction to Reading On the Genealogy of Morality" addresses many of the
questions raised above, providing a far-reaching but specific scope through which to
consider how Nietzsche envisions the incorporation of knowledge with the love of
our fate. Of particular interest are Ansell Pearson's discussion of the soul, bad con-
science, and guilt, in which he describes how Nietzsche retains a conception of soul
as "a system of valuations and value-afiects," how bad conscience is fated as the
internalization of the" 'instinct for freedom'" and "will to growth," and how guilt
is the idealized moralization of the debtor-creditor relation that affords a particularly
intense manifestation of cruelty turning back on itself The drama of the soul, then,
is the pressure and play of these affects, which is the source of our undoing as well
as our possible creativity. In the second chapter, "Nietzsche, Re-evaluation and the
Turn to Genealogy," David Owen describes how Nietzsche's turn to genealogy is
motivated, in part, by his concern to provide a naturalistic account of our valuing
of truth. Owen provides an especially compelling account of how this problem
develops for Nietzsche, dating back to his earlier reflections on morality in Daybreak.
It is this account of the value of truth, Owen argues, that provides Nietzsche's ratio-
nale for why we should abandon Christianity. Alexander Nehamas, in "The Geneal-
ogy of Genealogy," ties genealogy to Nietzsche's earlier views on history to show
how genealogy aims at an interpretation that creates a new relationship to the past.
This new relation does not necessarily involve a falsification of that past. Moreover,
Nehamas argues, such interpretative activity is tied to how phenomena acquire
meaning and significance at all (on this latter point especially, compare the concerns
 Introduction 5

of Haber mas). Eric B1ondel, in his "Nietzsche's Style of Affirmation: The Metaphors
of Genealogy," argues that Nietzsche's genealogy endeavors to bring forth relations
between body, language, and world to provide a bodily basis of meaning. Nietzsche's
genealogy, Blondel argues, constitutes a symptomatology of morality, which also con-
siders the conception of the body that issues from and appears within the set of
signs that constitutes morality. Aaron Ridley's "Nietzsche and the Re-evaluation of
Values" shows how Nietzsche's genealogy is bound up with a ptoject of re-evaluating
intrinsic values as intrinsic. This project links genealogy with an effort to authorita-
tively re-evaluate the values of traditional morality in a way that does not itself
depend upon the authoritative origins (God, pure reason, etc.) of traditional moral-
ity. And, in a new work, Tracy B. Strong articulates the project of genealogy as
reflecting the desire to "transform the present by changing the past." To explain
how this seemingly impossible task might be plausible, Strong discusses Nietzsche's
conception of will, its directions (or Wohins), and how such directions affect the
qualities of will in terms of their relations to themselves and their pasts. Of particular
interest is Strong's distinction of slavish and noble types in terms of their relations
to their past, how their genealogies affect and efFect their activity in the present and
the future toward which they strive.
Nietzsche's preface and the beginning of his first essay help us to discern what it
is that he is doing, but a review of the differem translations most commonly avail-
able to readers of English shows how difficult it is to map these points (0 translation
of the three problematic words pertaining to origins described above. It is clear that
there is at least one kind of "genealogy" that Nietzsche is not practicing, namely,
whatever it is that he associates with "English psychologists." But here Nietzsche's
targets are not completely transparent, because he does not identify them by name,
except (0 tell us that his former friend Paul Ree (himself not an Englishman) has
wrinen a book that closely resembles, and by Nietzsche's estimation is far too influ-
enced by, the works of these people." We certainly have some clues as to their iden-
tity, and the matter is clearly related to how Nietzsche thinks about Datwin, those
he influenced (such as Herbert Spencer), those who embrace a utilitarian view (such
as John Stuart Mill), and those associated with a certain kind of empiricism (such as
John Locke and David Hume; see Ansell Pearson in this volume). So, if Nietzsche
is involved in a naturalistic project, it is certainly somehow different from that in
which he considers rhese figures to be illvolved. Anyone arguing that Nietzsche is
giving us that kind of story of descent must satisfactorily address this problematic
maner.
Moreover, it appears that Nietzsche is not offering us a genetic account of morals,
at least not in the manner of tracing them to a specific, singular origin whose value
endures or inheres in our current morals and practices.~ Nietzsche's GM II seems to
make this clear in his discussion of the purpose of punishment. There, Nietzsche is
considering the relation between punishment and the development of morality. He
advises that we cannot read these purposes off the particular morals and sanctions
we have today-tracing them back in time is not as simple as tracing a family tree.
6 Introduction

Purposes do not evolve in a particular direction over time, rather they can be (slowly
or quickly) redirected, reorganized, absorbed into something that we consider to be
completely differenr or new, and so forth:

The cause of the origin of a thing [die Ursache der Entstehung) and its eventual utility,
its actual employment and place in a system of purposes, lie worlds apart; whatever
exists, having somehow come into being, is again and again reinterpreted to new ends,
taken over, transformed, and redirected by some power superior to it; all events in the
organic world are a subduing, a becoming master, and all subduing and becoming master
involves a fresh interpretation, an adaptation through which any previous "meaning"
and "purpose" are necessarily obscured or even obliterated. (GM II: 12)

And what accounts for these changes, what is meant by "becoming master"? Tracy
B. Strong elaborates an approach in his account of the masterful relation to oneself
that constitutes "bccoming what one is," Daniel Conway describes the evolutionary
development (and demise) of the masters throughout Nietzsche's text, and Christine
Swanton explores how "mastery" might be a componenr of a kind of virtue theory.
Amwering this question sheds light on rranslation of the final word in the main
title of Nietzsche's text-Moral-because what Nietzsche in GM II: 12 describes as
"becoming master" refers to a basic idea that unites the three different essays of the
book and pinpoinrs Nietzsche's general interest in the whole process of development
and change in moral values, that is, morality as such.
Another way of describing that which drives such change in morality is to call it,
with Nietzsche, will to power. In GM I, he provides an accounr of mastery and power
that considers a distinctively human capacity for achieving power, for becoming
master, through the process of valuation. In GM II, Nietzsche considers how that
particular feature of human existence has focused on a specific kind of mastery of the
affects and the physiological organizations they express. And in GM III, Nietzsche
considers the way in which the ascetic ideal is the general form of the kind of mas-
tery that the first essay identified as characteristically human, namely, the creation
of meaning through valuation and revaluation. The ascetic ideal is an expression
of "becoming master" insofar as it reflects an attempt to achieve mastery through
dominating and suppressing some aspect of existence in pursuit of something sup-
posedly "higher"-what is "higher" is considered so and acquires its value through
destruction of what presently is. What Nietzsche calls "will to power" can be seen
as characteristic of this process-there is not some thing that is willing power behind
this activity. Rather, the general phenomenon itself is, as Nietzsche continues in the
passage with which we began this line of consideration, "a succession of more or
less profound, more or less mutually independent processes of subduing, plus the
resistances they encounter" (GM II: 12). All events in the organic world unfold thus,
and in On the Genealogy of Morals Nietzsche endeavors to highlight how such can
be seen in the case of the human animal.
In this respect, Nietzsche is clearly seeking to contribute to a naturalistic account
 Introduction 7

of the phenomenon of morality. 1£ is common now for those discussing Nietzsche's

ideas about will to power to link them with his understanding and critique of then-
contemporary evolutionary biology and to situate this concern in the context of vari-
ous theories of natural forces and/or psychological drives. 10 This way of characteriz-
ing Nietzsche's naturalism equates it, not without some tension, with a kind of
scientism. The "tension" to which I allude refers to the fact that Nietzsche is explic-
itly critical of science. Indeed, as Gemes outlines and Ansell Pearson mentions in
this volume, Nietzsche argues in the third essay of the Genealogy that the scientific
enterprise, which would appear to be a good opponent of the Christian ascetic ideal
Nietzsche so vociferously and polemically rails against, turns out to .be the most
recent manifestation of the very same ideal, particularly in its commitment to truth.
So those who argue that Nietzsche's project is to provide a naturalistic account of
morality or our moral psychology (as Owen, Ridley, and Swanton do) have to recon-
cile this idea with Nietzsche's criticism of science (on naturalism in Nietzsche, see
also Pippin's essay in this volume).
One way of resolving the tension between Nietzsche's naturalism and his critique
of science is to say that while Nietzsche might be critical of science earlier in his
career, he changes his mind in his "mamre writings" (generally thought to be those
following Thus Spoke Zarathustra, sometimes reaching back a bit earlier). This is the
approach of Brian Leiter in his Routledge Guidebook Nietzsche on Morality, where
he claims that "The Genealogy, and Nietzsche's mamre philosophy generally, pro-
poses a naturalistic explanation, that is, an explanation that is continuous with both
the results and methods of the sciences." 11 Since Leiter appears to think that appreci-
ation of Nietzsche's aesthetic interest is appropriate only for consideration of the
literary (and hence nonphilosophical) aspects of Nietzsche's work, he virtually
ignores it in his interpretation of the Genealogy.12 This leads him to largely ignore
what Nietzsche has to say about interpretation in the Genealogy and to limit discus-
sion of creativity to consideration of how (rare human psychological) types have
certain creative capacities of discovery (of rrurhs consistenr with and in accordance
with the methods of the physical sciences).
Other readers of Nietzsche endeavor to show how a different (i.e., nonscientistic)
naturalism emerges when Nietzsche's aestheticism is taken seriously.n This is not to
say that Nietzsche rejects science or a standpoint in which science is given priority
over other perspectives, but rather that Nietzsche recognizes all human knowing is
not only partial but also an act of creativity. 14 This last notion is intricately linked
to genealogy by Salim Kemal in his chapter "Nietzsche's Genealogy: Of Beauty and
Community," which appears in the final section of this volume. Nietzsche's concern
in the Genealogy is with the phenomenon of morality as such and not simply particu-
lar moral views. It unfolds in a context that is naturalistic but which highlights the
(natural) aesthetic powers of human beings. Thus, my own view is to side with those
who translate the German Moral as "Morality," although this book uses the title
most familiar to English-speaking audiences from Kaufmann and Hollingdale's ren-
dering it as "Morals."
8 Introduction

Finally, we should consider the subtide to the book. It also strikes a bell-tone that
should reverberate through one's reading of Nietzsche's text. Nietzsche tells us from
the very beginning that what he is presenting is provocative-Eine Streitschrift,
appropriately translated "a polemic," literally "fighting writing." Why would one
write a polemical treatise on the topic of morality? What makes it so controversial?
What, precisely, does it attack? What constitutes its anacking? And how does Nietz-
sche see his book as playing a role in a larger conrest? These interesting questions
are raised and explored in greater detail in several of the chapters that follow. For
example, Shapiro takes notice that in tiding his work thus, Nietzsche might be indi-
cating not only that he is initiating an agon or contest with those "outside" the text
but also within it, that the book constitutes a dildogue rather than a diatribe; and
Babich explains how this reRects Nietzsche's involvement of his readers, baiting
them to follow him and personally bringing them into the genealogical project.
Where do these considerations of genealogy and polemicizing abour morality
lead? As noted above, the essays in the first section of this book, "On Genealogy,"
consider what it means to engage in genealogy as a philosophical practice and to
reconcile what it means to practice genealogy with Nietzsche's ideas about truth,
perspectivism, art, science, and history. Some consider how genealogy might be
thought to be an alternative not only to other kinds of scientific approaches but also
ro other philosophical methodologies, such as dialectic (e.g., Migoni). Some con-
sider how genealogy stands in relation to "gay science" and what light it sheds on
thinking about Nietzsche's kind of philosophical thinking, ourselves as readers of
Nietzsche, and philosophical practices we might wish to develop and exercise in the
future (e.g., Owen).
The second pan of this volume, "Reading Nietzsche's Genealogy," provides read-
ers with focused analyses of specific passages in the Genealogy. Mark Migorti in his
"Slave Morality, Socrates, and the Bushmen: A Reading of the First Essay of On the
Genealogy ofMorals" elaborates Nietzsche's discussion of the slave revolt in morality
as described in GM I and considers how it could be possible that it could have been
successful. Through consideration of Nietzsche's views of Socrates, Migotti deepens
our understanding of what Nietzsche considers "masterful" and "slavish," and he
offers some fascinating discussion of the plausibility of Nietzsche's view as an empir-
ical hypothesis. In his extensive discussion of GM I: 13, Robert B. Pippin also con-
siders the slave revolt in morality described in the first essay but focuses on a
particular feature of this revolt-namely the creation of a subject, lying behind and
thus capable of responsibility for its actions, a separation Nietzsche likens to separat-
ing lightning from its Rash. Pippin elaborates an expressivist concept of subjectivity
that facilitates resolving a dilemma that arises when considering Nietzsche's "anti-
agenr" view in GM 1:13 and the conception of agency that forms the basis of his
critique of slave morality in the first place.
Discussion of GM II opens with a focus on the neglected first two sections of
the text. Christa Davis Acampora reconsiders Nietzsche's reference to "the sovereign
individual" in GM II:2 in her "On Sovereignty and Overhumanity: Why It Maners
 Introduction 9

How We Read Nietzsche's Genealogy II:2," arguing that contrary to the dominant
currenrs in Nietzsche studies (reflected in several essays in this volume, including
Ridly, Strong, and Gemes), Nietzsche's reference to the sovereign individual signals
his rejection and the self-overcoming of an ideal he thinks we already hold. In his
"Finding the Ubermensch in Nietzsche's Genealogy ofMorality," Paul S. Loeb argues
for the significance of Nietzsche's Zarathustra in understanding his Genealogy.
Loeb's position has significant implications for how we are to take Nietzsche's
remark about the "sovereign individual," discussed in the previous essay, how this
rei ares to Nietzsche's overhuman ideal suggested at the end of GM II, and how this
laner ideal reflects some unappreciated views Nietzsche has abour memory, history,
and time. More specifically, Loeb offers analysis of what "overcoming" involves,
providing a unique interpretation of eternal recurrence as the overcoming of "mere
animal" forgetting, such that we remember all of our past lives that are buried deep
in our subconscious. This yields what Loeb calls a "second forgetting" that is part
of the new kind of conscience that further develops the capabilities that came with
the invention of "bad conscience" described in On the Genealogy ofMorals. In this
respect, readers might compare Loeb's vision of the future (or further possibilities)
with the views presented by Ansell Pearson and Conway.
Babene E. Babich in "The Genealogy of Morals and Right Reading" introduces
us ro the third essay of the Genealogy in her focus on what she describes as both the
readerly and writerly aspens of the aphorism. Obviously, reading an aphorism
requires a certain kind of practice. As Babich notices, the aphorism is both uniquely
accessible and difficult. Irs brevity and memorable relation of ideas makes it easy for
most ro get something (if only half) from it. But because the aphorism is a distillation
of a complex set of relations that the author is arranging and transforming, appreci-
ating the aphorism in its fullness, particularly when aurhored by a master, is rather
difficult. And, as Babich illustrates, it is potentially quite painful, for the aphorism
is barbed like a hook. It is inrended ro bait and then catch its audience. To illustrate
this feature, Babich applies an art of inrerpretation ro an analysis of the first essay of
the Genealogy, which reveals its deeply anti-anri-Semitic intentions. Such a reading
compares interestingly with Yirmiyahu Yovel's chapter included in the volume, since
Yovel highlights this facet of Nietzsche's writings bur has a rather different interpre-
tation of rhe nature of his remarks about the ancient (pre-Second Temple) period.
Two further points from Babich's essay arc worth noting here, since they arc rele-
vant to reading not only Nietzsche's book but also this one. Throughout her essay,
Babich increasingly provides a greater sense of what is meant by the writer/y aspect
of philosophical reading in which writer and reader arc not so distinct. Reading is
not simply a matter of receiving the message or communicative intent of the author,
who is the creator or cause of such a message. Instead, readers are involved in the
work of the aphorism insofar as reading involves a kind of writing, roo. That is ro
say that all reading involves both a rewriting of the text in the process of recreating
for oneself the organization of ideas presented and an artful appropriation of such
10 Introduction

ideas. This, Babich claims, is what it means for an aphorism to be learnt by heart,
harkening back to Nietzsche's preface to On the Genealogy o/Morals, and it is related
to what it means to write in blood, harkening back to the section of Thus Spoke
Zarathustra from which the epigraph to GM III is drawn.
Babich applies her reading of the aphorism to the dispute in the secondary litera-
ture about whether it is the epigraph or the first section of the third essay for which
the remainder of the essay is to serve as an exegesis as Nietzsche directs his readers
in GM P:8. She reaches the same conclusions as John Wilcox and Maudemarie Clark
(simultaneously advanced on different grounds by Christopher Janaway).IS These
parties agree on an important fact that Wilcox and Clark establish on empirical
grounds and Babich and Janaway establish largely on interpretative or hermeneutic
grounds. Does it make any difference how they got there, given that both reached
the same truth? Babich offers a tremendous example of how it does, and the compar-
ison with Janaway puts this in even greater relief than her modest endnote on the
matter. Certainly, historical knowledge (which might be taken to be of an empirical
sort-that is a knowledge of the existence of such persons as Hippocrates and their
development of such rhetorical mnemonic and therapeutic devices such as the apho-
rism) plays a role in Babich's ability to recognize the aphorism and to nor mistake an
epigram for an aphorism. But her essay is more than an application of this prior
historical knowledge or a building upon the historical facts-her view is further
developed through an application of an art of interpretation rhar allows her (0 illu-
minate the complex facets of rhe aphorism (to not simply get the easy half) and [0
see how these arc reflected not only in the third essay of Nietzsche's GM but in the
book as a whole, including the interesting accollnt of the work of the first essay as it
ensnares the anti-Semite. The discovery of materials in an archive does not accom-
plish or even properly prepare one for this philosophical work. A similar critique
might be charged against Janaway's essay-while Janaway does a good job of show-
ing how the interpretative error of past commentawrs led them (0 some torturous
effons to explain how the third essay could possibly be an exegesis of the epigraph
from Zarathustra, he concludes that Nietzsche's original claim about this matter
from the preface ultimately is fairly straightforward or that it is not "as radical" as
Nietzsche's readers have taken it (0 be. Having properly identified the aphorism
through reasonable practices of interpretation, Janaway has understood at most only
half. Finally, in Babich's emphasis on the work of the aphorism and its readerly and
writerly characteristics, her interpretative exposition allows her own readers (0 see
for themselves (she does not do all of the work for them) both that GM III is clearly
an exegesis of what is numerically designated as the fits[ section and why the epi-
graph is apt. 16
Thus, Ken Gemes is somewhat distinctive among interpreters of GM III in that
he begins his '''Strangers to Ourselves': The Key Message of Nietzsche's Genealogy"
not with the epigraph or even the first section of the essay but rather with Nietz-
sche's important preface and the opening of the book as a whole. Gemes's guiding
concern is to elaborate how our being "srrangers (0 ourselves" is revealed in the
 Introduction 11

third essay where Nietzsche shows how the conremporary embrace of the scientific
viewpoinr, which we consider to supersede if not reject the religious perspective
Nietzsche criticizes, is acrually the ultimate embodiment of the ascetic ideal. And it
is a highly influenrial elaborate account of the ascetic ideal and its relation to nihil-
ism that concludes the second part of this volume: Wolfgang MUller-Lauter's,
"Nihilism as Will to Nothingness," which is reprinted here in its entirety. Muller-
Lauter focuses on the conceptions of will and power that shape Nietzsche's discus-
sion of asceticism and ascetic ideals in GM III. More specifically, Muller-Lauter
describes Nietzsche's conception of the rough distinction between weak and strong
wills (granted that characterizing things in this way is "crude" and that Nietzsche's
view is more subtle), and the "disgregation" that is characteristic of the weak's deca-
dent nihilism. Muller-Lauter's discussion has been highly influential in interpreta-
tions of Nietzsche's idea of will to power and bad conscience (see, for example, Tracy
B. Strong, in this volume), and he provides a particularly helpful account of what it
would mean to "will nothingness."17
The third and fourth parts of this volume treat prominent criticisms and applica-
tions of genealogy, including the relevant aesthetic, political, and ethical dimensions
of Nietzsche's work. In the third part titled "Critiquing Genealogy," JUrgen Haber-
mas argues in an excerpt from "The Entwinement of Myth and Enlightenment"
that genealob'Y aims to be critical in a complete or total way. It is thus that the
Genealogy provides the model for Theodor W. Adorno and Max Horkheimer's later
The Dialectic of Enlightenment. But such a radical critique undermines even the
norms of rational discourse and thereby leaves genealogy's adherents resorting to
mythology rather than reason. Gary Shapiro distinguishes genealogy from the prac-
tice of tracing a family tree, but sees it as related to recognition of what Wittgenstein
would later describe as "family resemblances" insofar as the project of uncovering
the various historical layers involves identif)ring and listening to the multiple voices
one finds in a text. Shapiro challenges Habermas's reading of Nietzsche and illus-
trates how Foucault and Derrida appropriate genealogy in their own works.
Through an ingenious analysis of Derrida's writing on Claude Levi-Strauss, Shapiro
illuminates the ways in which Derrida engages in "repeating the genealogy of mor-
als" (OfGrammatology) through a self-critique of science that is similar to that found
in Nietzsche's Genealogy (particularly GM III). Alan Schrift continues the discussion
of those influenced by Nietzschean critique in his "Nietzsche, Deleuze, and the
Genealogical Critique of Psychoanalysis." Schrift argues that the analytic critique of
Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari's Anti-Oedipus follows that of Nietzsche's GM
insofar as Deleuze's psychoanalyst is the most recent version of Nietzsche's priest,
and rhe methods of analysis share a logic of productive desire that organizes rhe
diagnosis of disorder and its therapies. Readers might compare Schrift's account of
the Oedipal drama at the center of psychoanalysis's effort to produce a need for the
solurion it offers with Ansell Pearson's account of Nietzsche's Dionysian drama of
the soul.
The fourth and final part, "Of Politics and Community," commences with Salim
12 Introduction

Kemal's "Nietzsche's Genealogy: Of Beauty and Community." Kemal focuses on

the particular kind of creativity that constitutes genealogy, and he reveals how genea-
logical interpretation-rather than being solipsistic or parricularlistic-actually sup-
plies the basis for the creation of a communal sense of identity and the exercise of
communal judgment. He thus explains how a community of creators might be pos-
sible, something that critics of Nietzsche's apparent individualism deny. His discus-
sion of resentment and rules is parricularly illuminating in this regard. Insofar as
creative activity is inherently not conservative, Kemal thinks Nietzsche's sense of
beauty is necessarily progressive. This stands in sharp contrast with Yirmiyahu Yovel,
who argues in his "Nietzsche and the Jews: The Structure of an Ambivalence" that
Nietzsche's "pro-Jewish attitude" comes "from the right" since it is "antiliberal."
Yovel explains how Nietzsche's deeply ambivalent views about Jews do not simply
reflect conflicting or contradictory positions bllt rather stem from a coherent con-
ception of history in which Nietzsche distinguishes the ancient Jews (whom he
admires), the Jewish priests associated with the period of "the Second Temple"
(whom he condemns), and the modern Jews of the Diaspora (whom Nietzsche
admires, in part because they did not follow the path charted by the second group,
which ultimately became Christian). Yovel argues that Nietzsche is critical of the
"revolution" ignited by Christianity and that he advocates a rerum to the aristocrat-
ism and virtues of the ancient Jews, traces of which are found in (seeming progres-
sive) resistance from Jews in the modern diaspora.
Nietzsche's interest in and relevance for a theory of virtue is the topic of Christine
Swamon's "Nietzschean Virtue Ethics." In an argumem that might be compared
with Muller-Lauter's {and Strong's} discussion of "weak" and "strong" wills, Swan-
[On distinguishes "undistorted" from "distorted" will to power. Such distortions,
malformations, or the lack thereof characterize the "healthy" and the "sick," respec-
tively (and this way of thinking abollt sickness and health might also be compared
and contrasted with Blondel's symptomologicaf approach). From this, Swanton con-
siders the possibilities for Nietzschean virtue ethics as she argues against the idea that
Nietzsche is an immoralist,l" claiming that his work supplies material for an ethics
of self-improvement, and she helpfully situates this discllssion in the context of
recent work on perfectionism in ethics.
Finally, Daniel Conway, in his "How We Became What We Are: Tracking the
'Beasts of Prey:" provides a novel account of both origins and future direction.
Conway reconstructs a fascinating account of Nietzsche's philosophical anthropo-
logical developmental that lies behind the genealogies he offers in eM I and eM
II, including Nietzsche's account of human domestication. Of special interest is his
discussion of the origins of the social and political orders Nietzsche describes. This
sheds important new light on Nietzsche's infamolls "beast of prey" and his concep-
tions of "predation" and "cultivation." Drawing on this significant background,
Conway is able provide a new account of "artistry" in Nietzsche's text, particularly
as it contrasts with the asceticism of the priests in eM III. Conway concludes his
 Introduction 13

chapter and the volume with a masterful illumination of Nietzsche's conception of

the possible metamorphosis of the human animal. While anistic, this process is also
thoroughly natural.
The bibliography at the end of the book is arranged according to the general
organizing themes of this volume, providing suggestions for further reading on the
topic of the nature of genealogy, analyses of particular passages, critical applications
of Nietzsche's genealogy, and issues of politics and community that Nietzsche's
Genealogy raises. I have annotated that ponion of the bibliography to indicate the
relevance of the enrry to the area of inquiry. Bibliographies for more general works
on moral philosophy and psychology and Nietzsche's Genealogy follow. The biblio-
graphic references provide direction for navigating the vast sea of monographic liter-
ature that is not included in this volume. Works appearing in journals and in
collections of essays that are more difficult to access were given priority in my selec-
tion process. Some of the discussions here are classics that have defined the terms
on which Nietzsche is still read today (e.g., Nehamas, Blondel, Millier-Lauter, and
Habermas). Others treat some of the most prominenr and thorniest issues in Nietz-
sche interpretation (e.g., Ansell Pearson, Owen, Migotti, Pippin, Acampora, Loeb,
and Gemes). Some elaborate how Nietzsche's views are relevant to contemporary
discussions in ethical and political theory (e.g., Ridley, Strong, Yovel, Swanton, and
Conway). And still others address broad concerns about how Nietzsche's views have
been applied and how such applications might influence how we read Nietzsche in
the future (e.g., Babich, Shapiro, Schrift, Yovel, and Kemal). There are many other
interesting works that might have been included here, but for reasons of space and
production cost could not be accommodated between these covers. My hope is that
as direction for reading Nietzsche's On the Genealogy of Morals this book marks a
genuine starting point-not just for beginners but also for those who, endeavoring
to "practice reading as an art" (GM P:8), begin again and again (GM III: 1).

NOTES

1. Note that this same translation is commonly attributed solely ro Kaufmann, including
in some of the essays collected here, but the translation was completed by both men: Kauf..
mann is the general editor of the volume in which rhe translation appears. I rely upon this
translation in my introduction .
2. David S. Thatcher, "Zur Genealogie der Moral: Some Textual Annotations," Nietzsche-
Stl/dim 18 (1989): esp. 598-99. Keith Ansell Pearson, editor of the edition of GM translated
by Carol Diethe (Cambridge University Press, 1994), does not simply follow Kaufmann's
lead. In an earlier work, Ansell Pearson claims that he prefers what he calls the" 'innocence'
of ' On the .. .''' as a translation of this first term in Nietzsche's tirle. See his Nietzsche Contra
Rousseau (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991),251 n26.
3. Heraclitus is nor explicitly named at this point in rhe preface of On the Genealogy of
Morals, which likely accounrs for why so few commentators take much notice of Nietzsche's
paraphrase. Heraclitus is mentioned elsewhere in the book-see the references ar the follow-
14 Introduction

ing crucial poims: GM 11:16, GMIII:7, and GM 1II:8. In Ecce Homo (EH"BT" 3), Nietzsche
associates Heraclitus with "tragic wisdom" and Dionysian philosophy, ideas discussed in this
volume by Keith Ansell Pearson.
4. Diels-Kranz fragmem 10 I. An excellem discussion of Heraclitus, the fragmems attrib-
uted to him, and their context is ptovided by Charles Kahn, The Art and Thought ofHeracli-
tus: An Edition of the Fragments with Translation and Commentary (New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1979). See also Hermann Diels and Walther Kranz, Die Fragmente der Vor-
sokratiker (Berlin: Weidmann, 19(3). Nietzsche's interest in this idea of not knowing our-
selves because we have never sought ourselves is surely related to his fascination with the
Pindaric maxim "Become who [or what] you are," and readers should recall that one of the
inscriptions at the temple of the Delphic oracle is "Know thyself." (The other is "Nothing in
excess.") Literature specifically devoted to discussion of the maxim includes Alexander Neha-
mas, "'How One Becomes What One Is,'" Philosophical Review 92 (1983): 385-417; Brian
Leiter, "The Paradox of Fatalism and Sdf-Creation in Nietzsche" in Willing and Nothingness:
Schopmhauer as Nietzsche's Educator, edited by Christopher Janaway (Oxford: Oxford Univer-
sity Press, 1998); Babette E. Babich, "Nietzsche's Imperative as a Friend's Encomium: On
Becoming the One You Are, Ethics, and Blessing," Nietzsche-Studim 33 (2003): 29-58;
David Owen and Aaron Ridley, "On Fate," International Studies in Philosophy 35:3 (2003):
63-78; and Tracy B. Strong's and Babette E. Babich's contributions to this volume.
5. On Paul Ree, see Robin Small's introduction to his translation of Ree's The Origin of
the Moral Sensations and Psychological Observations (Paul Ree, Basic Writings, edited and trans-
lated by Robin Small [Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2003]); Robin
Small's Nietzsche and Ree: A Star Frimdship (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005); Lou
Salome's Nietzsche, edited and translated by Siegfried Mandel (Urbana: University of Illinois
Press, 2001); and Jacqueline Stevens, "On the Morals of Genealogy," Political Theory 31:4
(2003): 558-88.
6. Also see Salim Kemal, "Some Problems of Genealogy," Nietzsche-Studim 19 (1990):
30-42. An interesting article that treats genealogy as a method, one related to Hume's
"experimental reasoning" is David Couzens Hoy's "Nietzsche, Hume, and the Genealogical
Method" in Nietzsche as AfJimlative Thinker, edited by Yirmiyahu Yovel (Dordtrecht: Mar-
tinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1986): 20-38.
7. Tracing Nietzsche's use of these terms is virtually impossible to do in English transla-
tion, since the words are variously translated within most editions, and differently translated
across editions. As one example, consider a passage from the fourth section of the preface,
which Jacqueline Stevens (op. cit.) discusses. In GM P:4 Nietzsche is describing his work in
relation to Ree's and the development of his own Human, All Too Human, which he claims
is where he introduced some of the key ideas of Clvf. In describing what he is doing, he calls
his work "Herkunfts-Hypothesen," which is translated as "genealogical hypotheses" by Kauf-
mann, "hypotheses on descem" by Diethe, and "hypotheses concerning origins" by Clark
and Swenson. Ansell Pearson catalogues uses of Herkunji, Ursprung, and Entstehung in his
Nietzsche Contra Rousseau (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 252 nS I. See also
Shapiro in this volume, and consult the bibliography section titled "Cri(iquing Genealogy."
8. During the eighteenth and nineteemh centuries, a good number of writers published
works on histories of morals and their evolutionary developmem, and their relations to civil
institutions, particularly law. As David Thatcher observes, W. E. H. Lecky's History of Euro-
pean Morals (1869) was a work in (his vein, which Nietzsche owned and annOlated exten-
 Introduction 15

sively. Ics first chapter, titled "The Narural History of Morals" mentions Bain, Bentham,
Hartley, Hobbes, Hume, Hurcheson, Locke, Mandeville, Mill, Paley, Shaftesbury, Adam
Smith, Spencer, and others (Thatcher, "Zur Genealogie der Moral: Some Textual Annota-
tions," 588). For discussion of Nietzsche's reading, appropriation, and disagreements with
some of these figures, particularly Spencer, see Gregory Moore's excellent Nietzsche, Biology,
Metaphor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002).
9. Raymond Geuss argues that Nietzsche's genealogy is decidedly not abour providing a
pedigree: the genealogy he provides is not oriented upon grounding a sense of entitlement or
birthright, bur rather is intended to trace the multiple, diverse, separate, and historically con-
tingent lines of development of Christian morality ("Nietzsche's Genealogy," European Jour-
nalo/Philosophy 2:3 [1994]: 274-92.) Paul S. Loeb argues that Nietzsche's use of "genealogy"
is an attempt to supply a pedigree as characterized by his aristocratic point of view ("Is There
A Genetic Fallacy In Nietzsche's Genealogy a/Morals?" International Studies in Philosophy 27:3
[1995]: 127; see also Loeb's discussion of Herkunft [I 26ff]).
10. As a most recent example, see John Richardson's Nietzsche's New Darwinism (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2004). Richardson's earlier work on Nietzsche also provides an
interesting account of will to power as it relates to Nietzsche's power ontology Gohn Richard-
son, Nietzsche's System [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992]). On Nietzsche's reception
of his contemporary evolutionary theory, see Moore, Nietzsche, Biology, Metaphor.
II. Brian Leiter, Nietzsche on Morality (New York: Routledge, 2002), II.
12. For a prominent account of the relevance of the litcrary form of GM as it relates to its
philosophical content and intcnt, see Arthur Danto, "Some Remarks on The Genealogy 0/
Morals," /1Iternational Studies in Philosophy 18:2 (1986): 3-15.
13. A different take on Nietzsche's naruralism and Nietzsche's potencial contribucion to
this general trend in philosophy today is provided by Bernard Williams. In his "Nietzsche's
Minimalist Moral Psychology," Williams focuses on what he describes as Nietzsche's
"method of suspicion," which has the effect of reducing iIlusoty concepts that hinder progress
toward providing "a more realistic moral psychology" (European Journal 0/ Philosophy I: I
[19931: 1-14). In his "Naturalism and Genealogy," Williams considers what is wanted in a
naturalistic account of moral psychology and suggests that fictional stories such as those told
in GM might playa role in advancing such goals (Morality, Reflection and Ideology, edited by
Edward Harcourt [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000]: 149-61).
14. On Nietzsche's naturalism as it relates to his aestheticism, see Christoph Cox, Nietz-
sche: Naturalism and Interpretation (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999) and Hans
Seigfried, "Nietzsche's Natural Morality," in 1tJe Journal o/Value Inquiry 26 (J 992): 423-31.
See also Richard Schacht, "How to Naturalize Cheerfully: Nietzsche's Frohliche Wissenschaft,"
in Making Sense 0/ Nietzsche: Reflections Timely and Untimely (Urbana: University of Illinois
Press, 1995), 187-205; and Richard Schacht "Of Morals and Menschen: Nietzsche's Geneal-
ogy and Anrhropology," in Nietzsche, Genealogy, Morality, edited by Richard Schacht (Berke-
ley: University of California Press, 1994),427-48.
15. For the time being, Janaway's article is probably the best known and heretofore pro-
vides the best balance of advancing (he argumenr on both internal evidence and publication
records ("Nietzsche's Illustration of the Art of Exegesis," European Journal of Philosophy 5:3
(1997): 251-68). He also reviews some of the most significant conrributions to the literature
that begin with (or at least give prominent place to) the mistaken assumption that the epi-
graph, rather than the first section, is the aphorism to which Nietzsche refers. Taking guidance
16 Introduction

for interpretation from Nietzsche's own instructions on this marrer-"I have offered in the
third essay of the present book an example of whar I regard as 'exegesis' in such a case-an
aphorism is prefixed ro this essay, the essay itself is a commentary on it"-and comparing
that with the compositional hisrory of the text, Janaway decisively demonstrates how rhe first
section of the rhird essay (GM III: I) is the aphorism on which Nietzsche performs his exeget-
ical work and how this reflects Nietzsche's views about inrerpreration generally. See also John
Wilcox, "What Aphorism Does Nietzsche Explicate in Genealogy ofMorals Essay III?" Journal
ofthe History ofPhilosophy 35:4 (Ocrobcr 1997): 593-610 (published the same time as Jana-
way's original article) and Maudemarie Clark's "From the Nietzsche Archive: Concerning the
Aphorism Explicated in Genealogy III" in Journal of the History of Philosophy 35:4 (October
1997): 611-14.
16. Readers eager to continue reflection might consider how it is that Janaway swallows
one-half of the aphorism while Arthur C. Danto swallows the other. To appreciate this, con-
sider Danto's own discllssion of the barbed character of the aphorism as it relates to involving
the reader. See his "Some Remarks on The Genealogy ofMorals," International Studies in Phi-
losophy 18:2 (1986): 3-15.
17. Muller-Lauter's treatment of how the reversal of values becomes bound ro what it
reverses resembles, although it occurs in a very different analytical framework, Judith Butler's
discussion of bad conscience in her The Psychic Life ofPower: Theories in Subjection (Stanford,
CA: Stanford University Press, 1997), 63-82. A differem bur influential interpretation of
willing nothingness is found in Arthur C. Danto's "Some Remarks on The Genealogy ofMor-
als," lnternatiollal Studies in Philosophy 18 (1986): 3-15. Nehamas, in this volume, discusses
Danto's reading as it relates ro the coherency of Nietzsche's views about interpretation and
meaning.
18. Thus, Swanton is arguing directly against Philippa Foot's now classic "Nietzsche's
Immoralism," which firsr appeared in the New York Review ofBooks (38, no. 11 Uune 1991]:
18-22) and was later republished in Richard Schacht's Nietzsche, Genealogy, Morality. Since
Foot has very lirrle to say abour Nietzsche's Genealogy (and makes few direct references ro any
of Nietzsche's works) her discussion is not reprinted in this volume.
I
ON GENEALOGY
1
A "Dionysian Drama on the
'Fate of the Soul' "
An Introduction to Reading On the
Genealogy ofMorality *
Keith Ansell Pearson

The genius of the heart, a heart of the kind belonging to that secretive onc, the
tempter god and born Pied Piper of the conscience whose voice knows how co
descend into the underworld of every soul, who does not uner a word or send
a glance withom its having a crease and aspect that entices, whose mastery con-
sists in part in knowing how co seem-and seem not what he is, but rather what
those who follow him take as one more coercion co press ever closer co him, co
follow him ever more inwardly and completely: the genius of the heart that
silences everything loud and self-satisfied and teaches it how co listen ... ; that
smoothes out rough souls and gives them a taste of a new longing ... the genius
of the heart, from whose couch everyone goes forch the richer, neither reprieved
nor surprised, nor as if delighted or depressed by another's goodness, bur rather
richer in themselves, newer than before, opened up, breathed upon and
sounded out by a warm wind, more unsure, perhaps, more brooding, breakable,
broken, full of hopes that still remain nameless, full of new willing and stream-
ing, full of new not-willing and back-streaming ... bur my friends, what am I
doing? Who is it that I am telling you about? Have I forgotten myself so much
that I have not even told you his name? Unless, of course, you have already

'This essay draws on some material presented in my edicor's introduction co the second,
revised edition of On the Genealogy ofMorality, trans. Carol Diethe (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2006). Citations from GM are drawn from this edition.

19
20 Keith Ansell Pearson

guessed who this questionable spirit and god may be, who demands this kind
of praise.
Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, 295

The day we can say, with conviction: "Forwards! Even our old morality would
make a comedy!" we shall have discovered a new twist and possible outcome for
the Dionysian drama of the "fate of the soul" (Schicksal der See/e).

Nietzsche, On the Genealogy o[Morality, Preface

Fate [late Middle English] Fate is from Italian foto or (later) from its source,
Latin [atum "that which has been spoken," from fori to speak. The primary
sense of the Latin fotum was" doom or sentence of the gods"; this changed to
"one's lot."

Oxford Dictionary o[Word Histories

INTRODUCTION

Although it is now prized as his most important and systematic work, Nietzsche
conceived On the Genealogy ofMorality (I 887) as a "small polemical pamphlet" that
might help him sell more copies of his earlier writings. I h clearly merits, though,
the level of attention it receives and can justifiably be regarded as one of the key
texts of European intellectual modernity. For shock value, no other modern text on
the human condition rivals it. Nietzsche himself was well aware of the character of
the book. There are moments in the text where he reveals his own sense of alarm at
what he is discovering abour human origins and development, especially the perverse
nature of the human animal, the being he calls "the sick animal" (GM III: 14);
"There is so much in man that is horrifYing! ... The world has been a madhouse
for too long!" (GM 1I;22). In Ecce Homo, Nietzsche discloses that an "art of sur-
prise" guides each of the essays that make up the book and admits that they merit
being taken as among the "uncanniest" things ever scripted. He then stresses that
his god, Dionysus, is also "the god of darkness" (EH "GM"). Indeed, On the Gene-
alogy ofMorals is one of the darkest books ever written. However, it is also, paradoxi-
cally, a book full of hope and expectation. Not only does Nietzsche provide us with
a stunning story about humanity's monstrous moral past (the deformation of the
human animal through Christian moralization), he also wants us, his readers, to read
the text of our past in such a way that it becomes possible to discover "a new twist
and possible outcome for the Dionysian drama of the 'fate of the soul'" (GM P; 7).
In this essay I attempt to open up this neglected aspect of Nietzsche's text. I first
provide some essential information about the book. I then begin my analysis by
treating the significance of the concept of the "Dionysian," followed by discussion
of the importance of the question of "fate" and Nietzsche's characterization of the
 A "Dionysian Drama on the 'Fate of the Soul''' 21

"soul" and its fate. Crucial to this analysis is Nietzsche's treatmenr of the bad con-
science in the Second Essay of On the Genealogy 0/ Morals, which I discuss at some
length. Finally, I argue that the doctrine of the eternal return of the same works as
a new, experimental way of living and knowing that seeks to replace an interpreta-
tion of existence as guilty with a recognition of error and the need for human beings
to now attempt to incorporate truth and knowledge.
Nietzsche's exercise in historical genealogy is informed by some basic but none-
theless crucial questions. How and why does one engage with the past? What are
one's hopes for the future? Is there a future? How does one come to live in time?
How does one overcome the past and build on one's inheritance-Docs one seck to
accuse and blame the past or does one recognize its formative character? Is there a
debt to be paid off? Is the debt one we owe to ourselves and our right to a future?
Do we transform the debt into a gift we give to ourselves and to new life? In short,
how does one become what one is?
For Nietzsche the issue of how we human beings have become what we are is to
be posed in terms of a "drama." How are we to hear the significance of this word
in his writing? In a note Nietzsche gives in The Case o/Wagner (l888), he states that
it has been a major misfortune for aesthetics that the word "drama" has always been
translated as "action." He then states: "Ancient drama aimed at scenes of great
pathos-it precluded action (moving it before the beginning or behind the scene).
The word drama is of Doric origin, and according to Doric usage it means 'event,'
'story'-both words in the hieratic sense. The most ancienr drama represenred the
legend of the place, the 'holy story' on which the foundation of the culr rested (not
a doing but a happening: dran in Doric actually does not mean 'do')" (CW9). In
other words, drama concerns evenrs that are undergone, suffered, and endured. In
GM II Nietzsche attempts to show that the acquisition of the bad conscience was
not an option for the human animal; rather, it became the chance and the possibility
it is by an ineluctable leap, a catastrophe, and a fate. To relate the development of
the bad conscience is thus to tell the fateful story of the human animal. From an
exalted perspective one can anain, it becomes possible to see it is the form of con-
science that has shaped man to date in terms of his greatest affliction-injurious
psychic masochism-and yet contains within it the human's great promise, that of
overcoming himself. The question of "fate" pertains to the meaning of the past and
the sense and direction of the future; fate is a determination to be interpreted or
deciphered as both necessity and possibility.

NIETZSCHE'S POLEMIC: THE APPEARANCE OF NEW

TRUTHS BETWEEN THICK CLOUDS

In Ecce Homo Nietzsche describes On the Genealogy 0/Morals as consisting of "three

decisive preliminary studies by a psychologist for a re-evaluation of values." The first
22 Keith Ansell Pearson

essay probes the "psychology of Christianity" and traces the birth of Christianity
out of a particular kind of spirit, namely, of ressentiment; the second essay provides
a "psychology of the conscience," where it is conceived not as the voice of God in
man but as the instinct of cruelty that has been internalized after it can no longer
discharge itself externally; the third essay inquires into the meaning of ascetic ideals,
examines the perversion of the human will, and explores the possibility of a counter
ideal. Nietzsche says that he provides an answer to the question of whence comes
the power of the ascetic ideal, "the harmfit! ideal par excellence"-to date it has been
the only ideal; it has been without a competitor, no counter ideal has been made
available" until the advent ofZarathustra."
Nietzsche further tells us that each essay that makes up the book contains a begin-
ning calculated to mislead, which intentionally "keeps in suspense"; this is followed
by disquiet, "isolated flashes of lightning" with "very unpleasant truths" making
themselves audible "as a dull rumbling in the distance"; then, at the conclusion of
each essay, and "amid dreadful detonations," "a new truth" becomes "visible
berween thick clouds." Each essay begins coolly and scientifically, even ironically,
but at the end of each a reckoning is called for, and this demand concerns the future.
At the vety end of GM I, for example, Nietzsche says that questions concerning the
worth of morals and different tables of value can be asked from different angles, and
he singles out the question "value for what?" as being of special significance. The
task of these different sciences of knowledge is to "prepare the way for the future
work of the philosopher": solving the "problem of values" and deciding on their
hierarchy. He advises that we need to transform the "suspicious relationship" that
has hitherto been posited between philosophy, physiology, and medicine "into the
most cordial and fruitful exchange" (GM I: 17n). At the end of GM II, Nietzsche
appeals to "the man of the future" who will redeem humanity from the curse of its
reigning ideal and from all those things that arise from it, notably nihilism and the
will to nothingness (GM II:24). In the penultimate section of GM III, Nietzsche
hints at a new direction for the "will to truth," arguing that as this will becomes
"conscious of itself as a problem in us" there will follow the destruction of Christian
morality, and this is a "drama" that will be "the most terrible and questionable" but
also "the one most rich in hope" (GM 1II:27). Moreover, a new "will" is to be
uncovered and posited in an effort to sublimate the principal ideal that has hitherto
reigned on earth (GM II1:28). All of this should indicate that Nietzsche's "critique"
of morality, as well as his inquiry into the human and his moral past, is developed
from a specific but curious place: "a premature-born" and as yet "undemonstrated
future" (GS 382; see also EH "z" 2). Although Thus Spoke Zarathustra is a text that
many of Nietzsche's commentators find alien to their philosophical taste, it is clear
[hat as far as Nietzsche himself is concerned the meaning of his critique of morality
and attempted overcoming of man are to be found, largely, in that work.
In Beyond Good and Evil and On the Genealogy ofMorality, Nietzsche sets out to
present his readers with a set of unpleasant and uncomfortable truths. Some of these
are "truths" of culture that modern humans have forgotten and repressed, and one
 A "Dionysian Drama on the 'Fate of the Soul''' 23

of the tasks of genealogy is to remind us of them. 2 They include: what we call "high
culture" is based on a deepening and spiritualization of cruelty-European human-
ity has not killed off the "wild beast" (BGE 229); what we take to be "spirit" or
"mind," distinguishing the human animal from the rest of nature, is the product of
a long constraint, involving much violence, arbitrariness, and nonsense (BGE 188);
and modern European morality is "herd animal morality," which considers itself as
defining morality and the only morality possible or desirable (BGE 202). Nietzsche
argues that in their attempts to account for morality, philosophers have not devel-
oped the suspicion that morality might be "something problematic"; in effect what
they have done is articulate "an erudite form of true belie/in the prevailing morality"
and, as a result, their inquiries remain "a part of the state of affairs within a particu-
lar morality" (BGE 186). Nietzsche seeks to develop a genuinely critical approach
to morality, in which all kinds of novel, surprising, and daring questions are posed.
He does not inquire into a "moral sense" or a moral facul ty3 -a common intellec-
tual practice in the work of modern moralists and humanists, such as Francis Hut-
cheson, David Hume, and Immanuel Kant, for example-but rather sets out to
uncover the different senses of morality, that is, the different "meanings" morality has
acquired in the history of human development. His attempt at a critique involves
developing a knowledge of the conditions and circumstances under which values
emerged, giving us an appreciation of the different "senses" of morality: as symp-
tom, as mask, as sickness, as stimulant, as poison, and so on.
In On the Genealogy ofMorals Nietzsche is motivated to uncover "morality" and
subject it to "critique"-it is to be viewed as the "danger of dangers" because its
prejudices contribute to the situation in which the present is lived at the expense of
the future (GM P:6). Nietzsche's concern is that the human species may never attain
its "highest potential and splendor." In Nietzsche's hands, history becomes the story
of the ddormation and perversion of culture, conceived as species activity aimed at
the production of sovereign individuals. Culture both disappeared a long time ago
and has still to begin: "Species activity disappears into the night of the past as irs
product disappears into the night of the future."4 If the aim and meaning of culture
is "to breed a tame and civilized animal, a household pet, out of the beast of prey
'man'" (GM I: 11), then today, Nietzsche says, we see the extent to which this proc-
ess has resulted in a situation where man strives to become "better" all the time,
"more comfortable, more mediocre, more indifferent, more Chinese, more Chris-
tian" (GM I: 12). This, then, is the great danger of culture as civilization: it will
produce an animal that takes taming to be an end in itself, to the point where the
freethinker will announce that the end of history has been attained (for Nietzsche's
criticism of the "freethinker" see GM 1:9). Nietzsche argues that we moderns are in
danger of being tempted by a new European type of Buddhism, united in our belief
in the supreme value of a morality of communal pity, "as if it were Morality itself,
the summit, [he conquered summit of humankind, the only hope for the future,
comfort in the present, the great redemption from all past guilt" (BGE 202).
Nietzsche opens the preface of On the Genealogy of Morals on a striking note,
24 Keith Ameli Pearson

claiming that we moderns are knowers who are, in fact, unknown to ourselves. Nietz-
sche contends that if we don't search tor ourselves then we will never "find" our-
selves. To search for ourselves requires that we have the stern discipline of a "will to
knowledge," and for this we need preparation to step outside of the all-too timely
frame of the present. Because they are too caught up in "merely 'modern' experi-
ence," the moral genealogists-Nietzsche has in mind those he calls the "English
psychologists" and the work of his former friend Paul Ree-are altogether lacking
in knowledge; they have "no will to know the past, still less an instinct for history"
(GM II:4). For Nietzsche, the moral past presents itself as a "long, hard-to-decipher
hieroglyphic script" (GM P:7). He offers his own text, with its three inquiries, as a
"script" (GM P:8): it is thus a work of interpretation that demands an an of inter-
preration be brought to bear on its own evemful reading of the pase In this way
Nietzsche implicates the reader's own fateful becoming in his Dionysian drama on
the fate of the soul.

THE DIONYSIAN PHENOMENON

AND CHEERFULNESS

When Nietzsche first introduces the figure of Dionysus in his work in 1872, it is
associated with states of intoxication and rapture, entailing the breakdown of our
ordinary, empirical forms of cognition. Dionysus virtually disappears from Nietz-
sche's writings after this point until he makes an imporram reappearance in BGE
(especially 295), as well as GS 370, and then TJ "Ancients" 4 and 5. In his later
writings Nietzsche equates the Dionysian with an exuberant "Yes to life" that offers
the highest and profoundest insight into reality, one which is to be "confirmed and
maintained by truth and knowledge" (EH "BT" 3, my emphasis). In Twilight of the
Idols, Nietzsche stresses that the Hellenic instinct, its will to life, finds expression in
the "Dionysian mysteries" and the "psychology of the Dionysian state." What is
guaranteed in these mysteries is "Eternal life, the eternal rerum of life," in which (he
future is heralded and consecrated in (he pas( and there is a "triumphant yes to life
over and above death and change" (TJ "Ancients" 4). These insights, which are
subject to a practice of truth and a passion of knowledge, inform Nietzsche's project
of inquiry in the genealogy of morality, and at (he deepest level.
In Ecce Homo, Nietzsche tells us (hat he is a disciple of the philosopher Dionysus
who has "the right" to understand himself as "the first tragic philosopher" (EH "BT"
3). In BGE 295, Nietzsche admits that it is something new and strange, something
nor wi(hour its dangers, to be told that Dionysus is a philosopher and that gods
philosophize. He calls upon Dionysus as (he voice of philosophy's untimely bad
conscience (see also CWP). This, we might say, is the "greatest" conscience, as when
Nietzsche says that the philosopher is the figure who has "the most wide-ranging
responsibility, whose conscience encompasses mankind's overall development"
(BGE 61). Where we moderns teel sure of the universal validity and consummate
 A "Dionysian Drama on the 'Fate of the Soul''' 25

nature of our values and virtues, to the point of self-satisfaction, the philosopher,
inspired by the god of darkness will plant seeds of doubt, anxiety, and cO!Hempt.
Nietzsche's philosopher is "necessarily a man of tomorrow and the day after tomor-
row" who exists "in conflict with his Today"; the "ideal" of "today" is his enemy
(BGE 212). Indeed, he rakes modern empiricism, wirh its "doltish mechanistic
ideas," (0 rask because ir displays only a "plebeian ambition" (BGE 213), and
accuses the "English"-Hobbes, Hume, and Locke, for example-of devaluing the
concept "philosopher" (BGE 252). The philosopher's task, Nietzsche writes in
another place, is to deprive stupidity of its good conscience (GS 328). For Nietzsche,
the problem is that we believe we know whar Socrates confessed he didn't know,
namely, what is good and what is evil, that is, what morality is (BGE 202); while
Christianity can fairly be considered to be "the most disasrrous form of human pre-
sumprion yer" (BGE 62). This is why Nierzsche speaks, in the preface to On the
Genealogy ofMorals, of discovering the vast, distant, and concealed land of morality
for the first time.
Although Nietzsche is making a novel contribution (0 the so-called "science of
morality," a science he considers to be at a clumsy and crude state of development
(BGE 186), he holds that there is no European thinker who is prepared to entertain
the idea that moral reflection can be carried out in a dangerous and seductive man-
ner, "that it might involve one's [ate!" (BGE 228). He acknowledges the extent (0
which the immoralist is a duty-bound person, called upon to both fear and love the
invisible and inaudible world of morals-of subtle commanding and obeying-
occasionally dancing in his chains and yet impatient on aCCOU!H of "the secret hard-
ness" of his fate (BGE 226). Nietzsche wants his readers to appreciate, above all,
that our attempts at knowledge have the character of fate. It is in terms of fate that
Nietzsche wishes us to engage with history; only in this way can we incorporate the
past into ourselves and earn an exalted right to the future. In an aphorism on "the
great health" Nietzsche posits the "the ideal of a spirit" that plays "naively," from
"overflowing power and abundance," with everything that has been hitherto "called
holy, good, untouchable, divine," which he says is an ideal "of a human, superhu-
man well-being and benevolence" that will appear inhuman when it stages an
encounter with "all earthly seriousness" to date (GS 382). Nietzsche wants us to
overcome "man" and "morality" in a spirit of serenity; in this way we will "cheer-
fully" payoff our debts to the past and free ourselves for new modes of existence.
This also involves the "tragic" because it entails our own undoing as we face the
seriousness and responsibility of our task, that of creating a future for ourselves. The
"free spirit" knows what kind of "you shall" he has obeyed and, in so doing, "he
also knows what he now can, what only now he-may do" (HH P).
Nietzsche often draws attention to the halcyon tone of his writing: "It is the stil-
lest words which bring the s(Orm, thoughts that come on doves' feet guide the
world" (EH P:4). For Nietzsche, we need to learn how to dance over our problems,
including the problem of morality. Having "the most fearful insight into reality"
and undergoing "the 'most abysmal thought' " does not mean one finds an objection
26 Keith Ansell Pearson

to existence, not "even to the eternal recurrence of existence," bur rather one more
reason to be "the eternal Yes to all things." If we are able to declare that into every
abyss we bear the blessing of our affirmations, then this is to repeat, once more, "the
concept ofDionysos" (EH "Z" 6). To speak in terms of the "halcyon element" is, for
Nietzsche, to approach the problems of existence in terms of a "sunny brightness,
spaciousness, breadth, and certainty" (GM P:8). In the book's preface, then, Nietz-
sche discloses that his script becomes comprehensible only in terms of the joyful
science. The knowledge of the past he seeks will not blame the past or incite revenge
against it; rather, it will construe it as both necessity and self-overcoming, and it will
do so by opening up a sunny spaciousness amongst dark clouds, including the dark
cloud that hovers over man himself.
Indeed, in GM P:7, Nietzsche refers to his conception of knowledge or science
(Wissenschaft) as "Ia gaya scienza." This science consists in taking delight in the
problem of life and entails a highly spiritualized thinking that has conquered fear
and gloominess. Nietzsche's cheerfulness stems from his experiences of knowledge,
including the experience of disillusionment and despair that can result from the
practice of the love of knowledge, which is a long pressure that needs to be resisted.
Nietzsche speaks of gay or joyful science as a reward, for example, "a reward for a
long, brave, diligent, subterranean seriousness." He conceives knowledge in terms
of a "world of dangers and victories in which heroic feelings ... find places to dance
and play." He posits as a principle, "Lift as a means to knowledge," in which the
pursuir of knowledge is not to be conducted in a spirit of duty or as a calamity or
trickery (GS 324). He speaks of the human intellect as a "clumsy, gloomy, creaking
machine" and of how the human being always seems to lose its good spirits when it
thinks by becoming too serious (GS 327). He wants to teach the intellect how it
docs not have to be such a machine and to challenge the prejudice that would hold
that where laughter and gaiety inform thinking it is good for nothing. Nietzsche
continues to speak of his cheerfulness (Heiterkeit) in later works. In Ecce Homo, for
example, he speaks of being "cheerful among nothing bur hard truths" (EH "Books"
3). As Nietzsche reminds his readers in the "Self-Criticism" he penned in The Birth
of Tragedy (1886), Zararhustra is a figure who proclaims laughter to be something
holy (BT "Self-Criticism" 7). We can best free ourselves for our own tragedy-the
seriousness of our own down-goings and goings-over-by liberating ourselves from
what most oppresses us, for example, the past and inherited nature, through the
culrivation of a spirit of gaiety and securing a cheerful disposition.
The theme of cheerfulness runs throughout Nietzsche's writing. In his "Untimely
Meditation" of 1874 on Schopenhauer, he argues that there are different types of
cheerful thinkers. The true thinker always cheers and refreshes, whether he is being
serious or humorous; he expresses his insights not with trembling hands and eyes
filled with tears, but with courage and strength, and as a victor. Such a cheerful
thinker enables us to "behold the victorious god with all the monsters he has com-
bated" (SE 2). By contrast, the cheerfulness of mediocre writers and quick thinkers
makes us feel miserable; this is because they do not actually see the sufferings and
 A "Dionysian Drama on the 'Fate of the Soul' " 27

monsters they purport [0 com bar. The cheerfulness of shallow thinkers needs [0 be
exposed because it seeks [0 convince us that things are easier than is actually the
case. For Nietzsche, there is little poim in a thinker assuming the guise of a teacher
of new truths unless he has courage, is able [0 communicate, and knows the costs of
what has been conquered.
Nietzsche was highly conscious of what he calls, in a letter [0 his friend Paul
Deussen, his "whole philosophical heterodoxy": he does not simply presem his reader
with problems concerning existence and knowledge but dramatizes them through
parables, thought-experiments, imagined conversations, and the like. His aim is
always [0 energize and enliven philosophical style through an admixture of aphoris-
tic and, broadly speaking, "literary" forms. His stylistic ideal, as he puts it on the
title page of The Cme of Wagner (parodying Horace), is, paradoxically, "ridendo
dicere severum" ("saying what is somber through what is laughable"), and these rwo
modes, the somber and the sunny, are mischievously imerrwined in his philosophy,
withom the reader necessarily being sure which one is uppermost at anyone time.
The [One of the texts from the late period, which include GM, is that "of gay detach-
mem fraught with a sense of destilly."5

NIETZSCHE AND FATE

Nietzsche is occupied with questions of fate from the very beginning of his writing.
In "Fate and His[Ory" (Fatum und Geschichte, 1862), the young Nietzsche pondered
the problem of how to best develop a critique of religion and Christianity that would
be appropriate for the time. Influenced by the great American writer Ralph Waldo
Emerson (1803-1882), Nietzsche appeals to his[Ory and natural science as a possible
secure foundation upon which [0 build the tower of new speculation: they are the
wonderful legacy of our past and the harbingers of the future. For Nietzsche, fate is
necessity. We are not "au[Onomous gods," Nietzsche insists, but rather fundamen-
tally heteronomous in our being, that is, we are determined by all kinds of external
influences and impressions; and, world history is more than "a dreamy self-decep-
tion." Without fate-necessity, including the passive comraction of fundamental
habits-freedom of the will is an aimless spirir. Fate prescribes the principle: "Events
are determined by events."
In another essay written at the same time entitled "Freedom of Will and Fare,"6
Nietzsche argues that absolute freedom of the will would make man into a god,
whilst the fatalistic principle, if that's all there was, would make him a mere automa-
ton. The human being is a spiritual automaton (he converts and transforms energy
bur in ways that do not obey prescribed laws of nature; this is what Nietzsche con-
siders "the dangerous health"). Although fate is nothing other than a chain of
events, as soon as we act we create our own events and come to shape our own fate.
Nietzsche also realizes once we appreciate the extent to which the "activity of the
soul" (the tendency of our "will") can proceed intelligently without the need for
28 Keith Ansell Pearson

conscious conrrol and direction, then the strict distinction between fate and freedom
of the will proves unrenable and both notions come to fuse with the idea of individ-
uality. Nietzsche notes that fate appears to a person in the mirror of his or her own
personality, so that people who believe in fate are "distinguished by force and
strength of will," while those who let things happen, "allow themselves, in a degrad-
ing manner, to be presided over by circumstances."
What is it, though, supposing we are well-disposed toward it, that enables us to
receive fate? Is there a voice in us that awakens us to our desire? Is this what we call,
conveniently, "conscience"? All of the docrrines we associate with the later Nietzsche
are responses to these questions: Dionysus, the eternal recurrence of the same, and
the will to power. In short, they are different ways of thinking fate and freedom in
terms of our dual nature as creatures and creators: "In the human being, creature
and creator are united: the human being is matter, fragment, excess, filth, nonsense,
chaos; but the human being is also creator, sculptor, hammer-hardness, observer-
divinity, and the Seventh Day-do you understand this opposition?" (BGE 225).
This is the "opposition" Nietzsche is working through in the entirety of his writings,
beginning in the early 1860s and culminating in the late works such as Beyond Good
and Evil and On the Genealogy of Morality. We only have to think, for example, of
the demonic voice that inspires the thought of eternal recurrence in GS 341: "do
you desire this once more and innumerable times more?" in which we are not sure
whether the "this" refers to what has happened and will happen again and again
(fate), or whether it refers to what we will make happen, transforming fate into a
task (freedom), willing it to return again and again as the object of our desire. Nietz-
sche wants us to see it as both fate and freedom'? The task is to be become well-
disposed toward life and ourselves-toward their material, natural, and historical
condirions.
In Beyond Good and Evil Nietzsche criticizes the way we think of free will in a
superlative metaphysical sense. To posit the will as a miraculous causa Stli is ro
abstract it from its material conditions, with the result that freedom becomes impos-
sible to conceive since there is nothing ro work on and sculpt (BGE 21). Such a
positing reflects the desire of a "half-educated" spirit to bear "complete and ultimate
responsibility for one's own actions and to relieve God, the world, one's ancestors,
coincidence, society from it." This is tantamount to the self dragging itself by its
hair out of the "swamp of nothingness and into existence." The idea of the "unfree
will" is equally implausible, Nietzsche stresses, since it amounts to a misuse of cause
and effect. Ultimately, it is "only a matter of strong and weak wills." Such wills reveal
themselves in how they respond to the problem of "constraint" (which is part of
what makes our acceptance of fate a "power" of necessity). Nietzsche's treatment of
this issue closely echoes the remarks he makes in the essays of his youth. On the one
hand, the strong type (vain and noble) holds that it has a "personal right" to take
credit for its actions and will not readily relinquish responsibility (it is what gives
him belief in himself and his power). On the other hand, there is a "fatalism of the
 A "Dionysian Drama on the 'Fate ofthe Soul''' 29

weak-willed" in which the assumption of responsibility for oneself is cast off and
one can be "free" to be "responsible for nothing."
Nietzsche wants the moral philosopher [0 arrive at an appreciation of the fecund
economy of life that can only thrive through an abundance of different types of
existence: "We do not readily deny; we seek our honour in being affi'rmative" (TI
"Morality" 6). He wants us [0 reject the claim that an individual "should be such
and such." This is because it is necessary to appreciate that the individual itself is a
piece offate, "one more law, one more necessity for all that is to come and will be."
He argues that notions of free will, of a "moral world order," of "guilt and punish-
ment," need [0 be eliminated and psychology, history, nature, social institutions,
and sanctions purified of them (TI "Errors" 7). Nietzsche posits his fundamental
teaching in the following terms:

What alone can our doctrine be?-That no one gives man his qualities, neither God,
nor society, nor his parents and ancestors, nor man himself-the nonsense of the last
idea rejected here was taught as "inrelligible freedom" by Kanr, perhaps already by
Plato, too. No one is responsible for simply being there, for being made in such and
such a way, for exisring under such conditions.... The fatality (Fatalitat) of one's being
cannot be derived from the fatality of all that was and will be. No one is the result of his
own intention, his own will, his own purpose .... One is necessaty, one is a piece of
fate (Verhangniss), one belongs to the whole, one is in the whole .... That no one is
made responsible any more, that a kind of Being cannot be traced back to a causa prima,
that the world is not a unity ... this alone is the great liberation-this alone re-establishes
the innocence (Umchu/dJ of becoming.... We deny "God," we deny responsibility in
God: this alone is how we redeem the world. (Tl" Errors" 8)

Nietzsche is arguing that we go wrong in our thinking about self and world when
we try to identifY an ultimate source of responsibility (a "first cause," for example).
He is not denying that there are conditions in the world for the assumption of mean-
ingful responsibility to take place, which is why in the same text he states that free-
dom means "Having the will to be responsible [0 oneself" (TI "Skirmishes" 38).
This freedom, however, consists in acts and tasks of overcoming, including over-
coming one's own self: "The free man is a warrior." For Nietzsche, the idea of
"intelligible freedom" provides us with the wrong idea of endowment (fate) since it
means "freedom" is either simply prescribed ahead of our actual empirical existence
and so cannot become a genuine task, as in the case of Schopenhauer, or it is a
posited ideal requiring a practice of sublime cruelty toward our heteronomous
natures, as in the case of Kant (for Nietzsche's criticism of Kant see also GS 335
entitled "Long Live Physics"). Such a "freedom" operates behind our backs, as it
were, and comes to us as a voice from beyond the world, one that either condemns
us to become what we are or that makes such a task impossible to realize.
We might suppose that the fundamental question posed to us by the eternal
return, a question posed of our will and desire (will to power), is one that is
addressed to us from the mysterious depths of our being. However, these depths are,
30 Keith Ansell Pearson

in fact, those of our cui rural formation and it is the buried and repressed labor of
culture that Nietzsche sets out to uncover in On the Genealogy of Morals. The text
can be read as nothing other than an attempt to address "conscience" as an issue of
fate that is to be uncovered by means of a probing historical inquiry into the culture
of the human.

THE FATE OF BAD CONSCIENCE

In Beyond Good and Evil Nietzsche seeks to purify our notion of the "soul" and
reinstates its rights in science. The idea that rhe soul denotes something eternal and
indivisible, such as an atom or a monad, is to be rejected. However, we do not need
ro go as far as those Nietzsche calls "bungling naturalists" who would do without
the notion alrogether. Rather, the way is now clear, Nietzsche suggests, for reutiliz-
ing this venerable hypothesis and giving it a rightful place in our science as, for
example, "the mortal sou!," or "soul as the multiplicity of the subject," and "soul
as the social construct of drives and affects" (BGE 12). The "soul" then denotes a
system of valuations and value-affects. Indeed, Nietzsche says that "morality" is to
bt: undersrood precisely in these rerms: "every acr of willing is a maner of command-
ing and obeying, based on a social strucrure of many 'souls'; for this reason a philos-
opher should claim the right to comprehend witting from within the sphere of
morality (Moral): morality, rhat is, understood as tht: rheory of relations of domina-
tion (Herrschafts- Verhiiltnissen) under which the phenomenon of 'life' emerges"
(BGE 19). Nietzsche's contribution to the "genealo6'Y of morals" can be fruitfully
unders(Ood as an anempr to discover how rhe human "soul" has been culturally and
historically formed, fatefully, in rerms of differenr systems-acrive and reacrive-of
valuarions and value-affects. In On the Genealogy ofMorals Nietzsche poses questions
of freedom and fate in rht: context of a historical understanding of how the human
has become what he is, the sick animal. The principal concept Nietzsche puts to
work in the Genealogy is the "will to power," which denotes the animal "instinct for
freedom" and a will to growth that, in rhe case of human beings, is fated to become
internalized. This is the "origin" of bad conscience (cruelty turned back on itself,
GM III:20). Ir is in GM II that Nierzsche's thinking on rhe "fate of the soul" is
most dramatically put to work.
In the second essay Nietzsche develops an extraordinary story about the origins
and emergence of feelings of responsibility and debt (personal obligation). He is
concerned with nothing less rhan the evolution of the human mind and how its
basic ways of thinking have come into being, such as inferring, calculating, weigh-
ing, and anticipating. Indeed, he points out that our word "man" (mafias) denotes
a being that values, measures, and weighs. Nietzsche is keen to draw the reader's
attention to what he regards as an important historical insight: the principal moral
concept of "guilt" (Schuld) descends from the material concept of "debts" (Schul-
den). In this sphere of legal obligations, he stresses, we find the breeding ground of
 A "Dionysian Drama on the 'Fate ofthe Soul''' 31

the "moral conceptual world" of guilt, conscience, and duty (eM II:6). The feeling
of obligation, the sense of "guilt," is linked to suHering. Nietzsche is keen to combat
the pessimistic view of life and of the human animal that might arise from these
insights into suffering and cruelty. He notes that what is most perturbing about
suffering is not the fact it appears to be an ineradicable feamre of our being, but
rather that human beings have a deep need to find a meaning in it, to the point
where, in the words of one commentator, we "invent or accept the most ludicrous
fantasies," such as the doctrine of original sin, the theory of the transmigration of
souls, and the ascription of demonic wills to imaginary gods." Ascetic ideals provide
such meaning even as they involve the denial and mortification of the willY Nietz-
sche's fundamental insight is that a Christian-moral culture has cultivated a type of
bad conscience in which feelings of debt and guilt cannot be relieved. This is because
the bad conscience becomes attached to a set of sublime metaphysical ficcions, such
as eternal punishment and original sin, in which release is inconceivable.
For Nietzsche the sense of "guilt" has evolved through several momentous and
fateful events in history. In the earliest societies a person is answerable for his deeds
and obliged to honor debts. In the course of history this material sense of obligation
is increasingly subject to moralization, reaching its summit with guilt before the
Christian God. Ultimately, a person is answerable for her very existence, regardless
of any of its acmal condicions or responsibilities: "'Sin'-for that is the name for
the priestly reinterpretation of the animal 'bad conscience' ... -has been the great-
est event in the history of the sick soul up till now: with sin we have the most dan-
gerous and disastrous trick of religious interpretation" (eM III:20).
In eM II: 16, Nietzsche advances, albeit in a preliminary fashion, his own theory
on the "origin" of the bad conscience. He looks upon it "as a serious illness to which
man was forced to succumb by the pressure of the most fundamental of all changes
which he experienced." This change takes place when one finds oneself "imprisoned
within the confines of society and peace" (eM II: 16). It brings with it a suspension
and devaluation of the instincts. Human beings now walk as if a "terrible heaviness"
bears down on them: they walk upright not only in a physical but a moral sense
also. No longer can human animals simply trust their unconscious instincts in their
modes of life; rather, they now have to rely "on thinking, inference, calculation, and
the connecting of cause and effect," in shorr, their "consciousness," which Nietzsche
calls the most "error-prone organ." In this completely new scenario the old animal
instincts, such as animosity, cruelty, the pleasure of changing and destroying, do not
cease to make their demands, bur have to find new and underground satisfactions.
Through the internalization of humanity, in which instincts, no longer discharge-
able, turn inward, comes the invention of what is popularly called the human
"soul": "The whole inner world, originally stretched thinly as though between two
layers of skin, was expanded and extended itself and granted depth, breadth, and
height in proportion to the degree that the external discharge of man's instincts was
obstructed." Nietzsche insists that this "is the origin of 'bad conscience'." He uses
striking imagery to provide us with a portrait of such a momentous development:
32 Keith Ansell Pearson

Lacking external enemies and obstacles, and forced into the oppressive narrowness and
conformity of cusrom, man impatiently ripped himself apart, persecuted himself,
gnawed at himself, gave himself no peace and abused himself, this animal who battered
himself raw on the bars of his cage and who is supposed ro be "tamed"; man, full of
emptiness and rorn apart with homesickness for the desert, has had ro create from
within an adventure, a rorrure-chamber, an unsafe and hazardous wilderness-this fool,
this prisoner consumed with longing and despair, became the inventor of "bad con-
science." (GM II: 16)

On the one hand, Nietzsche approaches the bad conscience as "the worst and
most insidious illness" that has come into being and as a sickness from which man
has yet to recover, his sickness of himself. On the other hand, he maintains that the
"prospect of an animal soul turning against itself" is a momentous event and a spec-
tacle too interesting "to be played senselessly unobserved on some ridiculous
planet." Nietzsche states that the bad conscience is an illness only in the sense in
which pregnancy is treated as an illness (GM II: 18). Furthermore, as a development
that was prior to all ressentiment, and that cannot be said to represent any organic
assimilation into new circumstances, the bad conscience conrributes to the appear-
ance of an animal on earth that "arouses interest, tension, hope," as if through it
"something ... were being prepared, as though man were not an end bur just a path,
an episode, a bridge, a great promise" (GM 11:6). Nietzsche observes that although it
represents a painful and ugly growth, the bad conscience is not simply to be looked
upon in disparaging terms; indeed, he speaks of the "active bad conscience." It can
be regarded as the "true womb of ideal and imaginative events"; through it an abun-
dance of "disconcening beauty and affirmation" has been brought to light. Nietz-
sche makes it clear that the spectacle of the bad conscience needs to be appreciated
t(H what it is and whose end is, by no means, in sight. It is quite clear that, for
Nietzsche, bad conscience constitutes humanity as we know it: it was not chosen by
us, its coming into being involved a leap and a compulsion. Nietzsche wishes us to
view it as an "inescapable fate" (Verhiingniss). This is fate conceived as "doom,"
which is how Nietzsche almost always presents fate in his mature writings. Fate's
"voice" appears to us in the form of a curse, one that seems to impose on us "the
greatest weight" (GS 341); this is, in fact, the weight of ourselves.
In the course of history the illness of bad conscience reached a terrible and sub-
lime peak. In prehistory, argues Nietzsche, the basic creditor-debtor relationship
that informs human social and economic activity also finds expression in religious
rites and worship, for example, the way a tribal community expresses thanks to ear-
lier generations. Over time the ancestor is turned into a god and associated with the
feeling of fear (the birth of superstition). Christianity cultivates further the moral or
religious sentiment of debt, and does so in terms of a truly monstrous level of sub-
lime feeling: God is cast as the ultimate ancestor who cannot be repaid (GM 11:20).
At the end of this section Nietzsche asks whether, as a result of the decline of faith
in the Christian God we are now witnessing and the atheism it gives rise to, we will
 A ''Dionysian Drama on the 'Fate ofthe Soul''' 33

see a release of human beings from guilty indebtedness, thereby giving us the feeling
ofliving a "second innocence." The problem with this supposition is that it underes-
timates the extent to which the concepts of debt and duty have become deeply mor-
alized, as in the feeling of guilt before God. Nietzsche argues that the facts speak
against relief from debt when the fundamental premise-belief in the creditor
God-no longer applies. This is because any thought of a final payment "is to be
foreclosed," and this reRects the fact that a terrifying pessimism has taken hold of
the human psyche. The idea has been cultivated that the debtor (human beings) can
never payoff the debt and so their liability or indebtedness will be eternal. Even the
idea of God as creditor sacrificing himself for the guilt of man in the form of Christ
does nor produce human liberation but only serves to intensify the debtor's feeling
of guilt. The ultimate creditor has been conceived in various ways: as the "cause" of
man and the beginning of the human race, or as nature, the womb from which
humankind comes into being and is viewed as diabolical, or even existence in gen-
eral, which has come to be viewed as "inherently worthless" and from which the
will seeks escape into nothingness, giving expression to a "nihilistic turning-away
from existence." Atheistic philosophers such as Schopenhauer continue to think
under the grip of a Christian metaphysics and hold existence itself to be reprehensi-
ble. We cling to guilt and want it to stick around, even after it comes unhinged from
Christian theolob'Y. This is because of its efficacy in producing meaning, specifically
with respect to the fact that we find living so hard on account of the suffering it
causes us to undergo. Moreover, we keep ir because of the sensation of power-over
ourselves and orhers-that it affords. The essential development has taken place in
terms of the human being of bad conscience seizing on religious precepts and carry-
ing out its liking for self-torture and self-abasement with a "horrific hardness": "Alas
for this crazy, pathetic beast man! What ideas he has, what perversity, what hysterical
nonsense, what besti(/li~y ofthought immediately eruprs, rhe moment he is prevented,
if only gently, from being a beast in deed!" (GM II:22). Although Nietzsche finds
this development highly interesting, he also sees in it "a black, gloomy, unnerving
sadness." In the case of Christianity we have a "madness of the will showing itself
in mental cruelty which is absolutely unparalleled."
The second essay ends on a note of redemption. We should note: in contrast to
the English word, which suggests the payment of a debt, the German word for
redemption (ErliisUllg) means a setting free (cf. Z:lI "Of Redemption"). Nietzsche's
line of thought at this crucial point in the text is highly intricate and the "over-
human" future he appeals to does not suppose a simple-minded transcendence of
the kind of creatures we have become. He notes that "we moderns" are rhe inheri-
tors of centuries long "conscience-vivisection and animal-torture." Indeed, we have
become so refined at such cruelty that we can fairly consider ourselves to be "artists
in the field." Our natural inclinations are now thoroughly intertwined with the bad
conscience. Nietzsche asks whether a "reverse experiment" might be possible, in
which bad conscience would become intertwined with "perverse inclinations" and
"all the ideals which up to now have been hostile to life and have defamed the
34 Keith Ansell Pearson

world." Anyone who wishes to subscribe to such a hope will have to contend with
"the good men." Nietzsche has in mind both those who are satisfied with humanity
as it is (the lazy and the complacent) and those who impatiently wish to transcend
it (the zealous). The task of envisaging a surpassing of "the human" is a "severe"
and "high-minded" one; it is not a question of simply lening ourselves go. Nietzsche
thus looks toward a different kind of spirit, one prepared for and by "wars and vic£O-
ries ... for which conquest, adventure, danger and even pain have actually become
a necessity," and in whom the practice of the "great health" has become personified.
At this point Nietzsche looks ahead and outside the all-too timdy frame of the pres-
ent. He refers to "the redeeming man of great love and contempt" who will set man
free from the ideal that has cursed his existence for so long, and from the nihilism
and will to nothingness that arises from it. He speaks fatefully of the "decision" that
will make "the will free again," give a "purpose" to the earth, and give man back
his "hope."
The place from which Nietzsche issues his critique of morality may be that of a
premature-born and as yet undemonstrated future, but it is also one that both relies
upon our inherited emotions or affects and places them under the rule of a new
practical synthesis. We see this ctystallized in Nietzsche's riddle of "the Roman Cae-
sar with the soul of Christ" (WP 983). Indeed, one wonders whether this might be
the "spirit" that informs Nietzsche's refashioning of the genealogy of morality in
terms of a "script"-a script with a cast of characters and dramatis personae, designed
co tempr rhe reader inco reffecting on "the fare of rhe sou!," and that aims to teach
its readers that fate is something (0 be loved (on amor foti see EH "Clever," 10). I()

BEYOND GUILH OR: THE ETERNAL RECURRENCE

OF THE SAME?

The ending of GM II presents genuine difficulties for the book's readers. Is Nietz-
sche proposing that in the future human beings will live beyond guilt and, if he is,
is this a credible and desirable thought? In proposing redemption from guile Nietz-
sche is not suggesting we will no longer ted responsible for our actions or for the
events of the world. His point is that a fixation on guilt serves to prohibit the search
for knowledge, both of ourselves and the world, including the most difficult knowl-
edge. This is a commitment to knowledge Nietzsche takes over from Spinoza, whom
he discovered as his precursor in 1881. In a letter to his friend Franz Overbeck,
Nietzsche enumerates the points of doctrine he shares with Spinoza, such as the
denial of teleology, of free will, of a moral world order, and of evil, and also men-
tions the task of "making knowledge the most poweiful passion." The only redemp-
tion of noble worth is that which sets us free from ignorance, superstition, and fear.
Nietzsche's redemption docrrine does not mean that we would come to live without
responsibility or that we cannot practice a good (healthy) "bad conscience." We have
 A "Dionysian Drama on the 'Fate ofthe Soul''' 35

seen, for example, the extent to which Nietzsche's untimely philosopher weds him-
self to such a conscience. The intellectual conscience he is fundamentally committed
to is a type of bad conscience, but one that aims to release the forces and energies
of life where they have become blocked and to set them free for future growth and
evolution (see GS 2,335; BGE 230). For Nietzsche the "guilt" we have become and
internalized is to be understood as a personal, abject failing that we share as human
beings and that cannot be corrected by our power or any other. We are an "error";
it doesn't matter what one does, one cannot be saved; one will only repeat, again
and again, the error of one's guilty existence (this is the unhealthy eternal return of
the same we practice under conditions of nihilism and that expresses itself in our
readiness [0 will nothingness rather than not will at all; we cry, "all is in vain!").
The guilt Nietzsche wishes to see disappear from the world is guilt conceived as
"sin," since this supposes there is a debt that can never be paid off. It means that
man's bondage [0 an ascetic ideal would be eternal. Even in our so-called secular,
posnnodern world, in which we might suppose that the theological dualism of
"good and evil," as well as metaphysical notions such as sin, have been banished
from our vocabulary, held to be childish, we remain firmly in the grip of a system
of guilt and judgment. To see the contemporary relevance of what Nietzsche is get-
ting at one has only [0 think of today's (ascetic) ideal of a "war on terror," which
we are told may go on for some time, indeed, may last an "eternity." This binds us
to an infinite debt and is the most terrifYing fate we can imagine for the bad con-
science; it is this curse imposed on life that Nietzsche's teachings aim to free us from.
His "Zarathustra event," as he calls it, amounts to a tremendous "purification and
dedication of mankind" (EH "BT" 4).
The fundamental challenge of Nietzsche's thinking on the "fate of the soul" is to
invite us to discover new modes of feeling and thinking in which the burden of man
and the curse of his fate can be lifted and transformed so that a new disposition
toward ourselves and the world can come into being, taking on the force of a new
habit. This is the habit of "great health," which denotes a new cognitive and affect-
ive practice of life. For the human animal there can be no purely active force; this
belongs to the imaginary blond beasts of prey, and in the text Nietzsche is evidently
not advocating an ahistorical return to a prehuman state, or to a premoral mode of
existence. The bad conscience is man's active force. The question Nietzsche leaves
us to chew is this: What is now our debt? This issue cannot be effectively digested
without envisioning the over-human. This metaphor, I would contend, is Nietz-
sche's most important, his most cheerful and strongest, concept and gift. But it is
also the one that is the most difficult [0 measure, and for good reason: Nietzsche
designed it so as to challenge and put to the test the measure of humankind. Is it
possible to transform the greatest weight (ourselves) into something light and free? Is
it possible for the earth to be something other than a "madhouse"?
To approach "morality"-a system of valuations and value judgments that takes
itself to be eternal, universal, and unconditional-from a Dionysian perspective is
36 Keith Ansell Pearson

to open it up to a novel and far-reaching treatment, in which we are able to view it

in terms of a semiology, a symptomatology, and a phenomenology of life (what are
its various meanings and directions?). The moral valuation of life that we find in
Christianity, Schopenhauer's philosophy, Plato and the whole of idealism, derives
from a "degenerated instinct which rums against life with subterranean vengefulness"
(EH "BT" 2). In contrast to this valuation, there is the "supreme affirmation" that
is born our of fullness and this is "an affirmation without reservation even of suffer-
ing, even of guilt, even of all that is strange and questionable in existence." Nietzsche
stresses that this "Yes to life" is both the highest and deepest insight that is "con-
firmed and maintained by truth and knowledge" (ibid.). It is not, then, a simple-
minded, precognitive "Yes" to life that Nietzsche wishes us to practice, bur one, as
he stresses, secured by "truth and knowledge." The task is not to take flight from
reality in the name of the "ideal," bur rather to "re-cognize" it and affirm it on the
basis of this recognition or knowledge (Erkenntniss).
For Nietzsche, "morality" represents a system of errors that we have incorporated;
it is the great symbol of our profound ignorance of ourselves and the world. In GS
115 Nietzsche speaks of "the four errors," noting how humankind has been edu-
cated by them: we see ourselves only incompletely; we endow ourselves with ficri-
tious arrribures; we place ourselves in a "false rank" in relation to animals and
nature; and, finally, we invent ever new tables of what is good and then accept them
as eternal and unconditional. However, Nietzsche does not ptopose we should make
ourselves feel guilty abour our incorporared errors (rhey have provided us with new
drives) and neither does he want us to simply accuse or blame the past. We need to
strive to be more just in our evaluations of life and the living (for example, thinking
"beyond good and evil" in order to develop a more complex appreciation of the
economy oflife; for Nietzsche it is largely the prejudices of "morality" that stand in
the way of this; "morality" assumes a knowledge of things it does not have). The
critical and clinical charge to be made against "morality" at this point in our evolu-
tion is that it has become a menacing and dangerous system that makes the present
live at the expense of the future. It knows only the present and sees the future as
simply an extension of the presenr; ours is judged to be a time that has been given
for all time.
In the very first sketch Nietzsche drafted in August 1881 of his "thought of
thoughts," the eternal recurrence of the same, he writes that the task is to wait and
see to what extent truth and knowledge can stand incorporation (KSA 9: II [141]; see
also GS 11O). By this he means that our arrcmpts at knowledge need to take the
form of a testing, experimentation, and recognition. The task, Nietzsche says, is to
demonstrate the "infinite importance of our knowing, erring, habits, ways of living
for all that is to come." The question is then asked: "What shall we do with the rest
of our lives-we who have spent the majority of our lives in the most profound
ignorance? We shall teach the teaching-it is the most powerful means of incorporat-
ing leinzuverleibenl it in ourselves. Our kind of blessedness [Seligkeit], as teachers of
the greatest teaching." Nietzsche believes that modern humankind, which is in the
 A "Dionysian Drama on the 'Fate ofthe Soul''' 37

process of becoming post metaphysical and postmoral, is being presented with what
he calls "the weightiest knowledge [Erkenntniss}." This is a knowledge that prompts
a "terrible reconsideration of all forms of life":

[W]e have to put the past-our past and that of all humanity-on the scales and also
outweigh it-no! this piece of human history will and must repeat [wiederholenl itself
eternally; we can leave that our of account, we have no influence over it: even if it afflicts
our fellow-feeling and biases us against life in general. If we are not to be overwhelmed
by it, our compassion must not be great. Indifference needs to have worked away deep
inside us, and enjoyment in contemplation, too. Even the misery of future humanity
must not concern us. But the question is whether we still want to live: and how! (KSA
9: 11 [141])

Nietzsche has great hopes for the cultivating and incorporating thought of eternal
recurrence. This "most powerful thought," he writes, uses the energy that has hith-
er[() been at the command of other goals (Zieten). It thus has a "transforming effect"
not through the creation of any new energy but simply by creating "new laws of
movement for energy." It is in this sense that it holds "the possibility of determining
and ordering individual human beings and their affects differently" (KSA
9:11[220]). To endure the thought of return one needs freedom from "morality"
(der Mora/) (its prejudices and presumptions), new means against the fact of pain,
enjoymenr of all kinds of uncertainty, and experimentalism. It is the "greatest eleva-
tion (Erhohung) of the consciousness of strength (Kraft) of human beings" that
comes into being as the over-human is created (KSA 11:26[283]; WP 1060). We
need to "endure" eternal recurrence not as a fate simply given [() us but as the exer-
cise of a new freedom, one we grant ourselves a right [(). This is Nietzsche's unique
"Spinozism," in which an experimental practice of knowledge has become incorpo-
rated as a fundamental passion. II The future ones will live without metaphysical or
existemial guilt but not beyond responsibility (the task, Nietzsche says in Thus Spoke
Zarathustra, is [() become freely the creators, judges, and avengers of our own laws);
they will cultivate a science dedicated [() the incorporation of truth and knowledge
but that also loves error because, being alive, it loves life (BGE 24). And they will
bear the blessings of an affirmation of existence into their every abyss, such is their
will [() life and to become more-once more, and again and again. As Nietzsche
argues toward the end of his great text, "self-overcoming" is the-fateful and free-
law of life (GM IlI:27).

NOTES

I am immensely grateful to Christa Davis Acampora for her editorial input, and for her
patit:nce and good will.

I. Letter to Peter Cast, 18 July 1887, in Selected Letters ofFriedrich Nietzsche, ed. Chris-
topher Middleton (London: University of Chicago Press, 1999), 269.
38 Keith Ansell Pearson

2. In this way one might say that the book stages a return of the tepressed. This is
recognized by Debra Bergoffen in her unduly neglected article, "Why A Genealogy of Mor-
ais?" Man and World 16 (1983): 129-38.
3. On the idea of a "moral sense," see Francis Hutcheson, On the Nature and Conduct
of the Passions with Illustrations of the Moral Seme (1728), annotated by Andrew Ward (Man-
chester: Clinamen Press, 1999).
4. G. Ddeuze, Nietzsche and Philosophy, trans. Hugh Tomlinson (London: Athlone
Press, 1983), 138.
s. Lener [0 Franz Overbeck, 13 November 1888.
6. The two essays from Nietzsche's youth I considet in this section can be found in The
Nietzsche Reader, ed. Keith Ansell Pearson and Duncan Large (Oxford: Basil Blackwell,
2006),12-17.
7. In an aphorism in The Wanderer and His Shildow emided "Mohammedan fatalism"
Nietzsche writes that this kind of fatalism "embodies the fundamental error of sening man
and fate over against one another as two separate things," with the result that man must either
resist fate or frusttate it, even though in the end it always wins. His argumem that every
human being is "a piece of fate," "the blessing Ot the curse and in any evem the fetters in
which the strongest lies captive," and in which "the whole future of the world of man is
predetermined," is picked up and refined in the final section of "The Four Great Errors" in
TI. It is interesting to note that in one of his earliest sketches of the eternal return of the same
Nietzsche develops the thought as a response to the problem of predetermination. If all is
necessity, he asks, how can I anain a degree of power of my actions? He answers as follows:
"Thought and belief are a weight pressing down on me as much as and even more than any
other weight. You say that food, a location, air, society transform and condition you: well
your opinions do so even more, since it is they that determine your choice of food, dwelling,
air, society. If you incorporate this thought within YOll, amongst your other thoughts, it will
transform you. The question in everything that you will: 'am I certain I want to do to an
infinite number of times?' will become for you the heaviest weight" (KSA 9: II [143]).
8. Raymond Geuss, Olltside Ethics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 200S), Ill.
9. See Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation, Vol. I §68.
10. In his classic study of Nietzsche, Karl Jaspers correctly noted that amor foti is not a
"passive submission to a presumably recognized necessity," but rather "the expression of free
activity," such as the enjoymem of all kinds of uncertainty and experimcmalism. See K. Jas-
pers, Nietzsche, trans. Charles F. Wallraff and frederick J. Schmitz (Chicago: Henry Regnery
Company, 1965),369.
11. For some instructive insight into Nietzsche's relation to Spinoza see Yirmiyahu Yovel,
Spinoza and Other Heretics: The Adventures of Immanence (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1989), chapter 5, 104-36.
2
Nietzsche, Re-evaluation, and the
Turn to Genealogy*
David Owen

It is a commonplace of contemporary Nietzsche scholarship [() note that Nietzsche's

turn to, and development of his genealogical mode of enquiry is situated within the
ovcrall project of a re-evaluation of valucs that begins with Daybreak (c.g., Geuss
1994, Ridley 1998a, May 1999, Leiter 2002). But what specifically motivates Nietz-
schc's dcvelopmem of gencalogy? Given the continuing disagreement concerning
the character of genealogy, one might suppose that an analysis of Nietzsche's reasons
for dcveloping this mode of enquiry would be subject [0 some scrutiny; after all, if
we can get clear about Nietzsche's reasons for curning to genealogy, we will be well-
placed to understand what this mode of enquiry is intended [0 accomplish. These
disagreements range over both what gentalogy is intended [() do and for whom and
how it is intended [0 achieve its work. Thus, for example, Leiter sees genealogy as a
form of ideology-critique directed [0 freeing "nascelH higher beings from their false
consciousness" about contemporary morality in which Nietzsche's voice has author-
ity only for those predisposed [() accept his values (Leiter 2002: 176 and chapter 5,
more generally; cf. Leiter 2000). Geuss, on the other hand, sees genealogy as an
attempt to master Christianity by showing Christians in terms they can accept that
the perspective composed by Nietzsche's values can give a better historical account
of morality than the Christian perspective (Geuss 1994). Similarly Ridley and May

A vt:rsion of this chapter previously appeared as "Nietzsche, Re-eva/uatioll and the Turn to
Genealogy," in Europt'anJournal ofPhilosophy 11:3 (2003): 249-72. Reprinted with permis-
sion of Blackwell Publishing, Ltd.

39
40 David Owen

see genealogy as involving a form of internal criticism that, in principle, speaks to

all of Nietzsche's contemporaries (Ridley 1998a; May 1999). However, Ridley
argues that "Nietzsche cannot provide a principled method for ranking competing
claims to represent our most basic interests" and so must resort to a peculiar form
of flattery (Ridley 1998a: 152-53).1 Yet what remains absent from all of these other-
wise impressive accounts, and from contemporary Nietzsche scholarship more gen-
erally, is any anent ion to the claims of a developmental approach that, in elucidating
Nietzsche's reasons for turning to genealogy, provides an interpretative basis for
approaching On the Genealogy ofMorality itself. In the light of this abiding commit-
ment to the text of the Genealogy, the aim of this essay is to reconstruct the develop-
mental context of the Genealogy and, in so doing, to cast some critical light on the
disagreements and debates that characterize the contemporary reception of this
work.
I take up this task by idemi/ying three central problems that Nietzsche comes to
recognize concerning his initial understanding of the nature and demands of the
project of re-evaluation in Daybreak. Nietzsche's responses to these problems, I
argue, provide him with both compelling reasons to develop the mode of enquiry
exhibited in Oil the Genealogy ofMorality and the conceptual resources necessary to
do so.

It is in Daybreak, as Nietzsche tells us in Ecce Homo, that his "campaign against

morality begins" in "a re-evaluation ofall values" (EH "0" 1).2 Whereas in Human,
All Too Human, Nietzsche had sought to demonstrate that all moral motives (which
he identified, following Schopenhauer, as unegoistic) are more or less sublimated
expressions of self-interest and, thus, devalued moral values by showing that what
are taken as intrinsic (i.e., independently motivating) values should be understood
as instrumental values, in Daybreak Nietzsche admits the existence of moral motiva-
tions (no longer understood as necessarily unegoistic; cf. Clark and Leiter 1997).
This development is accomplished through the proposal of an account of the origin
of morality that (a) identifies moral action with conduct according to custom (D 9),
(b) argues that customs are expressions of a community's relationship to its environ-
mem that evaluate and rank types of action in terms of their uriliry or harmfulness
with respect to the self.-preservation of the community (D 9; cf. GS 116), (c) claims
the system of moral judgments that express the evaluation and ranking of types of
action structure our human drives in composing a second nature characterized by a
system of moral sentiments that govern our moral agency (D 38; cf. D 99), (d)
suggests that early societies are characterized by superfluous customs that play the
role of inculcating the rule of obeying rules (D 16), and (e) claims that the morality
of customs is predicated on belief in imaginary causalities (D 10; cf. D 21 and 24).
This account of the origin of morality provides a way for Nietzsche to reject Scho-
 Nietzsche, Re-evaluation, and the Turn to Genealogy 41

penhauer's identification of moral action and unegoistic action as well as Kant's

metaphysics of morals through an argument that looks remarkably like a naturaliza-
tion of Kant's account of reverence for moral law. While Nietzsche's account of the
origin of morality does not account for how we have come to be characterized by
the "intellectual mistakes" that lead us to identify morality with actions performed
out of freedom of will or purely altruistic motives, it supplies a basis on which such
an account could be constructed once it is supplemented by the hypotheses on moral
innovation,3 on the construction of belicf in a mctaphysical world (e.g., D 33), and
on the historical causes of the spread of the morality of pity (D 132) that Nietzsche
adduces. Thc conclusion that Nietzsche draws from this sct of arguments is prc-
sented thus:

There are two kinds ofdeniers ofmorality.-"To deny morality"-this can mean, first, to
deny that (he moral morives which men claim have inspired their ac(ions have really
done so-it is thus (he assenion (hat morality consists of words and is among the
coarser or more subtle deceptions (especially self-decep(ionsl which men pracrise, and
perhaps so especially in precisely the case of those most famed for virtue. Then it can
mean: to deny that moral judgments are based on truths. Here it is admitted that (hey
really afe motives for action, but that in this way i( is en'ors which, as the basis of all
moral judgmem, impel men to their moral actions. This is my point of view: though I
should be (he last to deny that in very many cases (here is some ground for suspicion
that the other poim of view-that is to say, the point of La Rochdoucauld and others
who think like him-may also be justified and in any evcm of great general applica-
tion.-Thus I deny morality as I deny alchemy, that is, I deny their premises: but I do
not deny that (here have been alchemists who believed in these premises and acted in
accordance with them.-I also deny immorality: not that countless people flel them-
selves to be immoral but that there is any true reason so to feel. It goes without saying
that I do not deny-unless I am a fool-that many actions called immoral ought to be
avoided and resisted, or that many called moral ought to be done and encouraged-bur
I think that one should be encouraged and the other avoided for other reasons than hith-
erto. We have to learn to think diffirently-in order at last, perhaps very late on, to attain
even more: to flel diffirent/y. (D 103)

Thus, Nietzsche conceives of the project of a re-evaluation of values as a project in

which, as thc concluding sentences of this passage make clear, intrinsic values can
be re-evaluated as intrinsic values (rather than as instrumental ones, say, in disguise;
see Ridlcy 2005). On the initial understanding of this projcct developed in Day-
break, Nictzsche takes its requirements to be threcfold. First, to demonstrate that
Christianity is predicated on belief in imaginary causalities in order to undermine
the epistcmic authority of Christian morality (see D 13, 76-80, 86). Second, to
mobilize the affects cultivated by Christian morality against that morality in order
to undcrmine its affective power (e.g., D 78, 131, 199). Third, to recommend an
alternative (largely Greck) morality (see D 556 and 199). Nietzsche takes himself to
be limited ro recommending an alternative ideal to that of Christianity on the
42 David DIVen

grounds that while we can all agree (he thinks) that "the goal of morality is defined
in approximately the following way: it is the preservation and advancement of man-
kind" (D 106), he can see no way of specifying the substantive content of this goal
that is not tendentious (see D 106 and 139). The second and third requirements are
closely related in Nietzsche's practice in that a large part of his rhetorical strategy in
Daybreak involves exploiting the view expressed in Schopenhauer's morality of pity
to the effect that suffering is intrinsically bad in order to argue that Greek morality
is superior to Christian morality from this point of view. Thus, Nietzsche advances
the claim that Christian morality is objectionable on the grounds that it is character-
ized by an interpretation of suffering-and, indeed, of existence (since suffering is
an inevitable feature of it)-as punishment (D 13). What is objectionable about this
moral interpretation of suffering is that it intensifies the suffering to which the agent
is subject by treating the occasion of extensional suffering as itself a source of inten-
sional suffering that is of much greater magnitude than the extensional suffering on
which it supervenes. 4 By contrast, Greek morality allows for "pure innocent misfor-
tune" in which the occasion of extensional suffering of the agent is precisely not a
source of intensional suffering (see D 78).
The three problems that Nietzsche gradually identifies with this initial under-
standing of the nature and requirements of the project of re-evaluation are the fol-
lowing:

1. His analysis in Daybreak had presupposed that the loss of belief in God would
lead directly to a loss of authoriry of Christian moral belie(~; although people
would still act as ifrhis morality were authoritative in that rhey would still, ar
least for a rime, be characterized by the moral sentiments cultivated by Chris-
tianity, they would no longer accept the authority of the moral beliefs charac-
teristic of Christianity. However, Nietzsche comes to see this assumption as
problematic. By the time of composing book III of The Gay Science it appears
to him that his contemporaries, while increasingly characterized by atheism,
do not understand this loss of faith to undermine the authority of Christian
morality. It is not that they act in accordance with morality while no longer
believing in it but that they still believe in morality, that is, they take the
authority of Christian morality to be unaffected by the tact that they no longer
believe in God.
2. In Daybreak, Nietzsche had taken the authority of scientific knowledge for
granted in making his case. However, he comes to acknowledge that this can-
not simply be assumed given the constraint of naruralism that characterizes his
project and that he requires a naturalistic account of how we come to value
truth and why this should lead us to reject Christian morality.
3. The account in Daybreak had failed to provide any basis for re-evaluating
moral values that did not simply express Nietzsche's own commitments.
Nietzsche comes to see this problem as related to the inadequacy of his accollnt
 Nietzsche, Re-evaluation, and the Tum to Genealogy 43

of how we come to be committed to Christian morality at all since, as he'll

mess in Beyond Good and Evil, the establishment of Christianity promised "a
revaluation of all the values of antiquity" (BGE 46).

Addressing these problems will lead Nietzsche to revise significantly his view of the
nature and requirements of the project of re-evaluation initiated in Daybreak.

II

Nietzsche's perception of the first of these problems is manifest in book III of The
Gay Science which famously opens with the announcement "God is dead; but given
the way people are, there may still for millennia be caves in which they show his
shadow.-And we-we must still defeat his shadow as wei!!" (GS 108)' The prob-
lem that Nietzsche identifies-what might be called the problem of not inferring
(i.e., of failing to draw appropriate conclusions by virtue of being held captive by a
picture or perspective)-and dramatizes in section 125 "Der tolfe Mensch" is that
while his contemporaries are increasingly coming to surrender belief in God, they
do not draw the implication from this that Nietzsche insists follows. As he'll later
put this implication in Twilight ofthe Idols:

When one gives up Christian belief one thereby deprives oneself of the right to Christian
morality. ror the laner is absolutely not self-evident: one must make this point again
and again, in spite of English shallowpates. Christianity is a system, a consistenrly
thought out and complete view of things. If one breaks out of it a fundamental idea, the
belief in Cod, one thereby breaks the whole thing to pieces: one has nothing of any
consequence left in one's hands ....-it [the system] stands or falls with the belief in
Cod. {Tf"Skirmishcs" 5)6

Nietzsche describes this phenomenon as follows:

But in the main one may say: The evenr [that "God is dead"] is far too great, too
distant, too remote from the multitude's capacity for comprehension even for the
tidings of it to be thought of as having arrived as yet. Much less may one suppose that
many people know as yet what this evenr really means-and how much must collapse
now that this faith has been undermined because it was built upon this faith, ptopped
up by it, gtown into it: for example, the whole of our Eutopean morality (GS 343).

The thought is twofold. First, that the character of our morality has been shaped by
our Christian faith and its authority underwritten by that faith. Second, that this is
not understood by Nietzsche's contemporaries. As James Conant puts it:

[Tlhosc who do not believe in God are able to imagine that the death of God marks
nothing more than a change in what people should now "believe." One should now
44 David Owen

subtract the belief in God from one's body of beliefs; and this subrracrion is something
sophisticated people (who have long since ceased going to church) can effect without
unduly upsetting how they live or what they value (Conant 1995: 262).

Nietzsche thus recognizes the need for two related tasks. First, to provide an account
of this phenomenon of not inftrring and, second, to find a way of demonstrating
that the inference that he draws is the appropriate one.
In approaching the first of these tasks, Nietzsche has in his sights the example of
Schopenhauer who exhibits precisely the stance of combining "admitted and
uncompromising atheism" with "staying stuck in those Christian and ascetic moral
perspectives" (GS 357; cf. GS 343). Nietzsche's use of this example suggests that the
problem of not inftrring arises from the fact that his contemporaries remain commit-
ted to a metaphysical stance toward the world that is "not the origin of religion, as
Schopenhauer has it, but only a late offihoot of it" (GS 150. This metaphysical
stance is to be understood as a product of philosophy conducted "under the seduc-
tion of moraliry"(D P:3; cf. BGE 2 and 5) in that it is commitment to the uncondi-
tional authority of (Christian) morality that finds expression in the construction of
a metaphysical perspective, that is, a perspective that denies its own perspectival
character'? We do not draw the appropriate implications from the death of God
because we are held captive by a metaphysical perspective according to which the
source and authority of our values is entirely independent of us." In this context,
Nietzsche's second task, that of showing that the death of God does have the impli-
cations that he claims, requires that he provide a naturalistic account of our moraliry
that demonstrates how we have become subject to this taste for the unconditional-
"the wors[ possible [as[e," as Nietzsche calls it (BGE 3 I)-and, hence, subject to the
allure of this metaphysical perspective. It also requires that he show how it has
become possible for us to free ourselves from this picture (and, indeed, this taste)
and why we are compelled to do so.
These latter points are closely connected (0 Nietzsche's engagement with the sec-
ond problem that he comes (0 discern with his understanding of his project in D,
namely, the need to give a naturalistic account of our commitment (0 the uncondi-
tional value of truth.

III

Nietzsche's engagement with the topic of truth is complex but, for our purposes,
the salient points are, first, that Nietzsche, at least in his mature work, is commiued
ro the view that one can have beliefs, make statements, and so forth, that are true or
false (see Clark 1990; Gemes 1992; Leiter 1994) and, second, that we are character-
ized by a commitment to the unconditional value of truth. In respect of Nietzsche's
perspectivism, we may merely note that this doctrine-itself a product of Nietzsche's
 Nietzsche, Re-evaluation, and the Turn to Genealogy 45

naturalizing of episremology-is comparible with commitment to rhe concepr of

rrurh: a perspecrive determines what is intelligibly up for grabs as true or false. Our
concern, though, is with the issue raised by Nietzsche in response to the shortcom-
ings of D, namely, how we come to be characterized by a commitment to the uncon-
dirional value of truth. A tentative approach to this issue is given expression in book
Jll of The Gay Science in which Nietzsche suggests that the concept of knowledge
arose originally as a way of endorsing certain basic beliefs that are useful (i.e., species-
preserving) errors but that eventually "knowledge and the striving for the true finally
took their place as needs among the other needs" and "knowledge became a part of
life, a conrinually growing power, until finally knowledge and the ancient basic
errors struck against each other, both as life, both as power, borh in the same person
... after the drive to truth has proven irself to be life-preserving power, too" (GS
110). The problem with this argument is that it cannot account for rhe uncondi-
tional character of our will to truth, our conviction "that truth is more important
than anything else, than every other conviction"( GS 344). Thus, Nietzsche argues,
in book V of The Gay Science added five years later:

Precisely this conviction could never have originated if truth and untruth had constantly
made it c1car that they were both useful, as they arc. So, the faith in scicncc, which after
all undeniably exists, cannot owe its origin to such a calculus of utility; rather it must
have originated in spite of the fact that the disutility allll dangerousl1t:ss of "the will to
truth" or "truth at any price" is proved to it constantly. Consequently, "will to truth"
docs not mean "1 do not want to let mysclfbe deceived" but-there is no alternative-
"I will not deceive, not even myself"; and with that we stand on moral ground. (GS 344)

So, if Nietzsche is to give a satisfYing account of how we come to be characterized

by our faith in the unconditional value of truth, this will have to be integrated into
his aCCOUIH of the formation of Christian moraliry. Notice rhough that while it is
our faith in science rhat is to compel us to abandon our religious and, more impor-
randy, moral commitments and, hence, [0 recognize the necessity of are-evaluation
of values, appeal to our faith in science cannO( do all rhe work necessary since this
faith in science is itself an expression of the moraliry whose value Nierzsche is con-
cerned to call inro question. As Nietzsche acknowledges:

But you will have garhered what I am getting at, namely, that it is still a metaphysical
filith upon which our faith in science rests-that even we knowers of today, we godless
anti-metaphysicians, still take our fire, too, from the thousand-year old faith, rhe Chris-
tian faith which was also Plato's fuith, that God is truth; that truth is divine. (GS 344)"

With these remarks Nietzsche both situates his own philosophical activity within
the terms of rhe dearh of God and acknowledges thar if he is to demonstrate the
necessiry of a fe-evaluation of our moral values, this musr include a demonstration
of the need for a re-evaluation of the value of £ruth that appeals to nothing more
46 David Owen

than our existing motivational set in its stripped down form, that is, our will to
truth. If Nietzsche can provide such an account, he will have resolved one dimension
of the problem of authority that confronts his project since he will have demon-
strated that the necessity of the re-evaluation of Christian morality with respect to
its claim concerning the unconditioned character of its highest values is derived from
the central commitments of that morality itself. However, as Nietzsche acknowl-
edges (see GS 346), accomplishing this task does itself raise a further potential threat,
the threat of nihilism, which we can gloss in Dostoevsky's terms: God is dead, every-
thing is permitted. To avoid this threat, Nietzsche needs to provide an account of
how we can stand to ourselves as moral agents, as agents committed to, and bound
by, moral values that does not require recourse to a metaphysical perspective. This
issue is closely related to the third of the problems that Nietzsche identifies with
Daybreak.

IV

In his responses to both of the preceding problems that Nietzsche identifies with
his understanding of his project of re-evaluation in Daybreak, Nietzsche has been
compelled to recognize that the requirements of this project involve providing a
compelling accounr of how we have become subject to Christian morality as a
morality that both involves a particular ranking of values and claims an uncondi-
tional authority. In approaching the third problem that he identifies with D, namely,
the need for well-grounded naturalistic criteria for evaluating moral values, Nietz-
sche confronrs the other dimension of the problem of authority that bedevils his
project. We can put it this way: even if Nietzsche finds a way of demonstrating that
we should disavow the unconditional status claimed by Christian morality and,
hcnce, demonstrates that we cannot value Christian morality for the (metaphysical)
reasons that we have hitherto, this would not suffice to provide a criterion in terms
of which our valuing should be conducted. Moreover, Nietzsche comes to see that
this problem is connected to anothcr problem, namely, his inability to give an ade-
quare account in D of the morivation for, and success of, the re-evaluation of the
values of antiquity accomplished by Christianity. What connects this explanatoty
problem to Nietzsche's evaluative problem is that, at a general and abstract level,
Nietzsche's concern to translate man back into nature (see GS 110 and BGE 230)
enrails that his account of the motivation for a re-evaluation of Christian morality
must be continuous with his account of the motivation for the Christian re-evalua-
tion of the morality of anriquity. Both rhe re-evaluarion accomplished by Christian-
ity and the re-evaluation proposed by Nietzsche need, in other words, to be
explicable in terms of basic fearures of human beings as narural creatures in order to
exhibit rhe right kind of conrinuity. To the extent that Nietzsche has a candidate for
this role in D and the original edition of The Gay Science, it is self-preservation (see
GS 116). However, there is a problem with this candidate in that it doesn't obvi-
 Nietzsche, Re-evaluation, and the Turn to Genealogy 47

ously fit well with forms of human activity that risk or, indeed, aim at self-destruc-
tion on the part of individuals and communities (or, (0 pur the same point an{)(her
way, it doesn't seem well poised (0 account for forms of growth or expansion on the
parr of individuals or communities that are not directed (0 developing resources for
sclf-preservation}.10 While Nietzsche acknowledges that self-preservation can be a
powerful motive for action, this limitation led him (0 propose another candidate:
will to power. II
The doctrine of will (0 power is proposed by Nietzsche as an empirical hypothesis
concerning life:

Physiologists should think twice before positioning the drive for self-preservation as the
cardinal drive of an organic being. Above all, a living thing wants to discharge its
strcngth~life itself is will to power~: self-preservation is only one of the indirect and
most frequent comequences of this. (BGE 13, ct:also GS 349)

However, while Nietzsche argues that human beings are continuous with other
organic creatures in terms of being characterized by will to power, he also stresses
that the fact that human beings are characterized by self-consciousness entails that
they are distinct from other organic creatures in terms of the modality of will (0
power that they exhibit. The implication of the fact that human beings are self-
consciousness animals is that the fiefing ofpower that human beings enjoy as agents
need have no necessary connection (0 the degree ofpower that they express in their
agency. Nietzsche's point is this: because human beings are self-conscious creatures,
the feeling of power to which their agency gives rise is necessarily mediated by the
perspective in terms of which they understand themselves as agents and, crucially,
the moral evaluation and ranking of types of action expressed within [hat perspec-
tive-but if [his is the case, it follows that an expansion (or diminution) of the feel-
ing of power can be an effect of the perspective rather than of an actual increase (or
decrease) in the capacities of the agent. A clear illustration of this point is provided
in GS 353.

The true invention of the religion-founders is first to establish a certain way of life and
everyday customs that work as a disciplina l'OIl/mlltis while at the same time removing
boredom; and then to give just this life an interpretation that makes it appear illumi-
nated by the highest worth, so that llt:nceforth it becomes a good for which one fights
and under certain circumstances even gives one's life. Actually, the second invention is
the more important: the first, the way of life, was usually in place, though alongside
other ways of life and without any consciousness of its special worth. 12

Under such conditions of perspective-change, Nietzsche makes plain, the feeling of

power attendant on the exercise of one's capacities within a given way of life can be
wholly transformed without any change in one's actual capacities or their exercise.
Moreover, as Paul Patton points out: "If Nietzsche's conception of human being as
governed by the drive to enhance its feeling of power breaks the link to actual
48 David Owen

increase of power, then it also dissolves any necessary connection between the
human will to power and hostile forms of exercise of power over others" (Patton
200 I: 108). The feeling of power can be acquired through the domination of others
but it can equally be acquired through compassion toward others, through the disci-
plining of oneself, and the like, depending on the moral perspective in terms of
which agents experience their acriviry. The central point is that this principle pro-
vides Nietzsche with a general hypothesis in rerms of which to account for human
agency as governed by an architectonic inrerest in the feding of power. 13 The conri-
nuiry between the morivation for the Christian re-evaluation of the values of antiq-
uity and for Nietzsche's proposed re-evaluation of Christian values is, rhus, that both
are to be understood as expressions of will [0 power.
But what of criteria for evaluating moral perspectives? This issue also rurns on
Nietzsche's stress on the poinr that an increase in one's feeling of power need have
no necessary connection to an increase in one's powers of agency. The poinr tor
Nietzsche is whether our moral perspective is such that the enhancement of our
feeling of power expresses the development of our powers of agency. Thus, for exam-
ple, Nietzsche's use of the concept of degeneration in Beyond Good and Evil (which
foreshadows his discussion of decadence in the post-Genealogy works) suggests that
the feeling of power enjoyed by human beings who understand themselves in terms
of" the morality ofherd animals" that Nietzsche takes to be characteristic of modern
Europe expresses the diminution, rather than enhancement, of our powers of agency
(BGE 202-3).14 It is in rhis context thar we can grasp Nietzsche's point when he
comments:

You want, if possible (and no "if possible" is crazier) to abolish suffering. And us?-it
looks as though we would prefer it to be heightened and made even worse than it has
ever been! Well-being as you understand it-that is no goal; it looks to us like an
end!-a condition that immediately renders people ridiculous and despicable-that
makes their decline into something desirable! The discipline of suffering, of great suffer-
ing-don't you know that this discipline has been the sole cause of every enhancement
in humanity so far? (BGE 225, cf. BGE 202-3, TI "Skirmishes" 41)

Nietzsche's claim is that the desire to abolish suffering is insane just in virtue of the
fact that the development of our inrrinsic powers is conditional on being subject to
the constraints of a disci pline that necessarily involves suffering on our parr. 1S The
import of these remarks is to suggest that the criterion of evaluation is to be whether
the feeling of power expresses acrual powers of agency, where this criterion can be
taken to be well-grounded just insofar as the principle of will to power provides a
compelling explanation of human agency. This follows because if one accepts the
principle of will {() power as a principle of explanation, then one has accepted that
human beings are characterized by an architectonic interest in the self-reflexive expe-
rience of agency, and since it is a necessary condition of the self-reflexive experience
of agency that the feeling of power is taken to express actual powers of agency, then
 Nietzsche, Re-evaluation, and the TtIr1l to Genealogy 49

one must also accept that moral perspectives and the valuations of which they are
composed can be evaluated in terms of the proposed criterion (cf. BGE 19 on will-
ing). But the proposal of this criterion raises two further issues. The first concerns
the conditions under which the feeling of power expresses actual powers of agency.
The second relates to Nietzsche's perspectivism in respect of the conditional charac-
ter of the preceding argument.
Nietzsche's argument with respect to the first of these topics is to argue that the
feeling of power expresses actual powers of agency insofar as it is free, that is, charac-
terized by a certain kind of self-relation that he often glosses as becoming what you
are (e.g., GS 270) or, as he'll later put it in Twilight ofthe Idols, "Having the will to
be responsible to oneself" (TI"Skirmishes" 38). This argument relates to his reasons
for deploying the deliberatively provocative use of the notions of herd and herd-
morality in his depictions of his modern human beings and the Christian moral
inheritance that he takes to characterize them. The basic thought here is that there
are two necessary conditions of freedom.
The first is that we are entitled to regard our agency (our intentions, values,
beliefs, actions, etc.) as our own, ", where a condition of being entitled to regard our
agency as our own is that the intentions, beliefs, values, etc. that we express in acting
are self-determined. Nietzsche, in common with other advocates of an expressivist
understanding of agency for whom "Das Thun ist alles" (GM I: 13), 17 takes the rela-
tionship of an artist to his work as exemplifYing the appropriate kind of self-relation,
that is, (a) one in which one's actions are expressive of one's intentions where this
means that one's intention-in-acting is not prior to its expression but rather is real-
ized as such only in being adequately expressed (the work is his to the degree that it
adequately expresses his intentions and his intentions become choate as his inten-
tions only through their adequate expression)l" and (b) one's activity appeals to no
authority independent of, or external to, the norms that govern the practice in which
one is engaged. The case of the artist's relationship to his work is exemplary in virtue
of the fact that the artist's feeling of power is a direct function of his actual powers of
agency.l~ This is the background against which we can grasp the point of Nietzsche's
recourse to stressing the first person pronoun in talk of "my truths" (BGE 232) and
assertions such as "My judgment is my judgment, no one else is easily entitled to it"
(BGE 43). The second necessary condition is that we engage in critically distanced
reflection on our current self-understanding. Nietzsche's point is that freedom
demands "the ability to take one's virtues and oneself as objects of reflection, assess-
ment and possible transformation, so that one can determine who one is":

As Nietzsche pointed out "whoever reaches his ideal in doing so transcends it." To take
ourselves as pmemially free requires rhat we are not merely beaters of good qualities but
self-determining beings capable of distanced reflection. So £0 attain one's ideal is always
that and also to a[(ain a new standpoint, f£Om which one can look beyond it £0 how to
live one's life in the future." (Guay 2002: 315)
50 David Owen

It is just such a process that Nietzsche sought to give expression in "Schopenhauer

as Educator."2o Notice that the thought expressed here is analogous to the thought
that the artist in having completed a work that adequately expresses his intentions
can take that work as an object of critical reflection and assessment-and so move
on. In the light of this concept of freedom, we can see the point of Nietzsche's talk
of the herd as referring to (and seeking to provoke a certain self-contempt in) those
who tail to live up to the demands of freedom, and of his talk of herd-morality as a
form of morality that obstructs the realization of freedom by, on the one hand, cons-
truing agency in nonexpressive terms such that the feeling of power has no necessary
relationship to actual powers of agency-and, on the other hand, presenting moral
rules as unconditional (in virtue of their source in an extra-human authority) and,
hence, as beyond critical reflection and assessment. Herd-morality, to return to the
artistic analogy, is characterized by a relationship to one's work in which (a) one
treats "the medium through which its work is to be done as a mere vehicle for the
thought or feeling it is attempting to clarifY" (Ridley 1998b: 36), and (b) takes the
standards according (0 which a work is to be judged as external to the artistic tradi-
tion.21 The salience of this discussion for our consideration of Nietzsche's criterion
of evaluation is that the feeling of power expresses our powers of agency just insofar
as the moral values according to which we act are our own, are self-determined, that
is, are constraints that we reflectively endorse as conditions of our agencyY We
should note further that this account of freedom serves to provide Nietzsche with
rhe account needed to address Dostoevsky's worry about moral agency per se follow-
ing the death of God in that it makes the basis on which moral norms are consti-
tuted as binding.
Yet, and here we turn to the second issue, this may seem simply to move the
problem of authority back one step. Will to power (and the account of freedom that
goes along with it) is, it may be pointed out, simply part of Nietzsche's perspective;
the fact that the doctrine of will to power provides Nietzsche with a way of account-
ing for perspectives (including his own) and, indeed, for perspectivism does not
imply-incoherently-that it has a non perspectival stams, merely that it is an inte-
gral element in Nietzsche's efforts to develop a perspective that is maximally coher-
entY But if will (0 power is part of Nietzsche's perspective, a perspective oriented
to translating man back into nature, then what authority can it have for those who
do not share this perspective? To see how Nietzsche addresses this issue, we need to
sketch out his perspectivism in more detail than the hitherto rather fleeting refer-
ences to perspectives have done.
In common with a number of other contemporary commentators on Nietzsche's
perspectivism,24 I take this doctrine to offer "a deflationary view of the nature of
justification: there is no coherent notion of justification other than ratification in
the terms provided by one's perspective" (Reginster 2000: 40). A perspective as a
system of judgments denotes the space of reasons "which constitute an agent's delib-
erlltive viewpoint, i.e., the viewpoint from which he forms his all-things-considered
judgments about what to do" (Reginster, 2000: 43).2) In endorsing this stance,
 Nietzsche, Re-evaluation, and the Tum to Genealogy 51

Nietzsche thus confronts the very issue raised with respect to will to power in its
most acute form, namdy, how he can justify the authority of his perspective. What
Nietzsche needs here is a way of showing those committed to holding another per-
spective that they should endorse his perspective in the light of reasons internal to
their current perspective. Moreover, since (as we have seen) Nietzsche also holds that
reasons motivate only insofar as they appeal to values that are part of the motiva-
tional set of those to whom the reasons are addressed, then for his argument to be
effective, the reasons that he adduces must express values intrinsic to the perspective
currently held by those he is concerned to persuade. What Nietzsche needs, it seems,
is an argument with the following form: insofar as you are committed to perspective
A, then reasons x and y provide you with grounds to acknowledge the superiority of
perspective B in terms of value z, where z is an intrinsic (i.e., independently motiva-
ting) value in perspective A.26 But although an argument of this type looks sufficient
for the kind of internal criticism needed in that it provides independently motiva-
ting reasons to move from perspective A to perspective B, it is not sufficient for this
move to be reflectively stable. The problem is this: if it is the case that we are mmi-
vated to move from perspective A to perspective B in terms that appeal to value z,
then if value z is not an intrinsic value in perspective B, we find ourselves in the
position of reflectively endorsing perspective B on the basis of a value that is not an
intrinsic value within this perspective, that is, for reasons that do not count as the
appropriate (i.e., independently motivating) kind of reasons (if, indeed, they count
as reasons at all) within this perspective.n Consequently, if our reasons for endorsing
perspective B are to stand in the right kind of motivational relationship to both
perspective A and perspective B, the value to which these reasons appeal must be an
intrinsic value not only in perspective A but also perspective B. The implication of
these reflections is that Nietzsche's claims concerning perspectivism, will to power,
and freedom have authority for us only insofar as we are provided with reasons that
are authoritative tor us, given our existing perspective, and stand in the right kind
of motivational relationship to both our existing perspective and Nietzsche's per-
spective. If the project of re-evaluation is to be coherent, Nietzsche needs [0 supply
an argument that does this work.

CONCLUSION

Nietzsche's reflections on the problems with his initial view of the character and
requirements of the project of re-evaluation in Daybreak have led to very significant
extensions, developments, and refinements of his understanding of this project and
its demands. The principal demands that Nietzsche now takes this project [0 involve
are three. First, consequent to his development of the view of Christianity as a per-
spective expressing a taste for the unconditional, Nietzsche needs an account of how
we have become subject to this taste and held captive by this perspective. Second,
consequent to his development of the view of our will to truth as internal to the
52 David Owen

Christian perspective, Nietzsche needs an account of how the will to truth develops
that explains how it is possible for us to free ourselves from the grip of the Christian
perspective and the taste for the unconditional that it expresses and why we ought
to disavow this taste. Third, consequent ro his development of, and commitment
ro, the doctrines of will to power and of perspectivism, Nietzsche needs to develop
the account demanded by the first and second requirements such that it secures the
aurhority of Nietzsche's perspective in a reflectively stable manner. It is the necessiry
of meeting these demands that motivates Nietzsche's development of genealogy as a
mode of enquiry.
If this argument is cogent, it has significant implications for the current debate
concerning genealogy in that it provides a prima focie case for the claim that the
philosophical function of genealogy is oriented to providing, contra Leiter, a form
of internal criticism of our modern moral perspective that, contra Ridley, rests its
authoriry on an appeal to a value (i.e., truthfulness) that is an intrinsic value in both
our modern moral perspective and Nietzsche's perspective (rather than on flattery
and seduction). At the same time, it suggests that Geuss's contention that Nietz-
sche's target audience is Christian as opposed to simply persons who are committed
to Christian forms of valuing is mistaken, as is also Geuss's view that Nietzsche's
perspective is simply an expression of his own substantive moral values. It may, of
course, be the case, even if the reconstruction of Nietzsche's path to genealogy in
this essay is compelling, that Nietzsche's view developed further in the Genealogy
itself-bur rhis reconsrrucrion does ar the very least shift rhe onus onro the defenders
of views that are incompatible with the reasons reconstructed here to provide an
explanation of this incompatibility that is both textually and philosophically satis-
fYing.

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NOTES

*1 am grateful [0 Aaron Ridley and James Tully for their comments on earlier drafts of this
essay and, in particular, [0 Aaron, whose article (reprinted in this volume), "Nietzsche and
the Re-evaluation of Values," provided much of the spur [0 write this essay as well as some
of the conceptual resources needed for it. I also received some seemingly small bur actually
very helpful suggestions from the anonymous referees that have (I hope) improved its clarity
and made the conclusion punchier. lowe much thanks [0 my wife, Caroline Winrersgill, one
of whose perfections is the ability to work on improving my p[Ose style withour ever (quite)
succumbing [0 the condition of (rational) despair.
54 David Owen

1. Ridley argues that Nietzsche's authoriry "is built on that most peculiar form offianery,
the kind that makes welcome even the most unplcasam revelations about ourselves provided
that it also makes us fed more imeresting (to us and to him)." However it should be noted
that Ridley has since rejected this view and he (200S) offers a nuanced accoum of re-evalua-
tion that informs the argument of this essay and also provides a devastating critique of the
view of re-evaluation adopted in Leiter (2002).
2. For citations of Nietzsche's writings, I rely upon the following translations: Diethe's
GM; Hollingdale's A, D. HH. and UM; Latge's T1; Nauckhoff and Del Caro's GS; and Nor-
man's BGE.
3. See D 14 and 98 for remarks on innovation in general and D 70-2 for commems on
Chtistianiry as a successful innovation. whose success is due. not least. to the ways in which
it draws on and powerfully synthesizes a number of moral currems and beliefs already presem
within Jewish and Roman society.
4. The distinction berween extensional and intensional forms of suffering is borrowed
from Danto (1988) in which he characterizes intensional suffering as consisting in an imer-
prctation of extensional suHering and goes on to point out-using the example of male impo-
tcnce in our culture-that while one may be able to do relatively little about the extcnsional
suftcring to which those subject to impotence are exposed. it would undoubtedly rcduce the
overall suffering to which they are subject if sexual potency were not connected to powerful
cultural images of masculinity. See in this context D 77-8.
S. By the shadows of God. Nietzsche is referring to the metaphysical analogues of God
and. more generally. the deployment of our conct:ptual vocabulary as expressing metaphysical
commitments. nam.:!y. to a particular conception of the will. Sce GS 127.
6. Cf Wittgenstcin. On Certainty 105. As James Conam (1995) and Michael Tanner
(1994: 33-35) have independently observed, Nietzsche's argumem here bears a striking
resemblance to thc argument advanced by Elizabeth Anscombe (1981) in her essay "Modern
Moral Philosophy."
7. Hence, within the grip of this metaphysical perspective, as Nietzsche points out in
BGE 186. philosophers have understood theit task to be that of providing secure foundations
for morality. a task that" even constitutes a type of denial that these morals can be regarded
as a problem."
8. The meaning of the dcath of God will have become clear to us. on Nietzsche's
accoum. once we recognize that "there are no viable external sources of authoriry." as Guay
(2002: 311) points out. The same point is also made by Gemes (1992: 50).
9. It is a feature of the lengths to which Leiter is fotced in maintaining his claim that
gencalogy does not involve internal criticism rhat Leiter (2002: 175n7) argues that rhe value
of rrllth is not internal to Christian morality alrhough produced by it. This strikes me as a
very strained reading of thc rextual evidence here and in GM III. Leiter is motivated to main-
tain this view by his commitment to the claim that Nietzsche does nor want the majoriry to
change their views. only rhe exceptional individuals predisposed to [he values that Leiter takes
Nietzsche to be espousing.
10. The contrast between Nietzsche and Hobbes is an apposite one here that has been
illuminatingly explored by Pa{{on (2001).
11. It is worth noring that Nietzsche had been edging toward the idea of will to power
even when his official line focused on self-preservation. See. for example. D 23, 112 and 254.
and GS 13.
 Nietzsche, Re-evaluation, and the Turn to Genealogy 55

12. Note (ha( (his passage marks an imponam shif( from Daybreak in (ha( it allows Nietz-
sche to dis(inguish be(ween the origin of a custom or way of life and its meaning; (he impor-
rance of (his poilU is srressed in GM II: 12 with respecr to his genealogical projecl.
1.3. See Warren (1998) for a clear exposirion of rhis view. Norice (har (his doctrine does
nor imply rhar agems aim direcdy ar rhe feeling of power bur, rarher, rhar engagemem in
action directed at such-and-such ends produces the teeling of power to the extem that in so
acting the agem enjoys the self-reflexive experience of agency (i.e., efficacious willing) which,
in turn, leads agems to value fonn; of activity rhat suppon and enhance, and devalue forms
of acdvity (ha( undermine and diminish, their self-rell.exive experience of agency. This cons-
trual of the doctrine of will to power avoids, it seems to me, the worries expressed by Maude-
marie Clark concerning this docrrine without requiring that we adopt the rather implausible
view to which she comes, namely, that the docrrine of will to power should be read "as a
generalization and glorification of the will to power, the psychological emity (the drive or
desire for power)" (hrough which Nietzsche expresses his own "moral" values. See Clark
(J 990: 224) and chaprer 7 of her book more generally.
14. See Conway (1997) chapter 2 for a good discussion of decadence.
15. The centrali(y of discipline for Nietzsche is rightly stressed May (1999: 27-29). The
issue of consrraim with respect to giving style to one's character has been illuminatingly dis-
cussed by Ridley (1998: 136-42) while the relationship between freedom, constraim, and
fate in Nietzsche is taken up in Owen and Ridley (2003); see panicularly (he cri(ical discus-
sion of Leiter (1998) and (he defense of the position advocated by Schacht (1983, chaprer 5).
16. This poim is already stressed in "Schopcnhauer as Educator," and it remains a promi-
nem theme in Dilybreak, esp. D 104.
17. One can think here of rhe early Romantics, Hegel (on some readings), Collingwood,
WingclIStein, and Charles Taylor. It should be no(ed (hat rhis aspect of Nietzsche's (hough(
is closely relared to his inheritance, via the Romamics and Emerson, of Kam's reflecrions on
genius; for an illuminating discussion of this poim, see Conant (2001: 191-96).
18. Notice thar it is an implication of Nic(zsche's commitmem to this view that the judg-
meIH (hat such-and-such action adequa(e\y expresses my intention is only imelligible against
(he background of pracrices in which we give and exchange reasons. Whar is more, I do nor
stand in any privileged relation to the judgmem that such-and-such action adequately
expresses my imcntion.
19. In the ligh( of rhe preceding foomote we should note rhat while an artist's feeling of
power may be based on a misraken view of his ac(iviry, the publicity of his judgmem emails
rhat such a misraken feeling of his power cannot be reflectively sustained.
20. See Conam (2001) for a demonsrrarion of this claim.
21. This view aligns Nicrzsche's ralk of hcrd-moraliry to his processual perfectionism. See
Guay (2002) who calls this "meta-perfectionism" (0 stress rhe poim rhat rhere is no end poil\(
or telos as such (0 Nierzsche's perfecrionism and Conam (200 I) who suggcsrs rhar Nietzsche's
stance is akin (0 (he Emersonian perfectionism eiucidared in Cavell (1990). A strongly con-
(fasting view is forthrightly argued by Leiter (2002). However, it is wonh noting that nor
only had Nietzsche already criticized the elitist understanding of human excellence proposed
by Leirer in "Schopcnhauer as Educator" but also rhar Leiter's failure to address Nierzsche's
concept of freedom emails rhat he fails to recognize thar Nierzsche's remarks on herd-moraliry
are pertectly explicable ill terms that do not require rhe eiirist understanding of human excel-
lence to which Lcirer takes Nietzsche to be commined.
56 DtlVid Owen

22. Note "self-determined" does not mean "self-imposed": the constraints may be there
anyway. Rather self-determined means affirming these consrraims as conditions of one's
agency. In this respect, Nietzsche's concept of freedom is closely related to his concept of fate.
For a fuller discussion of this issue, see Owen and Ridley (2003) and, in particular, the
detailed critique of Leiter's (1998) argument concerning Nietzsche's understanding of human
types (an argumem that Leiter deploys to support his claims concerning Nietzsche's commit-
menr to the elitist view of human excellence).
23. For a powerfully developed alternative view in which perspectivism with respect to the
empirical world is seen as a product of a non perspectival metaphysics of will to power, see
Richardson (1996). For some skepticislll---Df the right kind-tow"ard Richardson's view, see
Rcginster (200 I).
24. Clark (1990) is the principal figure here bur other noteworrhy advocates of this view
include Daniel Conway, David Hoy, Brian Leiter, Bernard Reginster, Aaron Ridley, and
Richard Schacht among others.
25. Note that there are two ways in which we can take Nietzsche's assertion of perspectiv-
ism. On the one hand, we make take Nietzsche to be asserting a tautology. On the other
hand, we may take him to be asserting a position that risks a dilemma in which this assertion
is either a performative contradiction or a claim from Nietzsche's perspective. In comrast to
Reginster, I incline to the former of these views.
26. This is the position that I take Reginster (2000: 49-51) to argue for.
27. They might still be reasons if value z is an instrumental value in perspective B but they
would not be the right sort of reasons to play the reflectively stablilizing role that they are
called to play. Compare MacImyre (1977). Ir is one of the ironies of Macintyre's reading of
Nietzsche and, in particular, of genealogy (1990) that he fails to see how close Nietzsche's
way of dealing with the issue of aurhoriry is to the account sketched our in his own 1977
essay.
3
The Genealogy of Genealogy
Interpretation in Nietzsche's Second Untimely
Meditation and in On the Genealogy ofMorals *
Alexander Nehamas

In coming to terms with our past, Nietzsche writes, "The best we can do is ro con-
front our inherited and hereditary nature ... , combat our inborn heritage and
implant in ourselves a new habir, a new instiner, a second nature, so that our first
nature wirhers away. It is an anempt (0 give oneself, as it were a posteriori, a past in
which one would like (0 originate in opposition (0 that in which one did originate."l
But a contrary current in Nietzsche's thought is manifested by his going on to claim
that "here and there a vic(Ory is nonetheless achieved, and for the combatants, for
those who employ critical history for the sake of life, there is even a noreworrhy
consolarion: that of knowing that this first nature was once a second nature and that
every vic(Orious second nature will become a first" (HL 3).
This intriguing passage seems to cast doubt on the solidity of the distinction
between "firsr" and "second" nature. It suggests that there is no such thing as an
absolutely first nature, that everything seemingly fixed has been at some point intro-
duced into his(Ory and that the disrinction between first and second nature is at best
provisional-between a second nature that has been long accepted and one that is
still new. And this of course casts doubt on the idea of a second nature as well. What
Nietzsche here calls "critical" history begins (0 appear as the unearthing of an infi-
nite chain of second natures with no necessary first link.

* Excerpted from Literary Theory and Philosophy, edited by Richard Freadman and Lloyd Rein-
hardt (London: Macmillan, 1991),269-83. Reproduced with permission of Palgrave Mac-
millan.

57
58 Alexander Nehamas

Here, then, we have one of the elements our of which genealogy eventually
emerges. For genealogy is a process of interpretation that reveals that what has been
taken for granted is the product of specific historical conditions, an expression of a
particular and partial attitude toward the world, history, or a text that has been taken
as incontrovertible.
In On the Use and Disadvantage of History for Lift, Nietzsche also prefigures
another element of genealob'Y:

To what end the "world" exists, (0 what end "mankind" exists, ought nor (0 concern
us at all for the moment except as objects of humour: for the presumptuousness of th.:
litd.: human worm is the funni.:st thing at pr.:sent on the world's stage; on the other
hand, do ask yourself why you, the individual, exist, and if you can get no other answer
try tor once (0 justify your existence as it were a posteriori by setting b.:for.: you an aim,
a goal, a "to this end," an exalted and noble "to this end." Perish in pursuit of this and
only this-I know of no better aim in lite than that of perishing, animae magnae prodi-
gus, in pursuit of the great and the impossible. (HL 9)

Here as well two conflicting ideas are conjoined. If there is to be a purpose in life,
Nietzsche claims, it will have to be a purpose constructed by each particular individ-
ual and capable of redeeming the life that was lived, and perhaps lost, for its sake.
Bur such a purpose can never be fully achieved, insofar as it aims to effect a real
change in the world-hence Nietzsche's description of it as "impossible."
It is our of these two sets of conflicts, I would now like to suggest, that Nietzsche
eventually develops the view of interpn:tation and of our relationship to our past
that characterizes On the Genealogy ofMorals. The step most crucial to this develop-
ment was his coming to give up the view that the causal description of objects and
events in the world corresponds to their true nature. He therefore no longer had to
believe that interpretation or reinterpretation, which cannot really affect such causal
sequences, cannot possibly change the events in question and thus introduce some-
thing genuinely new into the universe. If the causal description of the world is not
a description of its real nature, if in fact there is no such thing as the world's real
nature, then reinterpretation need not be, as Nietzsche had believed when he com-
posed his earlier works, falsification.
The Genealogy contains a sustained effort on Nietzsche's parr to show that moral-
ity is a subject fit tor interpretation, that we can ask of it, as we usually put the point,
"What does it mean?" This is in fact the very question Nietzsche asks of the asceti-
cism, the denial of the common pleasures, that has been traditionally associated with
philosophy. Traditionally, the fact that philosophers have tended toward asceticism
has been considered natural. Nietzsche, instead, sees it as a question. "What does
that mean?" he asks, and continues: "For this fact has to be interpreted: in itselfit
just stands there, stuipid to all eternity, like every 'thing in itself'" (GM III:7).
The great accomplishment of GM is rhe demonstration that morality in general
and asccricism in particular are indeed subjects of interpretation, that they can be
added to our interprerative universe. Now, how is ir, in general, (hat we can show
 17Je Genealogy ofGenealogy 59

that something can in fact be interpreted? In the first instance, we can only show it
by actually offering an interpretation. That is, in order to establish a new subject of
interpretation, we must produce an actual interpretation of that subject: we must in
fact establish it as such a subject by means, moreover, of an interpretation that makes
some sort of claim to the attention of others.
Nietzsche, I believe, offers such an interpretation of morality. The first and per-
haps the most important feature of that interpretation is that, as Nietzsche empha-
sizes throughout this work, motality itself is an interpretation to begin with. And
this establishes at least a partial connection between genealogy and the discussion of
history in the second Untimely Meditation: morality, that is, something that we have
considered so far as absolutely basic, solid, foundational, is shown to be a particular
reaction to a preexisting set of phenomena; a first nature, as it were, is shown to be
a second nature whose status has been concealed.
The notion that morality is an interpretation is absolutely central to Nietzsche.
"There are altogether no moral faces," he writes, for example, in Twilight o/the Idols;
"morality is merely an interpretation of certain phenomena-more precisely, a mis-
interpretation" (TI"Improvers" O. Where others had previously seen merely a nat-
ural development of namral human needs, desires, and relationships, where others
had "taken the value of [moral] values as given, as factual, as beyond question" (GM
P:6), Nietzsche saw instead what he described as a system of signs. Such a system,
naturally, like all systems of signs, remains incomprehensible until we know what its
signs are signs of and signs for. In order, then, to show that morality can be interpre-
ted, Nietzsche actually interprets it; and his interpretation involves a demonstration
that morality itself is an interpretation to begin with.
We have just seen that Nietzsche considers that morality is a misinterpretation.
He is therefore obliged to offer an alternative account of the phenomena morality
has misconstrued, or (as he would prefer to put it), has construed in a manner that
suits it. This account depends crucially on his view that one of rhe most important
features of the moral interpretation of phenomena is the fact that its status as an
interpretation has been consistently concealed:

Morality in Europe today is herd animal morality~in other words, as we understand

it, merely one type of human morality beside which, before which, and after which
many other types, above all higher moralities, are, or ought to be, possible. But this
morality resists such a "possibility," such an "ought," with all its power: it says stub-
bornly and inexorably, "I am morality itself and nothing besides is morality." (BGE
202)

Let us then suppose (a considerable supposition!) that morality is an interpreta-

tion. What is it an inrerpretation of? Nietzsche's general answer is that it is an inter-
pretation of the phenomenon to which he reters as "human suffering." His own
artitude toward this phenomenon is very complex. In one mood, he debunks it. He
attributes it not to a divine cause (as, we shall see, he claims that morality does), not
60 Alexander Nehamas

even to anything serious but to the lowest and crudest physiological causes. Such a
cause, he writes,

may perhaps lie in some disease of the nervus sympathicus, or in an excessive secretion
of bile, or in a deficiency in potassium sulfate and phosphate in the blood, or in an
obstruction in the abdomen which impedes the blood circulation, or in degeneration of
the ovaries and the like. ((;M III: 15)

For years, I have considered this as one of those horribly embarrassing passages that
Nietzsche's readers inevitably have co pur up with in defensive silence. Then I real-
ized that Nietzsche was actually making a joke, that he was reducing one of the
"highest" expressions of being human--our capacity for suffering-to one of the
"lowest." And, having seen the passage as a joke, I realized that it was after all serious
or, at least, that it was a complex joke with a point co make. For the list of ailments
Nietzsche produces is not haphazard. A disease of the (nonexistent) nervus sympathi-
CltS could well be supposed to be the physiological analogue of the excess, even of

the existence, of pity-the sentiment that is the central target of the Genealogy,
which takes "the problem of the value of pity and the morality of pity" (GM P:6)
ro be its originating concern. "Excessive secretion of bile," of course, traditionally
has been associated with malice and envy, which are precisely the feelings those to
whom the Genealogy refers to as "the weak" have always had for those who are
"strong," while weakness and, in general, lassitude and the inability to act are in fact
a direct effect of potassium deficiency. Impediments to the circulation of the blood
are correlated with the coldness, ill will, and lack of sexual potency Nietzsche associ-
ates with the ascetic priests, and such impotence, along with infertility whose spiri-
tual analogue would be the absence of any creativity, may well be the physiologicall
moral correlate of ovarian degeneration (whatever that is).
In another mood, Nietzsche attributes the suffering (0 which we are all inescap-
ably subject co necessary social arrangements:

I regard the bad conscience [this is one of his terms for referring to suffering] as the
serious illness that human beings were bound to contract under the stress of the most
fundamental change they ever experienced-that change which occurred when they
found themselves finally enclosed within the walls of society and of peace .... All
instincts that do not dischatge themselves outwardly turn inward-this is what I call
the internalization of human beings: thus it was that we first developed what was later
called our" soul." (GM II: 16)

It is very importam to note at this point that Nietzsche, though he offers in this
work an interpretation of morality according to which morality is an interpretation
of suffering, never characterizes his own accounts of suffering as themselves interpre-
tations. Only the moral approach co suffering, bur none of the explanations he
otfers, is an interpretation:
 The Genealogy of Genealogy 61

Human beings, the bravest of animals and those most accustomed to suffering, do not
repudiate suffering as such; they desire it, they ",ven set'k it out, provid",d they ar", shown
a meaning for it, a purpose of suffering. The meaninglessness of suffering, IlOt suffering
irselt~ was rhe curse that layover mankind so far-and the ascetic ideal otTered them
meaning.... In it, suftering was interpreted. (GM IIl:28)

What is it, then, that makes the moral account of suffering, but not Nietzsche's own,
an inrerpretation? My own answer, in general terms, is the following. According to
Nietzsche, the ascetic priests take the fact of suffering, the existence of the bad con-
science which he considers as "a piece of animal psychology, no more," and claim
that it is prompted by, perhaps equivalent to, a sense of guilt produced by sin. "Sin,"
Nietzsche writes, "is the priestly name for the animal's 'bad conscience' (cruelty
directed backward)." Convinced by the priests to see their suffering in such terms,
Nietzsche continues, human beings

receive a him, they receive from their sorcerer, the ascetic priest, the first him as the
"cause" of their suffering: they must seek it in themselves, in some guilt, in a piece of
the past, they must understand their suffering as a punishment. (GM III:20)

Nietzsche's introduction of the idea of "a piece of the past" here is crucial for our
purposes. For it is connected with the search for a meaning that is thought to inhere
in history-in our own history in this case-and which is there to be discovered by
us if we go about it in the right way. This piece of the past, according to Nietzsche,
is nothing other than our inevitable engagement in acts and immersion in desires all
of which-sensual, ambitious, self-serving, egoistic-arc, as he believes, characteris-
tically human and which, therefore, we cannot possibly avoid.
Yet morality, interpreting such desires and actions as sinful, enjoins us to distance
ourselves hom them as much as is humanly possible. Its effect is twofold. In the first
instance, it offers suffering a meaning-it is God's punishment for the fact that we
are (there is no other word for it) human. Morality therefore makes suffering, to the
extenr that it accounts for it, tolerable. In the second instance, however, and in the
very same process, it "brings fresh suffering with it, deeper, more inward, more poi-
sonous, more life-destructive suffering" (GM 1II:28).
This, in turn, is brought about in two ways. First, because the forbidden desires,
impulses, and actions can be fought against only by the same son of desires,
impulses, and actions, we can cunail our cruelty toward ourselves only by acting
cruelly toward ourselves. The effort to cunail them, therefore, secures their own
perpetuation: it guarantees that suffering will continue. Second, because if this sort
of behavior is, as Nietzsche believes, essentially human, then the effon to avoid it
and nor to give expression to the (equally essential) impulses on which it depends
perpetuates the suffering caused by any obstacle to the tendency of instinct to be
"directed outward." In a classic case of the double bind, the moral approach to suf-
fering, in its interpretation of it as sin, creates more suffering the more successfully
it fights it and the more tolerable it makes it.
62 Alexander Nehamas

Now the reason why morality is for Nietzsche an interpretation of suffering is

that it gives suffering a meaning and a reason ("reasons relieve") and accounts for
its persistence by means of arrributing it (0 some agent. "Every sufferer," Nietzsche
claims,

instinctively seeks a cause for his suffering; more exactly, an agent, stillmore specifically,
a guilty agent who is susceptible [0 suffering-in short, some living thing upon which
one can, on some pretext or other, vent his affects, actually or in effigy.

SufTering is taken as the result of someone's actions. Whose actions? Here is the
answer (0 this question:
"I suffer: someone must be (0 blame for it"-thus thinks every sickly sheep. But
the shepherd, the ascetic priest, replies: "Quite so, my sheep! Someone must be (0
blame for it: but you yourself are this someone, you alone are (0 blame for it-you
alone are to blame for yourself!" (GM III: 15).
This moral accounr of suffering, in contrast (0 Nietzsche's explanations, is an
interpretation, I now want (0 claim, because it appeals to intentional vocabulary,
because it conS(fues suffering as the product or result of someone's actions-in this
case, of the actions of the sufferers themselves and of God's-because it says, in
etTecr, "What you feel is as it is because of who you are and of what you have done."
In my opinion, what is essential (0 interpretation is (0 construe a particular phe-
nomenon as an acrion and thus (0 attribute to it some agent whose features account
for the features of that acrion. 2 And if I am right in claiming that the connection
between interpretation and intenrion is essenrial, then Nietzsche's account of human
suffering-at least what we have seen of it so far-is not interpretative. The reason
is that Nietzsche is careful (0 avoid the description of suffering as a general phenom-
enon in intentional terms. We have seen that, in general, he attributes it to physio-
logical or social causes and that he believes that, at least in one sense of that term,
sufTering is meaningless. There is no reason, no agenr, no purpose, no "For the sake
of what?" in it.
This allows me to rerum (0 my discussion of HL. For it may be tempting to
suppose that just as in that earlier work Nietzsche believed that in reality history is
meaningless, so in the Genealogy he believes that suffering is meaningless and that
this is a brute fact with which we shall simply have to live from now on. This is
acrually the view of Arthur C. Danto, who has argued that the main point of the
GM is the idea that "sufTering really is meaningless, there is no point (0 it, and the
amount of suffering caused by giving it a meaning chills the blood to contemplate."
Danro continues:

The final aphorism of the Genealogy, "man would rather will the nothing than not will,"
does not so much hcroize mankind, after all: what it does is restate the instinct of ressen-
timent: man would rather his suffering be meaningful, hence would rather will meaning
onto it, than acquiesce in the meaninglessness of it. It goes against this instinct [0 believe
 The Genealogy of Genealogy 63

what is essentially the most liberating thought imaginable, that life is wirhout meaning.
In a way, rhe deep afllicrion from which he seeks to relieve us is whar today we rhink
of as hermeneutics: rhe merhod of interpreration primarily of suffering. 3

This is in many ways a wonderful interpretation. The meaning it attributes to the

Genealogy, that exemplary book of interpretation, is that there is no meaning any-
where for anyone. Danto's interpretation of Nietzsche's interpretation of the moral
inrerpretation of suffering says, in effect, "Stop interpreting immediately; don't even
begin." But since, of course, Danto's view is an interpretation, it does just what it
says we shouldn't do, and thus instantiates, in a manner Nietzsche would have been
only too happy to acknowledge, the execution of the impossible task it proscribes.
In addition, by attributing ro Nietzsche the view that only the unimerpreted (or
unexamined) life is worth living for a human being, it establishes him in yet another
dimension as Socrates' antipodes. The trouble, however, is that ultimately this inrer-
pretation will not stand.
I agree with Danto that Nietzsche believes that suffering has no meaning-it has,
after all, only causes, social or physiological. But this is a view to the eHect that no
one has already given suffering a meaning, a point (say, as punishment for sin) which
is the same for everyone and there for us to discover and live with. In itself, suffering
has no meaning-in itself, as we have seen in connection with every thing in itself,
it just stands there, stupid to all eternity. Bur the consequence that follows from this
is not necessarily the idea that since in reality there is no meaning, we should give
up the goal of trying to create meaning altogether. This would be the view of The
Birth of Tragedy and of the second Untimely Meditation minus Nietzsche's insistence
that we should still try to accomplish something with our lives despite the knowl-
edge that nothing is thereby accomplished. It would be to hold the metaphysics of
those works without the aesthetic justification of life they demand.
But what separates these works from the Genealogy is Nietzsche's realization that
the fact that suffering or history is meaningless in itself does not force the conclusion
that any attempt to give it a meaning would necessarily falsify it. Instead, it implies
that in themselves both suffering and history are irrelevant to us. And this is precisely
what allows the conclusion that if one were to succeed in making something out of
one's own suHering or one's own history (and, on my reading, Nietzsche oHers him-
self as his favorite example4), then the suffering that that individual life, like every
life, is bound to have contained will also thereby have acquired a meaning.
This meaning will be its contribution to the whole of which it will have then
become a parr-and this is true, in my opinion, not only of life but of all meaning,
particularly of the meaning of texts. In this way, if a life has had a point, if it has
made a diftCrence, if it has changed something, then everything in it, everything that
happens or has happened to the person whose life it is becomes significant. It
becomes part of a work whose author is the person in question and, as we should
have expected, it becomes something we can describe in intentional terms. It
becomes something for which one is willing, "a posteriori," to accept responsibility,
64 Alexander Nehamas

something that one in a very serious sense of the term is. This idea, that even events
in our past can in (his manner become (hings we did and therefore things we are,
becomes explicit in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, where it is applied specifically to suffer-
ing and punishment:

"No deed can be annihilated: how could ir be undone by punishment? This, this is
what is eternal in the punishment called existence, that existence must eternally become
deed and guilt again. Unless the will should at last redeem itself and willing should
become not willing." [This is the aim of asceticism.] But my brothers, you know this
fable of madness.
I led you away from this madness when I taught you, "The will is a creator." All "It
was" is a fragment, a riddle, a dreadful accident [it is meaningless]-until the creative
will says to it: "But thus I willed it." Until the creative will says to it, "But thus I will
it; thus I shall will it." (Z:1I "On Redemption")

This passage shows that Nietzsche cannot possibly be the enemy of hermeneutics
Damo describes. He is, however, a relentless enemy of the view that the significance
of the events in a life, of the components of history, of the parts of a text, is given
to them antecedently, that it inheres in them, and that it is therefore the same for
everyone. If, indeed, we want to find out what anything means to everyone, the
answer is bound (0 be "nothing," and the interence we may be tempted to draw
from it will be that nothing is meaningful in itself, or in reality, and that all meaning
is therdore illusory. This is not unlike Nietzsche's early view. In the late works,
when he no longer believes in anything in itself, when history is all there is, he comes
to believe that what the events in each life mean differs according to what, if any-
thing, one makes of one's life. This, in turn, can be seen to be connected with his
turn away from the effort directly to influence the culture of his time. 5 Whereas the
second Untimely Meditation seems ro envisage that all the "young" have the ability
(0 accomplish something great and different, the later works start from the observa-

tion that most people are not at all capable of anything remotely like this. Since,
then, most people do nO[ succeed in making a difference, the events in most people's
lives turn out nO[ to mean very much at all-in which case, people might as well
believe that they are a punishment: Christianity is not ro be abolished, and a new
culture is no longer called fof. It is difficult enough to organize "the chaos one is"
for oneself
The crucial difference, then, between Nietzsche's early and late works on the
question of our relationship to our past and of its interpretation is that in the Geneal-
ogy Nietzsche does nO[ believe that the establishment of meaning must falsifY history
or the text. There is no order of events in themselves which do, or do not, have a
significance of their own. Only what is incorporated into a specific whole has a
meaning, and its meaning is nO[hing other than its contribution to that whole. How
the value of that whole is (0 be in turn established is a question as difficult to answer
as it is independent of the view of interpretation put forward here.
 The Genealogy of Genealogy 65

NOTES

I. Ed. note--Translations of Nietzsche are drawn from Hollingdale's HL; Kaufmann and
Hollingdale's GM; and Kaufmann's BGE and Z.
2. I have made an argumem for this claim in my essay, "Writer, Text, Work, Author," in
Literature and the Question ofPhilosophy, ed. Anthony J. Cascardi (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
University Press, 1987),267-91.
3. Arthur C. Danto, "Some Remarks on The Genealogy ofMorals," International Studies in
Philosophy 18 (1986): 13.
4. This is the central thesis of my Nietzsche: Lifo as Literature (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 1985).
5. An interesting connection berween Nietzsche's and Franz Overbeck's attitude toward
this issue is established in Lionel Gossman's "Anrimodernism in Nineteenth-Century BasIc,"
Interpretation 16 (1989): 359-89.
4
Nietzsche's Style of Affirmation
The Metaphors of Genealogy*

Eric Blondel

Nietzsche strives at turning language out of itself, so to speak, at making it point

and return to its origin or source: the reality of life and particularly the body. This
double movement or trend accounts for his strategy of an indirect, metaphorical
affirmation of the body, in opposition to its denial (e.g., as in Christian morality)
and to its direct, intuitive extralinguistic affirmation (which can be no philosophical
affirmation, but a mere exrradiscursive, aClivist position or disposition). Why does
Nietzsche take this impossible dilemmatic course?
Contrary [0 most of his great predecessors in philosophy, such as Descartes, Spi-
noza, or Kant, Nietzsche is extremely sensible of, not to say sensitive to polysemia,
to the interpretative profundiry, to the rich and creative enigma of reality, and espe-
cially of life and existence. In that sense (and this distinguishes him from Kierke-
gaard's insistence on the irreducibility of existence to the general concept),
Nietzsche's philosophy is that of a philologist, that is, of someone who tends to con-
sider reality as a text (that is to say not as a thing which can be intuitively or concep-
tually seen as it is, but as a set of rich, ambiguous, and even mysterious signs that
can only be interpreted, deciphered, and construed, almost as an enigma), and who
therefore never ceases to read more and more in texts. Reality, for him, means always
more (and sometimes less), and otherwise than it seems: in this respect, Prince Ham-
let is one of the symbolic names to which Nietzsche appeals. But at the same time,
Nietzsche's philosophy is the philosophy of a "misologist" (to use Plato's famous

'Excerpted from Nietzsche as Affinnative Thinker, edited by Y. Yovel (The Hague: Maninus
Nijhoff Publishers, 1986), 136-46. Excerpt reprimed with permission of Springer.

67
68 Eric Blonde!

phrase in its original and derived sense: opposition (0 reason and (0 philology), of
someone who tries (0 let appear the depth and profundity of what exists outside the
texts, and thence (0 relate text and language to their hidden origin, (0 their repressed
alter ego, to their outside, in short: who strives to relate and refer language to its
body as its deeply hidden reality.l Here we can find the sense together with the
specific dilemma of genealogy as an effort to manifest, through the language, in the
language, that which the language, being as such metaphysical, tends to hide and
deny, and to let the body appear or loom out, whereas the body (taken as an origin
of meaning, and of course not as the plain physical, material object) manifests itself
only by signs. 2 This is what Nietzsche has in mind when he says that we ought not
(0 take morality at its face value, "word for word," for what it expressly says (wiir-

tlich), and describes it on the contrary as a "Semiotik," a "Zeichenrede," a "Symptom-

atologie" that "reveals the most valuable realities of cultures and inner beings who
knew (00 linle about themselves."3
Here it should be pointed out that, in saying this, Nietzsche cuts himself off from
two opposite assertions, from which two types of possible affirmation could have
been derived: (1) that language can be or express direcrly and fully the reality (e.g.,
of the body): it is only a set of signs (against idealism of language and of philologists,
who tend to see language and texts as realities in themselves); and (2) that the body,
or ultimately reality, can be intuitively seen, directly looked into, known as it is,
without the medium of signs and language (against dogmatic realism}.4
In order to illustrate the double and self-contradictory task of genealogy as a kind
of philology and physiology, Nietzsche uses three series or sets of very coherent and
self-sufficient metaphors:> (1) reading (philology); (2) hearing; and (3) smelling.
They aim at showing how an immaterial set of signs (words, texts, sounds, smells)
brings out and betrays the hidden, indirect, or distant presence of a material origin.
That is the way in which Nietzsche's metaphorics of genealogy tend toward what I
would call an indirect reftrential insistence.

SOME MAIN ASPECTS OF

THESE METAPHORICAL SETS
Reading (Philology)6
Nietzsche presents himself very often as a philologist (from WPh to BGE 22, for
instance) and it is as such that he describes himself as a genealogist or, to use another
term commonly used by him as an equivalent, as a psychologist and Rattenfonger
(T1 P; BGE 295). This self-description must be taken literally. It first means that
Nietzsche, as a philologist, rums his genealogical object, culture (morality, meta-
physics, Christianity, science) into a text, or sees it as a text that he has to read,
decipher, construe, and handle critically. Second, the text of decadent culture
appears to him in this respect as a defective one, as a text full of absurdities, contra-
dictions, misunderstandings, and wrong construings (Witiersinn, Missverstiindnis), a
 Nietzsche's Style ofAjjinnation 69

text that interprets realiry falsely or denies it by inventing a host of fictitious notions
(falsche (jbersetzung, Mangel an Philologie, etc.). Thus Christianity invents (erfindet)
beings that do not exist (A 15); translates reality into a false, incorrect, religious
language (A 26); is a false interpretation of reality and texts, even of the Bible itself
(D 84, A 52). This is not only obvious from the philological terms that Nietzsche
uses to discard these interpretations and denials of reality through a false language,
but also in his constant use of quotation marks (Giinsefosschen) whenever he quotes
critically or has to make use himself (in another meaning) of any piece of the moral,
metaphysical, or religious vocabulary: "soul," "self," "spirit," "God," "Christian,"
"remorse," "free will," "sin," "nature," "world," "eternal life," "Last Judgment,"
and so on, and even, what is still more interesting, "truth," "being," "cause and
effect," "will," and so on (see for instance A 15, 16, 52, and everywhere in the
posthumous papers and Wp). On the contrary, Nietzsche claims that one should
distinguish the real text from its interpretations and respect the rules of "philology,"
that is, of "honesty" (Rechtschaffinheit). He therefore presellls himself as a good
reader and philologist of texts and of reality (as text), and, what is more, as a good
translator, not only of reality but of the incorrect moral texts into their right terms
(cf. BGE 230 and the very common phrases such as "As I would say," "in my own
language," "aufDeutsch," and the like).? It is along this line that Nietzsche practices
or reformulates genealogy as an etymologist (see GM I, and especially his explicit
linguistic and etymological question in the final remark at the end of the first Essay)
and refers it to interpretation and grand style.
Now it appears that, if Nietzsche's philology implies a formal aspect as regards his
criticism of the "moral" language, it also, and perhaps primarily, has a reftrential
intemion, insofar as it tries to display, in the language and the text, precisely that
which refers to their physiological origin (style: see BGE 246, 247; EH "Books," esp.
4; TI "Ancients") or to their history (etymology, history of language, translation:
GM I), that is to say, generally speaking, to their "outside." Thus it is literally true
that "in my writings a psychologist speaks" (EH "Books" 5). In that respect, geneal-
ogy should be in the first place a kind of stylistics, according to the following princi-
ples of style: "The important thing is life: style ought to live. Style must prove that
one believes in one's thoughts, and nor merely thinks his thoughts but Jeels them"
(KSA \0:1 [109].1 and 7).

Reading-Listening"
That the style of a text reveals something of the body and instincts appears more
clearly from the metaphors that Nietzsche links with philology. Reading, according
to Nietzsche, should not be understood as simply understanding thoughts and
meanings, but also as hearing the physical and physiological conditions in which a
number of sentences are written, articulated, and spoken out (see again BGE 246,
247). In the preface of Twilight ofthe Idols, Nietzsche refers to his philosophy as an
auscultation and sounding (Aushorchen), and talks about his "wicked ear" (boses
70 Eric Blondel

Ohr). I want to stress in the firsr place that this substitution of the sense of hearing
for the sense of sight is perfectly consistent with the image of twilight in the title,
which suggests the fading our of Truth and Being as light in the philosophical tradi-
tion (Plato's Cave, the light of the world in the Gospel, Descartes's description of
God at the end of the Third Meditation) and the correlative disparagement of
knowledge described as vision (eidos, evidence, theoria, intuition are all terms that
relate to the sense of sight and imply lighr [Godl as their cause). What does Nierz-
sche do instead? Since night has come, his genealogical method cannot rely on the
sense of sight, but musr have recourse to the sense of hearing.
But what is rhe result of this new rype of method? Provided one "has a second
pair of ears,"9 one can guess the nature or rhe condition of the body that resounds,
and "hear that famous hollow sound which betrays something of flatulent bowels"
(TI P). In that case, the philologist is therefore an acoustician, a musicologist as well
as a physiologist. Whereas most metaphysicians arc deaf (TI "Skirmishes" 26), the
genealogist, like Nietzsche, is musical, for he perceives what is unheard (Unerhiirtes)
or almost inaudible for common ears, even "events which creep on with dove feet"
(Z; see also GM 1:14 and BGE 10), even the meaning of "silent events" and the
imperceptible difference between the affirmative "fa" and the donkey's submissive
"I-A," between "gerecht" (just) and "geriicht" (avenged) (Z).
This also implies that the philologist-genealogist is a phonologisr and physicist: a
sound is a sensation produced in the ears by the vibrations of air caused by the
movements of a living or inanimate body; it is uttered by a chest, a tongue, a throat,
lips, or sent out by any object that is hit or set in movement. Any sound therefore
reveals the qualiry, nature, and physical condition of that which sends it out: what
we call its tempo (a frequent word in Nietzsche's texts) and its ring (Klangfarbe)
betrays the physical state of its origin: bronze, wood, steel, stone, and the like; hol-
low or full, ill or sound, solid or cracked, and so on.
Last, this set of metaphors accounts for the real function of the "philosophizing
with the hammer": the latter is but seldom and secondarily a sledge-hammer or any
such instrument used to destroy or break (and sculpt), bur a "music" instrument, a
Stimmhammer (tuning hammer), compared with a Stimmgabel (tuning-fork), a
piano hammer, a medical sounding-hammer (for percussion of the body), or a met-
allurgic instrument (test hammer or jeweller's hammer). It should help the genealo-
gist to "oblige [0 talk out that which precisely wishes to remain quiet" (TI P).IO
Through sound, the body as a physical being is affirmed by Nietzsche.

Smelling"
But if we now turn [0 the set of metaphors of smelling, which Nietzsche fre-
quently uses to describe the method of genealogy, we find that they not only intend
to insist on the relation of rhe symptom to a hidden or disrant body (as can be the
case for both sound and smell, bur remarkably not for sight, which is again instruc-
tive), but this time also poim out the physiological nature of rhe living body (Leib as
 Nietzsche's Style ofAffinnation 71

opposed ro the general Korper). "lch hore und rieche es," I hear and smell it (Z III
"On Apostates" 2): hearing and smelling means ro guess something of the living
body, although it is not exposed ro the sight, although it is hidden, distant, obscure,
and deep-unconscious. The genealogist, like the psychoanalyst (as Freud explicitly
says) should have a fine sense of smell (or nosing out: Witterung): "What fine instru-
ments of observation we have with our senses! The nose, for instance, which no
philosopher ever spoke of with respect and gratirude, is even, in the meantime, the
most delicate instrument we dispose of: it is able to ascertain infinitesimal differences
of movemcnt which the spectroscope itself is not even sensitive to" (TI "Reason"
3).
Just a few examples here: we may call to mind Nietzsche's insistence on the bad
smell of churches and of the New Testament (GM III:22; TI "Improvers" 3), on the
Stttbenrauch of Christian life (A 52), on the confined, sickly, and stinking atmo-
sphere of the idealistic "den" (GM 1:14)-and, on the contrary, Nietzsche's desire
and longing for fresh air, windy places (the mistral), pure air of the high icy moun-
tains where ideals are "deep-frozen" (EH P 3 and EH "Books" HH 1).
This valuation of the sense of smell should remind us that genealogy is in the final
account anti-idealistic, medical, and "medicynical," that even in the "pure" would-
be disincarnatc ideal, we can smell out the carcfully hidden traces of a diseased body,
or traces simply of blood, breath, bowels, and maner of a living and sensible body. 12
The otorhinological, so to speak, genealogy in Nietzsche is thus a derivation from
philology to physiology and indicates a rcferential insistence, an indirect affirmation
of the body. Hence the question asked by Nietzsche in Ecce Homo: "Why philologist
and not rather medical docror?"13 takes its real and full meaning. Since the body
cannot be a simply somatic, mechanical, physical thing, distinct from the "soul"
(psyche), as in the dualistic view, but a "psychosomatic" whole (grosse Vemunji), what
is indeed that body that Nietzsche thus affirms indirectly, negatively, when he genea-
logically points at its transcriptions in the text of ideals?

THE METAPHORICAL AFFIRMATION OF THE BODY

Unexpectedly, though in fact explicably, Nietzsche gives no positive and conceprual

physiological doctrine of the body as a counterpart ro his genealogical criticism of
idealism and as a foundation for his genealogy leading indirectly to an ontological
affirmation. Nictzsche affirms the body, he holds that the body is the reality of ide-
als: but how is it so, and what is it, what is thus affirmed, which could play the role,
either of Being (eidos, substance, hypokeimenon, subject, self, will, God, and so
forth), or at least of a transcendental constitutive point of will to power, and thus
replace, in Nietzsche's thought, the dead "God" (whether it were essential or sub-
stantial Being or any kind of ego cogito, ich denke, and the like)?
To put it briefly: it looks as if Nietzsche left us at a loss in this respect, for he
eventually leads us not to a definition and description of the body, but to the ulti-
72 Eric Blondel

mate notion of inrerpretation, in the sense that (1) the body in the end is an inter-
pretative constellation (naturally as far as meaning and knowledge of "being" is
concerned, the body as an "object" to which genealogy refers, as its "Leitfoden");
and (2) interpretation itself is not otherwise described than through metaphors of
the body.
I will just sketch here how Nietzsche has recourse to anorher set of metaphors in
order to describe the body (Leib).

Digestion
What is the body? Since Nietzsche views it as an inseparably psychic and somatic
whole, he describes it in terms of drives (Triebe), which unceasingly try to increase
their own power and to absorb or digest each other. This first range of digestive
metaphors is very common and constanr in Nietzsche's texts, from, namely, Day-
break 109 and 119 down to On the Genealogy ofMorals II: 114 and the posthumous
papers unril 1888: Assimilation, Einverleibllng, Erniihrung, hineinnehmen, Verriallen,
firtig werden, Dlirchfollen, Appetit, hinunterschlucken (EH "Books"; CW 1). There
are hundreds of passages in the texts where Nietzsche describes the mutual relations
of the Triebe in the "body" (as Selbst, as a grosse Vernunft) in terms of nutrition,
swallowing, digestion, elimination, rejection-a set of metaphors that is extended to
the whole kingdom of life and to culture as a struggle for domination between
forces. The sense of this is that power tends to reduce plurality and diversity to
sameness and unity (assimilation as ad simile reductio).

Politics
But how does this assimilation proceed? As before, we can see that another set of
metaphors relays the former in order to inrerpret it (what I call a process of concate-
nation-transference). We ought to pay attention to this mode of interpretative expla-
nation of the description, since it warns us that Nietzsche is quite conscious of giving
no descriptively explanatory definition, but seems to imply that the body can only
be described in terms of interpretative metaphors, that is, only interpreted "Ausleg-
ung, nicht Erklarung," interpretation, not explanation.l5 In the present case, the
rdaying set of metaphors is politics, which tends to show how and according to
which rules the drives fight, absorb, and reject each other. One of the most typical
texts in this respect is to be found in 599 of volume 13 in the Kroner edition (KSA
11: 37[4]), in which Nietzsche compares the conscious self with the stomach and
describes the "body" as a plurality of "Bewusstein" (consciousness) to be compared
with a political society: a reigning collectivity, an aristocracy, where the conscious
selves in rum obey and command, elect a dictator, constitute a regency council, and
so on. The "body" is a stomach, which could be in its turn compared with a political
collectiviry: how is the self to make one will from a plurality of voices, in a body that
Nietzsche elsewhere describes as "a herd and shepherd"?
 Nietzsche's Style ofAfJil7l1atioll 73

Philology

But this metaphorical description needs again to be interpreted. How do the

selves choose, elect, command over each other? "Every one of these voluntary actions
implies, so to speak, the e1ectiOll of a dictator. But that which offers this choice to
our intellect, which has previously simplified, equalized, interpreted (ausgelegt) these
experiences, is not that very intellect [ ... ]. This choice [is] a way of abstracting and
grouping, a translation (Zuriickiibersetzurtg) of a will" (ibid.). 16 We have therefore but
signs of the body as a kind of text that we see on the conscious level as arranged,
simplified, falsified, translated, abbreviated: in short, interpreted. The body "is" a
world of signs--or at least we can only see it as such, because commanding is "a
way to take possession of facts by signs," to "abbreviate," to "master by means of
signs" (ibid.). Commanding (and what else do the wills to power inside the body
do?) is interpreting: therefore, the body, as will to power, a stomach, a fighting-place
"is" that which interprets signs.
Here we find ourselves eventually brought back to our initial philology metaphor.
This means first that the body cannot be strictly defined in rerms of explanation, of
mechanism, or as any sort of substance (and we have seen that Freud has to deal
with the same problem when he cries to define and describe the unconscious-a
notion very closely akin to Nietzsche's conception of the body as mostly uncon-
scious and instinctive "great reason").
In the second place, it should be emphasized that this antisubstantialist descrip-
tion precludes any temptation to biologize Nietzsche, as was often done in early
interpretations of his thought.
Now, without entering further into the difficult questions implied by my second
remark ([2] above), saying that interpreration is never explicitly defined by Nietz-
sche, bur only "described" again by metaphors (and so, in a circular way, interpret-
ing is like digesting-the famous "ruminating"-like fighting, choosing,
simplifYing, multiplying, and so on), I would just like to state a few points about
the initial question of affirmation. I?
(I) Nietzsche affirms indirectly insofar as he reveals the will to power of the body
as the hidden principle of the ideals (genealogy) and refuses its denial in idealistic
culture (morality, religion, metaphysics).
(2) But, first, what does Nietzsche affirm? Not the body as an assignable and
definable essence, or being, but as the cemral (?), fundamental (?), and anyway plural
location of interpretation. No ego cogito-rather a cogitatur, as Nietzsche suggests in
a fragmenc (Krilner, XIV, 7, see WP 484)-no originally synthetic unity of apper-
ception, but a multiple center of interpretation of reality, a reality that, however,
cannot be taken hold of and apprehended as a substance, but only through it, and
perhaps is pardy made up by the body. Nietzsche thus is displacing the affirmation.
Second, how does he affirm? Since the body is, as a multiple center, essentially
hidden, distant (hearing and smell), this "great reason," this interpretative realiry
cannot be explained but by signs, that is, metaphorically, in a displaced way. In that
74 Eric Blonde!

sense, Nietzsche is a displaced (and displacing) thinker, a thinker of signs, and not
of a real "Being" that could be in the end unified, totalized, and equalized. Now, at
this point, the question may be asked whether this is not a failure on his parr: to
which it might be also an~wered that this kind of failure is the condition sine qua
non of his non metaphysical affirmation and taking into account of the body and,
through it, of a richer affirmation of Being, of the metaphorical power of life than
had ever been the case in the rationalist tradition of metaphysicians, "those albinos
of concept," as he calls them. Or, in other words, Nietzsche's final lesson might be
that thought has to fail, in a certain way, when confronting life and the body (which
is also, though differently, Kierkegaard's and Freud's lesson, if one takes their mis-
trust toward philosophy and metaphysics into account).
But Nietzsche's own original metaphoric way is also instructive as such, philo-
sophically speaking-for he never gives up philosophy. Between the negation of the
real body in idealism and the realistic affirmation of Being (Will, Body ... )18 leading
to an eventually entropic activism, Nietzsche seems ro affirm that, for us, what
should be affirmed can be neither a substanrial Being (ro be ultimately known), nor
sheer nothingness, but, taking the word in its literal sense, "Selbstiiberwindung," an
overcoming of idenrity and sameness (selbst), an interpretative meta-phor (transfer-
ence), a dis-placement (Ubertragung) of Being opening on inro a world of signs.
Nietzsche writes: "'Truth' is therefore not something there, that might be found or
discovered-but something that must be created and that gives a name to a process,
or rather (0 a will (0 overcome that has in itself no end-introducing truth as a
procesSlls in infinitum, an active determining-not a becoming-conscious of some-
thing that is in itself firm and determined. It is a word for the 'will to power.' "I~
"Truth" (and "Being") therefore differ from themselves: whereas, in Hegel, Time
was that which made Being and Truth unequal ro their own substance, I would
suggest that, in Nietzsche's conception, it is the sign, that is, signification, interpreta-
tion. Reality, for Nietzsche, is not, it signifies (itself). So, God is dead, but Nietzsche
believes in signification: only it is lost and even wasted in the empty space, since
God is missing: "There are far more languages than one thinks; and man betrays
himself far more often than he would wish roo Everything speaks [Alles redet]! But
very few are those who can listen, so that man, as it were, pours his confessions out
inro the empty space; he lavishes his own 'truths' as the sun lavishes its light. Isn't
it a pity that the empty space has no ears?"20 Ambiguity, obscurity, but also richness
and infinite plurality of signs therefore replace the stability and transparenr unity of
Being. Hence: "Interpretation, not explanation. There is no state of things, every-
thing is fluenr, incomprehensible, receding. What is most durable in the end: our
opinions. To project sense inro things (Sinn-hineinlegen)-in most cases a new inrer-
pretation thrown over an old one that has become uninrelligible, that is itself now
only a sign" (KSA 12:2[82]).
Such a kind of "Truth" and of "Being," as we suspected from the beginning,
cannot properly be affirmed, that is to say "solidified," "made firm," considered as
a "firm" object (ad-jirmare), that is, seen, handled, and finally grabbed. To a "text,"
 Nietzsche's Style ofAjjinnation 75

to an interprctation, to a world of signs that is continually "in the making," one can
only, as Nictzsche puts i{ quite precisely and coherently, "say 'yes' ": "Ja sagen."

NOTES

Editor's Note: Blondel's references have been modified to follow the style of the volume, and
his references to KGWhave been converted to KSA.

I. The same problem occurs in psychoanalysis as an attempt to fill in the gap between
the unconscious Trieb (originating in the body, properly rhe libido in irs Latin psychophysio-
logical meaning) and the conscious language of the patient talking out his psychic representa-
tions. To put it in a short formula: how should one relate the conscious Liebe to the
unconscious libido? Similarly, [0 use a fashionable phrase (which designates but does nor
explain), Nietzsche's genealogy (or "psychology") originares in a "psychosomatic" philoso-
phy~or how [0 know somerhing of the Unknown.
2. As a philosopher, Nietzsche seems to consider rhar there is nothing to say about the
"real" existence of the body in itself, apart from language. It apparently can only be felt or
lived, and manifests irself in the blank spaces separating Nietzsche's aphorisms.
3. 11"Improvers" I. Ed.~AlI the quorations of Nietzsche in English are Blondel's trans-
lation, unless orherwise srated.
4. I rried [0 develop this ar more length in my These de doctorat: Nietzsche, Ie corps et fa
culture, and suggesred rhat this double opposition could be described analogically as a kind
of Copernican philological revolution (rhe body is in itself, but can be only known as speech~
Erscheinung), which relares Nierzsche both [0 Schopenhauer's realism (will to life as body)
and to Kant's transcendentalism (philologically reinterpreted).
5. Since I cannot give here a sufficient number of examples, I must insist that this coher-
ence should rest on a number of samples from Nietzsche's rexts, and not only, as is ofren the
case, on the extrapolation from such and such an isolated passage by the unbridled phantasies
of the reader himself. or on the misconstruing of German idiomatic phrases into specific and
original Nietzschcan metaphors. See Richard Roos, "Regles pour une leccure philologique de
Nietzsche," in Nietzsche aujord' hui? (Paris: Union generale d'edition "10/18," 1973), vol. II.
6. for further detail, see my "Les guillemets de Nietzsche," in Nietzsche aujourd' hui?
7. See also: "My task is to translate the apparently emancipated and denacured moral
values back into their nacure~i.e., in[O rheir natural 'immoraliry'" (WI> 229; Kaufmann
rrans.).
8. I dealr with these rhemes more ar lengrh in my "Gotzen aushorchen," in Perspektiven
der Philosophie 7 (I981) (repr. in Nietzsche Kontrovers, l, Wiirzburg: Konigshausen & Neu-
mann, 1981), which is mainly a derailed commentary upon the metaphors ro be found in rhe
pref;1Ce of 'no See also my translation and commentary of the same book, Crept/scule des idoles
(Paris: Harier, 1983).
9. "OiJren hinter den Ohren," or "a rhird ear," as Nietzsche writes in BGE 246, and as
psychoanalyst Theodor Reik nor surprisingly emirled his book: Listening with the Third Ear
(New York: Grove Press, 1948).
10. This conception of (he idols is reminiscent of rhe biblical dcscriprion of the idols as
"dumb." Ir has been remarked that Luther's rranslation of the Bible insisrs more parricularly
76 Eric Blondel

upon the acoustic and olfactive images than on the visual ones (L. Febvre). The same applies
to Nietzsche, a regular Bible reader.
II. More about this range of images is in my These de docrorat, Nietzsche, Ie corps et la
culture (Paris: PUF, 1986). [Ed.-Published in English as Nietzsche: The Body and Culture,
translated by Sean Hand (Berkeley, CA: Stanford University Press, 1991.]
12. Gaston Bachelard, who beamifully analyzed these melaphors of air in Nietzsche's
works, does not relate them to their genealogical, bodily origin (L itir et les Songes [Paris:
Librarie Jose Corti, 1943], chap. V). Nonetheless, he rightly stresses the metaphorical unity
of Nietzsche's thought "as a poet," in a true antidualistic insight.
13. EH "Clever" 2. See particularly the details Nietzsche gives in this latter book, chap. 2,
about his regime and his numerous "medicynical" remarks: most of them refer to a smelling
body: "All prejudices arise from the bowels," "German spirit arises from disturbed bowels,
and the like. Incidentally, he writcs there that all places fit for geniuses have a remarkably dty
air, and quotes some famous towns: he is right about Jerusalem, not about Paris!
14. Many of these images are in fact borrowed from Schopenhauer, World as Will and
Representation, Supplements to Book 1, chap. 14, in fine.
15. KSA 12: 2[82], 2[78], 2[86]; see also WP 492. This should be compared with the
similar problem of the "description" of the unconscious by Freud: we eventually can have
nothing more than a metaphorical insight, that is, an interpretation of it (or else, would it be
unconscious?). Freud has recourse to the metaphors of hydraulics, of war, of a boiler and,
once, of the ... stomach (New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis, chap. IV). [Ed.-In
Blondel's second reference (2[78]), the text reads "Ausdeurung, nicht Erklarung." "Ausleg-
ung, nicht Erklarung" also appears in a list of prospective chapter titles at 12:5[50].]
16. We can find the same interpretative concatcnation of metaphors in WP 492 (KSA
11 :40[21 D.
17 . .fa.-This essay was originally published in a collection of conference proceedings on
"Nietzsche and the Mfirmarive."
18. As for instance in Schopenhauer's thought.
19. WP 552, Kaufmann trans. (KSA 12:9[91].65) Notice here the quotation marks!
20. Kroner Grossoktavausgabe, XIII, 363. Ed.-Cf. KSA 10:18[34].
5
Nietzsche and the Re-evaluation ofValues*
Aaron Ridley

Toward the end of his effective life, Nietzsche repeatedly claimed that what was
really needed was a "re-evaluation of values."1 In the preface to the Genealogy, he
describes this as a "new demand: we need a critique of [existing] values"; "the value
of these values must . .. be called into question";2 and in the foreword to Twilight of
the Idols, he identifies The Anti-Christ as the first of a projected four-volume set to
be called "The Re-evaluation of All Values"-a project that he never completed,
and may indeed have abandoned, given that The Anti-Christ, itself originally to have
been subtitled "The Re-evaluarion of All Values," was published in the evenr with
the more succinct byline "A Curse on Chrisrianity." But it would be a mistake ro
think that Nietzsche never got round to his re-evaluation project, since, in one way
or another, and as many commentators have observed, all of his published works are
plausibly ro be understood as contriburions to it. So what is it to re-evaluate values?
And what might Nietzsche's practice of re-evaluation have to tell us about the value
of our existing values?

THE AUTHORITY PROBLEM

The second of these questions has often been answered in the following way. The
fe-evaluation of values, it is said, can only be underraken from some evaluative
standpoint or other; in order to be authoritative, that standpoint itself must be

'This chapter was edited by the author after its original publication in Proceedings ofthe Aris-
totelian Society 105 (2005), 171-91. Reprinted by courtesy of the Editor of the Aristotelian
Society, copyright 2005.

77
78 Aaron Ridley

somehow immune to re-evaluation (or at any rate to devaluation); Nietzsche, how-

ever, gives us no reason to think that his own evaluative standpoint is immune (0
re-evaluation in the relevant way; therefore the only thing that Nietzsche's re-evalua-
tion can tell us about the value of our existing values is how they look from the
perspective of his own preferred values, values whose superiority he merely asserts,
rather than defends or demonstrates. Therefore, if we are comfortable with our exist-
ing values, and with our existing evaluations of them, there can be nothing in what
Nietzsche says to cause us much anxiety; for at bottom, the answer concludes, we
might just disagree with him abom which evaluative standpoint is best. Nietzsche's
evaluative standpoint, and [he re-evaluation that he undertakes from it, need have
no authority for us. This response, or objection, deserves to be treated seriously, I
think; and, in ttying to say what I take Nietzsche's re-evaluation of values to be, I
shall be trying, imer alia, (0 assess the strength of that objeerion, and (0 assess Nietz-
sche's resources for dealing with it.

TYPES OF VALUE

First, though, some preliminary remarks about Nietzsche's conception of value. He

rejects as incoherent the notion of unconditional value, a notion to which he thinks
philosophers have been unduly attached (e.g., BGE 2). A value, V, is unconditional,
in Nietzsche's sense, if (1) the value of V is not conditional upon any other value;
(2) the value of V is not conditional upon any contingent matter of fact; (3) the
value of V is not relational-its value is, as it is sometimes put, "absolute"; (4) V
has the value it has necessarily: it is valuable "in itself"; and (5) V cannot be defeated
by any other value. To describe something as unconditionally valuable, then, is (0
say that it is valuable no matter what; that its value in this world is wholly indepen-
dent of any other values or of any faer or facts that are or might be peculiar to this
world; that it is valuable, and valuable absolutely, whatever else is or might be the case.
It is this conception of value that Nietzsche rejects as incoherent-and with some
reason. I won't review his arguments here, but will simply note that, according to
the conception of value that he rejects, any V that is unconditionally valuable would
be valuable even in a world in which all valuing beings were united in their denial
of, or in their obliviousness to, the value of V, and indeed in a world in which there
were no valuing beings at all. I take it that the claim that such a conception is inco-
herent is at least plausible. Two further points should be made. First, if no values are
unconditionally valuable, no values are immune to re-evaluation-and that includes
Nietzsche's own values, from the standpoim of which his own efforts at re-evalua-
tion are undertaken. This sharpens the question about the amhority of Nietzsche's
project that I mentioned a momem ago. And second, the fact that all values are in
some sense only conditionally valuable doesn't by itself mean that no values are or
can be objectively valuable, in a perfecdy straightforward sense of "objectively."3
 Nietzsche and the Re-evaluation of Values 79

The notion of objectivity does not depend for its sense, that is, on the notion of
unconditionality. Nietzsche accepts, and indeed emphasizes, both of these points.
How, then, does Nietzsche understand the (conditional) value of values? The
answer is that he understands it in either of two ways: as instrumentally valuable or
as intrinsically valuable. 4 Something has direct imtrumental value, I shall say, if its
value resides chiefly in its being a means toward some kind of (valuable) end. So,
for example, from an act utilitarian perspective, my keeping some particular promise
is instrumenrally valuable if, and only if, it directly increases utility. Something has
indirect instrumental value, by contrast, if its value resides chiefly in its promoting or
making more likely the realization of some kind of (valuable) end, even though it
does not function direcdy as a means to that end. So, for instance, from a rule utili-
tarian perspective, the keeping of promises in general may be instrumentally valuable
if it tends to promote utility, even if some particular instances of promise-keeping
do not promote it, and even if no instance of promise-keeping is undertaken with
the end of utility in mind. Instrumental value, whether direct or indirect, is thus
conditional upon the fact of ends that are themselves valuable. Such ends are treated
by Nietzsche as intrinsically valuable, where something has intrimic value if, given
what else is the case, its value does not reside chiefly in its being a means or an
enabling factor toward some further kind of (valuable) end. Intrinsic value is thus
conditional upon facts-natural, social, practical, or cultural-that are or might be
peculiar to particular ways of living, as well as (often) upon the relations of the value
in question to the other values having a place in some particular way of life.' The
point call also be put like this. A value is inrrinsicaJly valuable with respect to a given
way of living if, other things being equal, it can, by itself, motivate: so, for example,
if the fact that such and such a course of action is an instance of promise-keeping is
reason enough by itself for someone to perform it, that shows that promise-keeping
is intrinsically valuable with respect to that person's way of life. 6 It should be noted
that nothing in this conception of inrrinsic value entails that an inrrinsic value can
never, under any circumstances, be trumped by another value: in principle, any
inrrinsic value is capable of being trumped (depending on what other things are,
and aren't, equal). It is, however, this conception of the inrrinsically valuable that,
from a perspective deep within some particular way of living, may be, and often is,
according to Nietzsche, mistaken for the unconditionally valuable (e.g., BGE 186).
The facts and other values upon which an intrinsic value is conditional are so famil-
iar, so taken for granred, as to have become invisible, and as they fade from sight so
the conditionality of the inrrinsic becomes invisible too.

A DEVELOPMENT IN NIETZSCHE'S THOUGHT

The earlier Nietzsche reassigns the value of morality as a whole from the intrinsic to
the instrumental, and construes the end that it promotes in terms of survival (e.g.,
HH 40). When he deals with the individual values constitutive of morality, more-
80 Aaron Ridley

over, he rends (0 side explicitly wirh rhinkers such as La Rochefoucauld, whose claim
rhat the "vinues" are just nice-sounding names thar we give (0 the effects of our
passions, so that we can "do what we wish with impunity," he cites approvingly
(HAH 36). At this stage in his thinking, then, Nietzsche's re-evaluations essentially
consist in unmasking a value said to be intrinsic as really directly instrumental and
in characterizing the end to which it is a means in some highly unflattering, and
usually reductively egoistic, way. The earlier Nietzsche was thus committed to the
view that there are no genuinely moral motivations at all, and that the apparently
intrinsic values upon which people say that they act, or believe themselves to act, are
in fact only instrumentally valuable for bringing about certain kinds of self-centered
ends, those ends being the only real candidates for intrinsic value in play.
By the time of writing Daybreak, however, he had arrived at a considerably subtler
and more interesting position. He now accepts that "moral judgments" may be
"motives for action," but claims that, where they are the motives, "it is errors which,
as the basis of all moral judgment, impel men (0 their moral actions" (D 103).7 This
is a subtler and more interesting position for several reasons; bur the chief one for
present purposes is that, in allowing for the reality of moral motivations, it also
allows that, with respect ro a given way of living, moral values may, genuinely, be
intrinsic values, and not merely instrumental ones in disguise. And this means that
the project of re-evaluation itself becomes subtler and more interesting, as the
emphasis shifts from anempts (0 re-evaluate, as instrumental, values masquerading
as intrinsic, to attempts to re-evaluate inrrinsic values as, indeed, imrinsic. And the
upshot of that process, as the same section from D makes clear, may not be any sort
of debunking at all. Nietzsche puts it like this:

It goes without saying that I do not deny-unless I am a fool-that many actions called
immoral ought to be avoided and resisted, or that many called moral ought [0 be done
and encouraged-but I think that one should be encouraged and the other avoided for
other reasons than hitherto. We have to learn to think differentl~in order at last, perhaps
very late on, to attain even more: to feel differently. (D 108)

Here, then, Nietzsche presems the project of re-evaluation as a critique of the struc-
ture of reasons immanent to a given way of living, a structure thar the values intrin-
sic with respect to that way of living hold in place. And that, evidently enough, is a
very different project from La Rochefoucauld's.

THE RE-EVALUATION OF INTRINSIC VALUES

So what might a re-evaluarion of intrinsic values (as inrrinsic) involve? One essential
prerequisite, clearly enough, is the adoption of a degree of distance from rhe way of
living whose values are under scrutiny. And the degree at issue may vary between
cases. So, for instance, for certain kinds of re-evaluation, the values drawn upon in
 Nietzsche and the Re-evaluation 0/ Values 81

the re-evaluation may be imernal ro the same way of living as the value under scru-
tiny: in which case, while it is certainly true that a degree of reflective distance is
essential, there is no need to treat the value under scrutiny as anything other than
intrinsic, purely and simply. In other cases, where the values drawn upon in the re-
evaluation are not, or may not be, incernal to the same way of living as the value
under scrutiny, a longer reflective step back may be required, perhaps ro a perspec-
tive from which the value under scrutiny can be acknowledged as intrinsically valu-
able to a given way of living, but can at the same time be evaluated for its effoets, for
its indirectly instrumental tendencies, in terms that mayor may not be internal to
the way of living in question. With this in mind, I think that there are at least five
ways in which one might attempt to pursue the project of re-evaluating intrinsic
values (as intrinsic); and of these, at least four can be discerned in Nietzsche's writ-
ings. The five ways can be summarized as follows:

1. Showing that V, although an intrinsic value, is indirectly instrumental in real-

izing ends said to be bad, although not ends that could be acknowledged as
"bad" from the standpoint of the relevant way of living.
2. Showing that V, although an intrinsic value, is indirectly instrumental in real-
izing a good end from the standpoint of the relevant way of living.
3. Showing that V is indeed an intrinsic value for a given way of living, but not
one held in place by the reasons or other values that arc usually supposed.
4. Showing that V is indeed an intrinsic value, but is held in place by reasons or
other values that, from the standpoint of the relevant way of living, are bad.
5. Showing that V, although an intrinsic value, or a set of intrinsic values, is
indirectly instrumental in realizing ends that can, in principle, be grasped as
bad from the standpoim of the relevam way of living.

It may seem as if a sixth permutation is missing, namely, showing that V is indeed

an intrinsic value, but is held in place by reasons and other values that are bad,
although not by reasons and values that could be acknowledged as "bad" from the
standpoint of the relevant way of living. This permutation, however, although for-
mally distinct from the first kind of re-evaluation, is always likely in practice to col-
laps.: into it, since the badness of the r.:asons and mher values holding V in place is
largely going to show up via a critique of the effeets of those reasons and values play-
ing the role that they do in the context of some particular way of living. Given
which, therefore, this form of re-evaluation slides into the re-evaluation of an intrin-
sic value as indirectly instrumental in realizing ends that, from a perspective excluded
by the way of living in question, are said to be bad, that is, into l.~

THE FIRST FORM OF RE-EVALUATION

The first form of re-evaluation is rather radical in iment, and is also the one with
which Nietzsche is, I think, most usually identified. Brian Leiter, for example,
82 Aaron Ridley

regards re-evaluation of this form as the "core" of Nietzsche's critique of traditional

morality: "What unifies Nietzsche's seemingly disparate critical remarks," he says,
"-about altruism, happiness, pity, equality, Kantian respect for persons, utilitarian-
ism, etc.-is that he thinks a culture in which such norms prevail as morality will
be a culture which eliminates the conditions for the realization of human excel-
lence," where "human excellence or human greatness" is what has "intrinsic value
for Nietzsche."~ From this poinr of view, Nietzsche's style of re-evaluation consists
in showing that a value such as, for instance, altruism, although perhaps an intrinsic
value from the standpoinr of traditional morality, is indirectly instrumental in sup-
pressing higher types of human being (or of suppressing "ascending" or "healthier"
types of life), and is therefore, from Nietzsche's own evaluative standpoint, a bad
thing; whereas from the standpoint of traditional morality, on the other hand, with
its emphasis on values such as equality, such an outcome can only be regarded as
welcome. (Leiter sometimes speaks as if traditional morality in fact aims at the sup-
pression of higher types-as if, in other words, its values were directly instrumental
in bringing about that end, a claim that he describes as Nietzsche's "Calliclean-
ism."JO But this claim, if it reflects Nietzsche's view at all, does so--at most--only
when he is describing the inception of the values of traditional morality (e.g., GM
I: 14); it altogether bypasses his recognition in Daybreak, noted above, of the reality
of moral motivations once those values have become cuI rurally established. I I
To attribute this form of re-evaluation to Nietzsche is to raise, in a very acute
way, the authority problem that I menrioned at the outser. From the perspective of
traditional morality itself, after all, it is hardly much of an objection to a given value
that it indirectly inhibits the emergence of types who, from that perspective, are a
bad thing, however much Nietzsche might insist that the types so inhibited are
higher and healthier. Indeed, from the traditional perspective, this form of re-evalua-
fion-if it isn't just discounted outright-is altogether more likely to look like an
inadvertenr demonstration that a certain kind of fringe benefit anends the intrinsic
values apparently under anack-to look, in other words, like an accidental version
of 2. There is no common ground here, and, without it, the whole re-evaluation
project threatens to collapse into a mere series of disagreemenrs about preferences.
Leiter recognizes this problem, and seeks to address it by limiting Nietzsche's proper
audience "to those who share Nietzsche's evaluative taste, those for whom no justi-
fication would be required: those who are simply 'made for it,' who are 'predisposed
and predestined' for Nietzsche's insigllts."12 The point of Nietzsche's re-evaluation,
then, is simply to "alert 'higher' types to the fact that" traditional morality "is not,
in fact, conducive to their flourishing," so that they can wean themselves away from
its values and realize their potential for human excellence. U The authority problem
is thus removed by restricting Nietzsche's audience to those for whom his re-evalua-
tions do have authority.
This strikes me as a somewhat desperate tactic. It is also a tactic that collapses, at
once, in the light of what Leiter goes on to say next, about the temperarure of some
of Nietzsche's rhetoric: "Given, then, that Nietzsche's target is a certain sort of mis-
 Nietzsche and the Re-evaluation of Valuer 83

undersranding on the part of higher men, and given the difficulty of supplanting the
norms that figure in this misunderstanding (the norms of morality [in the pejorative
sense)), it should be unsurprising that Nietzsche writes with passion and force: he
must shake higher types out of their intuitive commitment to the moral traditions of
two millennia!"14-which rather indicates that the members of Nietzsche's "proper"
audience arc nor "predisposed" to accept the authority of his evaluative standpoint
after all. The fact is that, even on Leiter's reading, Nietzsche needs somehow to reach
inside traditional morality, and to address those who, whether through some sort of
misunderstanding or not, are intuitively committed to its values; and this is hardly
likely to be achieved by merely insisting, against those intuitions, that the values in
question are indirectly instrumental in realizing ends said (by Nietzsche) to be bad,
however heatedly he says it. The authority problem is thus reinstated, with all of its
original force.
If it were true, as Leiter claims, that this form of re-evaluation is the "core" of
Niet7_~che's critique of traditional morality, then the outlook for that critique would
be rather gloomy, it seems to me. But Leiter's claim is false: whether or not Nietz-
sche ever does engage in the first form of re-evaluation, it is certainly not the main
plank of his approach, and it is certainly not the key to understanding Nietzsche's
critical project as a whole. The re-evaluation of intrinsic values, as Nietzsche prac-
tices it, is a considerably subtler affair than Leiter acknowledges, and it revolves
chiefly around the remaining four forms of re-evaluation (items 2-5 in the list
above), deployed in a continually shifting range of combinations. The fact that
Nietzsche hardly ever engages in only one form of re-evaluation at a time does make
illustration tricky; but the following examples should be enough to indicate the
kinds of distinctions that I have tried to sketch out.

THE SECOND FORM OF RE-EVALUATION

The second form of re-evaluation is, in one way, the mildest and least critique-like
of them all, since its main point is, in effect, to bolster the value of a value that is
intrinsic anyway. But the results of such a re-evaluation can still be surprising. The
clearest instance of it, perhaps, is from the Genealogy, where Nietzsche argues that
the ideal of the ascetic priest-which "treats life as a wrong road, ... as a mistake"
and produces "creatures filled with a profound disgust at themselves, at the earth, at
all life"-is nonetheless a great preserver of life itself: indeed, as he puts it, "it must
be ... in the interest o/Iift itselfthat such a self-contradictory type does not die out"
(GM III: II). Nietzsche's diagnosis of this apparent contradiction is, briefly, that the
ascetic ideal, in making sense of all suffering as punishment for guilt, thereby pre-
vents the meaninglessness of suffering from functioning "as the principal argument
against existence" (GA1 II: 7). In effect, that is, existence is rendered tolerable-
meaningful-precisely on the condition of the son of self-loathing (as guilty, sinful,
and the like) that the ideal produces. From the perspective of this morality, then,
84 Aaron Ridley

self-loathing is intrinsically valuable; but it is also indirectly instrumental in preserv-

ing the way of living for which it is intrinsically valuable; and since, from the per-
spective of that way of living, a life of self-loathing is the only kind of life of any
value at all, that indirect eHect is itself of value from that perspective. This form of
re-evaluation, then, reinforces the value of an intrinsic value for a particular way of
living by drawing attention to the fringe benefits that having that value has-
benefits that are graspable as such from the perspective of that way of life. A contem-
porary example of this kind of re-evaluation might be found in a nonreducrive
version of evolutionary ethics-in an account that held that the regarding of such-
and-such as an intrinsic value (by us, say) has, or has had, the indirectly instrumental
effect of making the survival of the species more likely, a result, or fringe benefit,
that we ourselves might welcome or think was a good thing.

THE THIRD FORM OF RE-EVALUATION

Nietzsche's comments about justice, in the second essay of the Genealogy, can be
seen as an instance of the third form of re-evaluation. It is common, he thinks, to
regard justice-by which he means, among other things, a legal system empowered
to set and exact certain penalties-as, essentially, a formalized system of vengeance,
"as if justice," he says, "were at bonom merely the further development of the feel-
ing of being aggrieved." From this point of view, which he attributes (() "anarchists,"
"antisemites," and the philosopher Eugen Dilhring,I5 the value of justice is held in
place as intrinsic by the "reactive sentiments" of those to whom an injury has been
done. But this, according to Nietzsche, is the opposite of the truth: "[TJhe last
sphere to be conquered by the spirit of justice," he says, "is the sphere of the reactive
feelings!" Justice, he continues, represents

the struggle against the reactive feelings, the war conducted against them ... to impose
measure and bounds upon the excess of the reactive pathos and to compel it to come
to terms.... [Indeed.] in the long run. [it] attains the reverse of that which is desired
by all revenge that is fastened exclusively to the viewpoint of the person injured: from
now on the eye is trained to an ever more impersonal evaluation of the deed, and this
applies even to the eye of the injured person himself. (GM Il: II)

On Nietzsche's view, then. justice is held in place as a value within a given "system
of purposes" (GM II: 12) precisely by the need to limit and to redirect the reactive
sentiments, rather than by the need to give expression to them. And construed in
this way. the value of justice, although differently grounded. remains thoroughly
intrinsic, as Nietzsche makes clear: true justice, he says, constitutes "a piece of per-
fection and supreme mastery on earth" (GM II; 11). In this case, then, the effect of
the re-evaluation is to resituate an intrinsic value within a given structure of reasons
and other values, so that, although still intrinsically valuable, it comes to be under-
stood as a value in that structure "for other reasons than hitherto."
 Nietzsche and the Re-evaluation of Values 85

THE FOURTH FORM OF RE-EVALAUTION

The fourth form of re-evaluation can be illustrated equally quickly. Nietzsche is

famously opposed to what he calls the "morality of pity," and his critique of it is
complex. Bur one (important) aspect of his opposition emerges fairly clearly from
the following two remarks from The Gay Science: "Pity is the most agreeable feel-
ing," he says: it promises "easy prey-and that is what all who suffer are ... ; fir] is
enchanring" (GS 13); or, again, "Pity is essentially ... an agreeable impulse of the
instinct for appropriation at the sight of what is weaker" (GS 118). In these and
other passages--examples could be given from any of his mature works-Nietzsche
is drawing attention, not only to a cenain opportunism in the experience of pity,
bur to a moment of disrespect in (many) of its instances; and he aligns that moment
with another value, in this case the negative one, from the perspective of the "moral-
ity of pity," of suffering. Suffering may be useful for one, he insists; bur this is

of flO concern co our dear pitying friends: they wish to help and have no thought of the
personal necessity of distress, although terrors, deprivations, impoverishments ... are
as necessary flU me and for you as are their opposites. It never occurs to them that, co
put it mystically, the path co one's own heaven always leads through the voluptuousness
of one's own hell. ... [Flor happiness and unhappiness are sisters and even twins that
either grow up cogether or, as in [their] case, remain small together. (GS 338)

Nietzsche's point, dearly enough, is that from the perspective of a way of life in
which "respect," "heaven," and "happiness" are intrinsic values, and Nietzsche
nowhere suggests that the "morality of pity" does not share such a perspective,
"pity"-understood as the (disrespectful) obligation to alleviate suffering wherever
possible-can only be held in place as an intrinsic value for bad reasons, for reasons
that are bad from the perspective of that way of living itself. In this case, then, the
eHect of the re-evaluation is to suggest that pity, although an intrinsic value for cer-
tain ways of living, ought not to be, and ought not to be in light of other values that
are themselves immanent to those ways of living. 1(,

THE FIFTH FORM OF RE-EVALUATION

The fifth form of re-evaluation is a crucial and constant presence in Nietzsche's later
work, although it can be difficult in practice to distinguish from the fourth form,
since it is, in the end, really only a deeper version of it. 17 Ie differs from the fourth,
however, in this much: while the fourth form of re-evaluation seeks to bring to light
an inrernal inconsistency among values that are already, with respect to a given way
of living, explicidy embraced as intrinsic, the fifth form of re-evaluation, in showing
that a value or set of values is indirectly instrumenral in realizing ends that could in
principle be grasped as bad from the standpoinr of the relevant way of living, seeks
86 Aaron Ridley

to bring to light an inconsistency between values that are already explicitly embraced
as intrinsic and a further value that has not so far, or that has only implicitly, been
so embraced, but which could or should be embraced explicitly. To the extent, then,
that this latter value is already implicitly acknowledged as intrinsic with respect to
the way of living in question, the fifth form of re-evaluation will tend to shade into
the fourth.
When Nietzsche engages in the fifth form of re-evaluation, its basic outline shape
is this. Commitment to such-and-such a value, or to such-and-such a set of values,
intrinsically valuable with respect to a certain way ofliving, has the effect of making
us obscure to ourselves, or-which is a different way of saying the same thing-has
the effect of inhibiting our capacity to experience ourselves, fully, as agents; this is
bad for us, and the fact that it is bad tor us should, in principle, be graspable from
the perspective of the way of living in question; therefore we (or they) should no
longer be committed to that value, or to those values, at least as it or they have so
far been understood. IX Nietzsche's clearest employment of this form of re-evaluation
is, again, to be found in the GM,19 where the re-evaluation is directed, in effect, at
a system of values-"slave," or traditional, morality-which is itself, according to
Nietzsche, the product of a radical re-evaluation of an earlier, "noble" system of
values. 20 Indeed, it is pardy in proposing that, and in attempting to explain how,
traditional morality is the product of such a re-evaluation that Nietzsche's own re-
evaluation consists.
His idea is this. Prior to the "slave revoir in morality," the slave was constrained
to understand and value himself exclusively through the terms set by the noble style
of valuation, since that was the only style of valuation available. The nobles-seizing
"the lordly right of giving names" (GM 1:2)-had, in eHeer, determined the shape
of the evaluative landscape, leaving the slaves, as inhabitants of it, with no option
but to think of themselves as the nobles thought of them-that is, as "low, low-
minded, common and plebeian," as, in a word, "bad" (GM 1:2). Or, as Nietzsche
puts it in Beyond Good and Evil: "the common man was only what he was considered:
nO( at all used to positing values himself, he also attached no other value to himself
than his masters attached to him (it is the characteristic right of masters to create
values)" (BGE 261). In this sense, therefore, the slaves were "commi((ed" to the
values of noble morality, however much this fact might have compounded the mis-
ery attaching to their situation in any case. Specifically, their (necessary) captivity
within the noble style of valuation not only provided them with no obvious
resources for understanding themselves or their lives as valuable, or for understand-
ing themselves as efficacious with respect to their own lives, it positively conspired
to render any such resources invisible. Noble morality, Nietzsche claims, "acts and
grows spontaneously, it seeks its opposite only so as to affirm itself more gratefully
and triumphantly ... -'we noble ones, we good, beauciful, happy ones!''' (GM
I: I 0); and from the perspective of that system of values, which was also the slaves'
perspective, there simply weren't the means for the slaves to attach those positive
terms, and the self-understanding that went with them, to themselves.
 Nietzsche and the Re-evaluation of Values 87

Hence the revolt. Consumed with ressentiment at their position, that ressentiment,
as Nietzsche puts it, finally turned "creative," and gave birth to a style of valuation
from the perspective of which the slaves could, for the first time, affirm themselves
as valuable, as effective agents, in their own right. 21 "[Plrompted by an instinct for
... self-affirmation," the "oppressed"

exhort one another with the vengeful cunning of impotence: "let us be different from
the evil, namely good! And he is good who docs not outrage, who harms nobody, who
does nor attack, who does not requite ... , like us, the parienr, humble, and just"-this
... has, thanks to the coumerfeit ami sdf-deceprion of imporence, dad itself in the
ostentatious garb of the virtue of quiet, calm resignation, just as jf the weakness of the
weak-that is (0 say, their essence, their effects, their sole inelucrable, irremovable real-
ity-were a voluntary achievement, willed, chosen, a deed, a meritorious act. (G!vf I: 13)

The slaves thus came to see, or to judge, that a set of values-noble values-intrinsic
to a certain way of living (their own) was in fact instrumental in realizing ends that
could be grasped as bad-as "evil"-from that very same standpoilH, namely, the
ends of denying the newly "good" ones a sense of their own efficacy and worth.
Where before they had been obscure ro themselves, seeing themselves only through
the nobles' eyes, they now had a style of valuation that allowed them to understand
themselves as their "instinct" for "self-affirmation" required them to. The values
that this style of valuation answered ro-the senses of efficacy and self.. worrh-were
encoded in the noble style of valuation against which the slaves revolted, but were
values to which that same style of morality denied them first-personal access. From
the srandpoilH of that way of living, therefore, these values were, for the slaves,
implicit at best.
In the first essay of the Genealogy, therefore, Nietzsche suggests that traditional
morality arose not only from a re-evaluation of preexisting val LIes, bur from a re-
evaluation of such values that depended upon those (or a subset of those) for whom
the values in question were authoritative, coming ro recognize that such values were,
in fact, indirectly instrumental in rendering other, dimly glimpsed, values unrealiza-
ble in their own lives. The slave revolt in morality is thus offered by Nietzsche as an
exercise in the fifth form of the re-evaluation of values.
In the remainder of the Genealogy, it is a large part of Nietzsche's concern to show
that, in the wake of the death of God, the values of slave, or traditional, morality-
once crucial in enabling us to understand ourselves as efficacious, as agenrs in our
own right-now have the effect of making us obscure to ourselves, of undermining
our sense of our own agency and, hence, of occluding our sense of the (potential)
vallie of our lives. Nietzsche is insistent on rhese poinrs. The "good man" of tradi-
tional morality, he says, "is neither upright nor na"ive nor honest and straightforward
with himself. His soul squints" (GM I: 10); "one may not demand of [good people]
chat they should open their eyes to themselves, that they should know how to distin-
guish 'true' and 'false' in themselves .... [Wjhoever today accounts himself a 'good
88 Aaron Ridley

man' is utterly incapable of confronring any matter except with dishonest menda-
ciousness-a mendaciousness that is abysmal but innocent, truehearted, blue-eyed,
and virtuous" (GM III: 19). And Nietzsche contrasts the "good man" of traditional
morality with the "noble man," who "lives in trust and openness with himself"
(GM 1: 10) and, above all, with the "sovereign individual"--one

liberated again from the morality of custom, autonomous and supramoral (for "autono-
mous" and "moral" are mmually exclusive) .... The proud awareness of the extraordi-
nary privilege of responsibility, the consciousness of this rare freedom, this power over
oneself ... , has in his case penetrated to the profoundest depths and become instinct,
the dominating instinct. (GM Il:2)

Autonomy-which is to say, agency, the having of "power over oneself"-is thus,

on this view, predicated on escaping from the self-misunderstandings engendered by
rraditional morality once God is dead;22 and these self-misunderstandings, because
they are "innocent" and "truehearted"-because they are based, that is, on a certain
set of intrinsic values taken as intrinsic-may be very hard to shake free of; and this,
in rum, requires that the re-evaluation of the relevant values reach inside traditional
moraliry, and attempt to show from there, as it were, that those values do indeed
have the etlect of making us obscure to ourselves, of compromising our power over
ourselves. It requires, that is, a further exercise of the fifth form of re-evaluation. 23
If Nietzsche is right in making these claims, the current effict of the values of
traditional morality is unquestionably an indirect one. It is also unquestionably a
bad effect-not just from Nietzsche's perspective, but from the perspective, one is
tempted to say, of any recognizably human way of living at all (as his account of the
slave revolt in moraliry indicates). Self-understanding, the sense of having "power
over oneself," is plausibly a value that sufficiently transcends the kinds of parochial
consideration that 1 have concentrated upon, under the label "way of living," as to
have a claim to be an intrinsic value for human beings in general. And, if so, and if
it is violated--even if only instrumemally and indirectly-by some particular set of
values intrinsic to some particular way of living, then that fact constitutes an effec-
tive critique of those values, indeed a re-evaluation of them.

NIETZSCHE'S AUTHORITY

The fifth form of re-evaluation is probably the most important, and it is relatively
easy to see how, if its critique is to be accessible to those for whom traditional moral-
iry is (currently) authoritative, it is more or less bound to go together with, and to
some extent to depend upon, versions of the third and fourth. It is also not very
hard to see how, taken lOgether with the second form of re-evaluation, the fifth
might appear lO be really a version of the first, as Brian Leiter in effect concludes-
especially given that Nietzsche's "sovereign individual" is without question an exem-
 Nietzsche and the Re-evalutltion of Values 89

plar of the "higher type" of human being whose inrerests, we can all agree, Nietzsche
has at hearc. But the sovereign individual has been "liberated" from morality; he has
won back his auronomy from the self-misunderstandings that traditional morality
engenders; and that, as I have already argued, is not a result that the first form of re-
evaluation has the right kind of authority to achieve. The fifth form of re-evaluation,
by contrast, does have the right kind of authority, at least in principle, as do the
second, third, and fourth. The third and fourth forms, being internal to the way of
life whose values are under scrutiny, pose no difficulties: whether Nietzsche's re-
evaluations succeed or persuade will be a function, quite routinely, of whether his
argumenrs and the considerations he offers are any good. Nor is the second form
problematic, even though it is conducted from an external perspective: for it appeals,
in the end, only to values that arc internal to the way of living in question. And the
fifth form brings no special problems with it either: its power is conditional only
upon the quality of the argumenrs it contains, and upon the plausibility of its claim
to speak, as it were, from the perspective of, or on the behalf of, values that ought
to be, and perhaps implicitly are, intrinsic for any human way of living at all.
The account that I have offered of the fifth form of the re-evaluation of values is
a relative of those offered by Richard Schacht and Philippa Foot. Schacht proposes
that Nietzsche's re-evaluation proceeds from a "privileged" perspective, "which an
understanding of the fundamental character of life and the world serves to define
and establish";24 and the "availability of this standard," he suggests, "places evalua-
tion on a footing that is as firm [i.e., as authoritative) as that on which the compre-
hension of life and the world stands."2) Foot suggests that the evaluative standpoint
from which Nietzsche conducts his re-evaluation is essentially an "aesthetic" one,
rooted in "the interest and admiration which is the common arrirude to remarkable
men of exceptional independence of mind and strength of will"-in "our tendency
ro admire certain individuals whom we see as powerful and splendid. "26 Again, then,
there is nothing in Foot's position that would render the kind of re-evaluation that
she envisages altogether inaccessible to the adherents of traditional morality (indeed,
if anything, quite the reverse 2 ?), and this is, with respect to the authority problem at
least, a point in its favor. 2"
So the account proposed here has in common with Schacht's and Foot's the high-
lighting of an evaluative standpoint that is in principle accessible to those who are
commirred to the values whose value is under scrutiny, and who might therefore
come to regard the re-evaluation of those values as authoritative. It differs from
Schacht's and Foot's, however, in highlighting a standpoint structured by the values
of self-understanding and autonomy; and it differs, too, in distinguishing the re-
evaluation conducted from that standpoint from at least three other forms of re-
evaluation in which Nietzsche also engages (often at the same time), and in indicat-
ing how the various forms of re-evaluation might be thought to operate rogether.
Collectively, I suggest, these features of the present account give it an explanatory
advantage over any of its obvious competirors, and does so in at least two respects:
first, the present accounr gives a much more nuanced analysis of what a (pointful)
90 Aaron Ridley

re-evaluation of the values of traditional morality might (poimfully) involve; and

second, it shows that Nietzsche might indeed have been engaged in such an enter-
prise-that his tactics are at least of the right general sort [0 deliver the results that
he was after. Whether or not he in fact does deliver those results, however, is a ques-
tion that lies beyond the scope of this essay, and I have not tried [0 address it here.

NOTES

My thanks to Maria Alvarez, Alex Neill, David Owen, and Genia Schonbaumsfdd for discus-
sion and for comments on earlier versions of this essay. My thanks, too, to the organizers of
and participants in a workshop on Nietzsche and value held at the University of Sussex in
December 2002, at which an ancestral version of this essay was read: many of the things said
thcrc were very helpful.

1. I prefer "re-evaluation" to "revaluation," incidentally, on the perhaps slender grounds

that the latter seems to suggest that the result of the process in question will always be the
assignation of a new or diftercnt value ro the value under scrutiny, while the former feels (to
me, at least) as if it leaves open the possibility that the value of a given value might emerge
from the process unchanged, or perhaps vindicated; and to leave that possibility open is, I
think, truer to the spirit of Nietzsche's project.
2. GM 1>:6. For translations I utilize the following: Kaufmann and Hollingdale's GM;
Kaufmann's BGE; Hollingdalc's HH; Hollingdalc's D; Kaufmann's GS.
3. This is a point rightly emphasised by Richard Schacht: see his "Nietzschean Normati-
vity," in R. Schacht, ed., Nietzsche's Postmoralism (Cambridge: Cambridge Univt:fsity Press,
20(1), 160.
4. I overlook Christine M. Korsgaard's insistence that one should keep the distinction
between the intrinsic and the extrinsic separate from the distinction between ends and means.
Her point is an interesting one, but it does not affect the rcading of Nietzsche offered in the
present essay: see Korsgaard, "'lwo Distinctions in Goodness," in her Creating the Kingdom
of t:nds (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 249-74.
5. Or, as Bernard Williams puts it, if a value is intrinsic for someone, then "he can under-
stand this value in relation to the other values that he holds, and this implies ... that the
intrinsic good ... , or rather the agent's relation to it, has an inner structure in terms of
which it can be related to other goods," Truth and Jiouthfitlness (Princeton: Princeton Univer-
sity Press, 2002), 92.
6. This conception of (intrinsic) value is consistent with that proposed by Joseph Raz; see
his Practical Reason and Norms (London: Hutchinson, 1975),34. See also Raz, The Practice of
Value (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 20(3), 143-45.
7. Nietzsche continues: "Thus I deny morality as I deny alchemy, that is, I deny their
premiscs: but I do not deny that there have been alchemists who believed in these premises
and acted in accordance with them."
8. Given that the relation between this putative sixth form of re-evaluation and the first
precisely mirrors that between the fourth and fifth, it might seem as if these two should be
collapsed together as well. I choose not £0 do this, however. While the first form of re-evalua-
tion, as I argue in the next section, is bound £0 be ineftective, the fifth need not be; and since
 Nietzsche and the Re-eVtlluation of Values 91

parr of my interest is to give a nuanced account of the (potential) power of Nietzsche's proj-
ect, it makes sense {() distinguish morc linely bctween the laner pair (the fourth and fifth)
than betwcen the former.
9. Brian Leiter, Nietzsche on Morality (London: Routledge, 2002),128-29.
10. Ibid., 53.
II. Something that is emphasized, incidentally, in the introduction to Hollingdale's Day-
break coauthored by Leiter and Maudemaric Clark.
12. Leiter, op. cit., 150.
13. Ibid., 155.
14. Ibid. for a rarher subtler account of the role of Nietzsche's rhetoric in his attcmpt to
re-evaluate values, see Christopher Janaway, "Nietzsche's Artistic Revaluation," in J. Bermu-
dez and S. Gardner, cds., Art and Morality (London: Routledge, 2003), 260-76.
15. -and should also have attributcd to his earlier self: the position he attacks is precisely
the one that hc had espoused in HH; see, namely, sections 92 and 629.
16. The re-evaluation also seeks to have another effect, of course-namely, {() show that
the structure of valucs within which piry has been held in place as an intrinsic value actually
accommodates suffering as an instrumental value more convincingly; and certainly that it will
not accommodate suffering as an intrinsic disvalue.
17. See footnote 8, above.
18. For an illuminating discussion of this poinr, see David Owen, "Nietzsche, Re-evalua-
tion, and the tum to Genealogy," European journal of Philosophy 11:3 (2003), section 4.
[1:a.-Owen's cssay is reprinted in this volume.]
19. -which is no coincidence; again, see Owen, ibid., 249-72.
20. In BGE 46, Nictzsche expressly rdcrs to slave or Christian morality as the product of
a "re-evaluation of antique values."
21. For an account of the conceptual innovations required for the slave revolt, and of the
resources implicit in noble morality that made those innovations possible, see Aaron Ridley,
Nietzsche's Conscience: Six Character Studies from the "Gmealogy" (Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univer-
sity Press, 1998), chaptcrs 1 and 2.
22. I here sidestep the interesting question of whcre, in Nietzsche's chronology, the sover-
eign individual is supposed to be situated. Some considerations would appear to place him
prior to traditional morality; others suggcst a distinctively post-traditional achievement.
Either way, though, and I prefer the latter, the sovereign individual's place in the scheme of
things is emphatically not within traditional morality, and that is all that the point I make
here requires.
23. It is this cxercise that has, in effect, been taken over and givcn contcmporary cxpression
by Bernard Williams in his various critiques of the "morality systcm": see, namely, Ethics and
the Limits of Philosophy (l.ondon: Fonrana, 1985) and Shame and Necessity (Berkeley: Univer-
sity of California Press, 1993), chapter 3. For an excellent discussion of the affinities between
Nietzsche and Williams, see Maudemarie Clark, "On the Rejcction of Morality: Bernard Wil-
liams's Deht to Nietzsche," in R. Schacht, d., Nietzsche's Postmoralism (Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press, 20(1), J()O-22.
24. Richard Schacht, Nietzsche (l.ondon: Routledge, 1983),349.
25. Ibid., 398.
26. Philippa Foot, "Nietzsche: the Revaluation of Values," in R. Solomon, ed., Nietzsche:
A Collection of Critical Essays (Notre Dame: University of Notrc Dame Press, 1973), 163.
92 Aaron Ridley

27. As Lc:iter also notes, op. cit., 145. Leiter goes on to suggest-plausibly, I think-that
this is a flaw in Foot's position: it makes the business of securing an audience for Nietzsche's
re-evaluation too easy.
28. Actually, Foot seems to have changed her mind about Nietzsche's re-evaluations: she
now appears to espouse a position that is more like an extreme vetsion of Leitet's. See her
Natural Goodness (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), chapter 7. For the reasons given
earlier, however, I regard any move in this direction as a mistake.
6
Genealogy, the Will to Power, and the
Problem of a Past*
Tracy B. Strong

All beings that have existence in the world have pasts. To have a past means to
embody t()f oneself and for others some quality that was and shapes the way one's
being is in rhe world. Only God does nor have a pasr and that is because God exists
only in the present, which is whar the meaning of eternity is. I For a range of thinkers
in rhe ninereenth and early rwentieth cenruries, having a past was seen as a form of
coercion. Marx, in (he firsr page of The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon,
found rhar the past "lay like a nightmare on the brain of the living." For James
Joyce's Stephen Daedalus, the pasr "was a nightmare" from which he was trying to
awake. For Freud, the cumulated weight of childhood experiences distorted present
agency into neurotic behavior. Marx theorized revolurion, which he saw as necessar-
ily sundering the integument that held the new world in rhe ashes of the old. Joyce
rried to make that past available in the odyssey of Leopold Bloom and in Molly's
ecstatic affirmation. Freud held that psychoanalysis is to reform the past, so as to
keep it from distorting the presenc. The sense that what drives humans is what they
have been, that they have been driven willy-nilly into behavior rhar rhey neither
intend nor wam, is a major concern of philosophical rhought after the French Revo-
lution. Indeed, the Revolution had shown a stunned Europe thar what had started
as a minor jacquerie over the price of bread led to the imposition of rhe metric sys-

'Portions of what follows draw upon material of mine that is appearing in a book edited by
'lobias Hoffman on weakness of the will to appear with Catholic University Press, and from
an article in New Nietzsche Studies 6, no. 3/4 (Winter 2005) and 7 110. 1/2 (forthcoming, Fall
2006): 198-211).

93
94 Tracy B. Strong

tern on continental Europe. The past seemed to have an ineluctable stranglehold

over the unfolding of human affairs.
These concerns, common to all those for whom history became the principle
muse, were unavoidable to serious thinkers in the nineteenth century. It is thus no
surprise that from early in his career, Nietzsche was concerned with the possibility
of transforming the present by changing its past. Thus he can write in the Use and
Misuse of History for Lift:

For since we are the outcome of earlier generations, we are also the ourcome of their
aberrations, passions and errors, and indeed of their crimes; it is not possible to free
oneself wholly from this chain. If we condemn these aberrations, and regard ourselves
free of them, this does not alter the fact that we originate in them. The best we can do is
to confront our inherited and hereditary nature with our knowledge of it, and through a
new, stern discipline combat our inborn heritage and implant in ourselves a new habit,
a new instinct, a second nature, so that our first nature withers away. It is an attempt
to give oneself, as it were a posteriori, a past in which one would like to originate in
opposition to that in which one did originate:-always a dangerous attempt because it
is so hard to know the limit to denial of the past and because second natures are usually
weaker than first. What happens all toO often is that we know the good but do not do
it, because we also know the better bur cannot do it. Bur here and there a victory is
nonetheless achieved, and for the combatants, for those who employ critical history for
the sake of life, there is even a noteworthy consolation: that of knowing that this first
namre was once a second nature and the every victorious second namre will become a
first. (HL 3)

This is not simply a "theoretical" problem. Nietzsche was centrally concerned with
the issue in his own existence. In Ecce Homo, he claims to be a throwback to ancient
Polish nobility; later in the passage he will claim paternity from Caesar or Alexander
(EH"Wise" 3). What is important here is that Nietzsche is claiming that his relation
with his father is so attenuated that he now exists as himself as if Caesar had been
his father. Indeed, he will go so far as to claim that he is "all names in history," as
if all surnames were his. 2 He associates his lowest point (1880) with the same age at
which his father died. This is also the period of his life when his eyes give him the
most trouble and he finds himself bur a "shadow" of himself. Bur it is precisely the
experience of this going under that permits his new birth: The Wanderer and his
Shadow will be followed by Break of Day. Nietzsche, one might say, is concerned to
give himself a new genealo!,'Y. As he remarks in Human, All Too Human 1:381, "If
one does not have a good father one must give oneself one."
Yet how might one do this? To ask this question is to investigate the nature of
genealogy, for genealogy is the actuality ofthe past in the present. How does genealogy,
however, manifest itself in present action? One might think, as do many of the stan-
dard interpretations, as a matter of will. It is thus essential to ask if it is possible by
human volition to shape one's present so that it is not subject to a past. In the chap-
ter "On Redemption" in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Nietzsche raises the question of
 Genealogy, the Will to POUle/; and the Problem ofa Past 95

the relation of temporality and the will. He is concerned with the way that what we
have been in the past shapes what we do in the present to make a future. If the will
is the human faculty to construct the future and is both structured and held prisoner
by its past, then the possibility of human freedom seems greatly diminished or eradi-
cated. Nietzsche examines a number of proposed undeistandings of will (he
includes-without naming them-Hegel, Kam, Schopenhauer, Wagner, and, I
believe, his own work in The Birth of Tragedy) and concludes that they are all defi-
cient in that they either simply ignore (he weight of the past or too easily assert the
possibility of escaping from it. 3
Why so? The problem, he avers, is that they have all misunderstood will: "My
idea," he writes in a later note, "is that the will of earlier psychology is an unjustified
generalization, that this will does not exist at all, that instead of grasping the fOrIlm-
/ation of a single given will in many forms, one has eliminated the character of the
will, in that one has subtracted the content, the 'whither' (Wohin)" (KSA
13:14[121j). Nietzsche's first point is that an understanding of the will as a single
entity or faculty is mistaken. 4
I shall come back to what might constitute such redemption toward the end of
this chapter but, for now, note that for Nietzsche, none of these previous writers
provides access to a realm that would escape or transfigure a human past. The past
remains a problem. At the end of the chapter, he drops a hint that the "will that is
the will to power" might possibly be able to will "backwards."
The will to power cannot be grasped as something that can be satisfied: it requires
a "Wohin," and whatever we call will is to be understood in terms of its Wohin
(whither). Will is thus a bringing about rather than something that is bought about.
The will, he says, "wants to go forward and always again become master of that
which stands in its way." The will [0 power is constant motion and finds expression
as the overcoming of borders and obstacles. It does not in itself seek a particular
state of affairs-in the English version of Freud's terminology it has "motility of
cathexis"5-just that there be a state of aftairs. Importantly it does not seek pleasure,
nor [0 avoid pain: it is simply the "attempt [0 overcome, to bring [0 oneself, to
incorporate" (KSA 13:14[174]). In fact, from the standpoint of the will to power
"there are no things at all, but only dynamic quama." Nietzsche cominues, "[Tlhe
will to power, not being, not becoming, but a pathos is the most elementary fact
from which a becoming, a working first arises" (KSA 13:14[79]).
An important clue is offered by this designation of the will to power as a pathos.
In the Gay Science, Nietzsche made a distinction between pathos and ethos and sug-
gested that as long as humans continue to think of a particular form of life they tend
to think of it as an ethos, that is, as "the only possible and reasonable thing." A true
understanding, however, is that lite is "pathos," as it is "not one's lot to have certain
particular sensations for years." (GS 317). Pathos means "that which happens to a
person or a thing," "what one has experienced, good or bad"; it refers sometimes to
the "incidents of things."6 In no case does it imply a notion of growth or develop-
mem, but only the difterent states a person or a thing may assume.? Will to power
96 Tracy B. Strong

thus "cannot have become" (KSA 13:11[29]). It is movement itself and thus has
neither being nor becoming. The most basic quality of all organisms is their attempt
to incorporate into and as themselves all that they encounter; thus they will define
all that they meet. All the forms that any organism acquires it assumes, and taken as
a whole they constitute its will to power. The various Wohins are the instances of
the will to power of a particular organism. These Wohins can assume different quali-
ties: among the categories Nietzsche identifies are optimism or pessimism, activity
or passivity, superfluidity or lack-much of his later years are spent sorting our these
differences. It is thus quite sensible from this understanding to proclaim, as he does
in one of his most famous remarks, that life is "will to power." The full remark is
this: "What are our valuations and tables of the good worrh? What comes from their
control? For whom? In relation to what?-Answer: for life. Bur what is life? Here is
needed a new more definite formulation of the concept 'life.' My formula for that
goes: Leben I'Life' or 'to live'] is will to power. ... What does evaluation mean? ...
Answer: moral evaluation is an exegesis, a way of interpreting" (KSA 12:2[190].47;
my italics).
The will to power is a "way of interpreting." Indeed, elsewhere, Nietzsche is
explicit: "The will to power interprets: it is a question of interpreting during the
building of an organ; it sets limits, defines degrees, differences of power.... In
truth, interpretation is a means to become master of something. The organic process
presupposes continuing interpretation" (KSA 12:2[148]). To interpret is to place
oneself as the lens through which the observed is seen. The important thing then
about the will to power is that it refers to the quality that living beings have to make
or understand the world in their own image. Etymologically, Macht (as in Wille zur
Macht) is archaically related to the same root from which we get our word "might,"
which in turn has a meaning of the ability to make or do something. s The will to
power is thus the quality that all life has ofgiving form, that is, of giving rise to the
pathoi that are (a) life.-Bur what form?-The form that is given must be the form
of the giver. Thus "cognition" itself is said to be will to power (KSA 11:34[185]).
I n the Genealogy the will to power is a "form giving ... force" (GM II: 18); elsewhere
the will to power is held to interpret the "new in the forms of the 0Id."9
This, however, means that the particular past of a willing agent so shapes that will
that it simply repeats a particular pattern; changing that pattern would require
changing the past of a will or determining a way not to be caught by it. This is why
the question of temporality is central to Nietzsche's discussion of the will. to

GENEALOGY AND WILL

A point that emerges from the above consideration is that everyone, perhaps even
everything-all life-has or rather is will to power. We see immediately a problem
relevant to slave morality: if whatever will one exercises is one's own or rather is what
one means by one's self, what is the nature of the self that exercises such and such a
 Genealogy, the Will to Power, and the Problem ofa Past 97

will? So a question raised by this investigation of "the" will must be: "what kind of
beings are we?" And here it is noteworthy that Nietzsche associates a particular
weakness of will with our present moral world in general. Thus: "Today the tastes
and virtues of the time diminish and debilitate the will. Nothing is so timely as
will-weakness (Nichts ist so sehr zeitgemass als WillellSschwache)" (BGE 212). This is
immediately referred to as quality of character: "Turned around: the need for belief,
for some unconditional yes and no, is a need for weakness, all weakness is of the will
(aile Schwache ist Willensschwache): all weakness of will stems from the fact that no
passion, no categorical imperative, commands" (KSA 13: 11 [48] .318; cf. BGE 207).
I shall return to the importance of the rderence to Kant at the end of the chapter.
For this condition, Nietzsche coins a term: Entselbstung-"de-selfing," we might
translate it. The preliminary sense is that a weak will is associated with not being a
self, thus unable to own, to be one's own self, to have a right to what is one's own.
Such a weak will is not weak at a particular moment: weakness is its nature.
Given what [ have said, there must be wills to power of different qualities of
character (that is, of different Wohins), a will to power, for instance, that is masterly
or nobly moral as well as another will to power that is slavely moral. And this is
precisely what the Genealogy is (among other things): a stoty of how it came to be
that one form of life replaced another and how it might happen that yet a new
second nature might replace that which has become our first nature. What is abso-
lutely essential here is to recognize that both noble and slave morality are wills to
power.
The matter is of considerable complexity. One might suppose that slaves are sim-
ply less than the noble, ineffective in relation to the masters, and are thus to be
held in opprobrium. This, however, is not Nietzsche's position or is rather a vast
oversimplification of it. Let us look at these two wills to power.
The terms master (or noble) and slave are often given negative resonance by those
who read Nietzsche-memories of Nazi and racial contexts lead easily to the conclu-
sion that Nietzsche is, as one always half suspected, whether or not a bad thinker,
certainly a bad man. Yet the idea of master and slave has an obvious apparent ances-
try in Rousseau ("He who believes himself to be the master of others is all the more
a slave than they" [Social Contract I, 11) and in Hegel (Herrschaft and Knechtschaft
in the Phenomenology). At the time that Nietzsche was writing, Marx was developing
an entire theoty of history based on the interaction of the oppressor and the
oppressed. Nietzsche had read the left-Hegelians and explicitly found resonances
between his work and Bruno Bauer's;1I he may have read of Marx in other texts. 12
Nietzsche's main exploration of different kinds of will ro power appears in the Gene-
alogy.
In a number of passages, Nietzsche delineates and distinguishes the quality of the
will in nobles and in slaves. The nobles, he says, "do not know guilt, responsibility,
or consideration." They are "born organizers" (GM II:17-18). In Beyond Good and
Evil, he writes that "when the ruling group determines what is 'good,' the ex aired
proud states of the soul are experienced as conferring distinction and order of
98 Tracy B. Strong

rank. .. The noble type of man experiences itself as determining values; ... it
knows itself to be value creating" (BGE 260).
The noble moral type says-to paraphrase Al Lingis's paraphrase of Bataille-
"My God, am I good! How beauriful, strong, and powerful I am! You offer no possi-
ble contest for me and would be a waste of my time. You are no match for me and
are bad." "Good" here means something like "worthy of being dealt with." Think
of the exchange between Glaukos and Diomedes in book 6 of the Iliad (lines 80ff)
where the two warriors, having met on the field of batrie must first determine
whether or not the other is a worthy opponent (one is much younger), that is,
"good" in noble moral terms, for without this there would be no reason to fight
someone who is not as you are (i.e., is "bad"). They thus run through their respec-
tive genealogies to establish their worth (0 the other. (As it turns out their grand-
parents were guest-friends and the bond is such that they do not fight but exchange
batrle gear.)13 More contemporarily, any of us who were chosen last to a team
because of our lack of skill, or put out to play right field, have some idea of what it
means to live in a masterly moral world (and remember the sense of self derived
from the time where we were chosen first, or, bener yet, got to do the choosing).
Thus also does the concept, still surviving, of a "worthy opponent" remind us of
master morality. I do not here wish to develop further the credibility of master
morality as a moral form:'4 precisely its strangeness (and the fact that I move most
easily to sports examples), is testimony to the fact that we now think of morality in
and only in its "good and evil" form.
Yet what happens? Here it is important to understand that "good/evil slave moral-
ity" is quite different from "good/bad noble morality," not simply the inverse. The
slave says in effect, "My goodness, do I suffer! You make me suHcr, you are evil and
I am the opposite of you and therd(He am good. Why do you make me suffer?"
The definition of self of the slavely moral is thus the conclusion of a dialectical argu-
ment. Several things are worth noting: First, this situation is not all that different
from what Hegel described in the Phenomenology where the self is attained by a pro-
gressive differentiation first from nature and then from others. Second, this form of
attaining identity-this form of moral agency-requires oppression. That is, unless
I suffer, I will have nothing to negate. Hence it is important for the continuity of
my self that I maintain a source of suffering, and nothing that I do should or may
pur an end to the possibility of suffering. Over time, Nietzsche argues, humans
incorporate the source of suffering into themselves; they become their own oppressor
(rhis is how he interprets rhe idea of original sin): he will trace this dynamic through
various stages in the second and third books of the Genealogy.
Slave morality is thus not just the noble morality stood on irs head-a reversal of
the structures of domination. It is structured in a different manner and thus is a
ditferent way of being in the world. Nietzsche works this our in a parable of the
eagle and the lamb.
It is, in fact, not surprising that the lamb dislikes the eagle. After all, for no appar-
ent reason every so often a bird of prey swoops down and carries off one of the flock.
 Genealogy, the Will to Power, and the Problem ofa Past 99

Since it is not clear that this is in response to something one has done wrong, it is
also quite possible that one day this might happen to anyone. The lamb clearly
would like to put an end to this situation. The eagle is evil; the lamb is the opposite
of the eagle, thus it must be "good."I) But the bird keeps swooping down.
What the lamb must want is for the eagle not to behave as an eagle, to be ashamed
of its desires, of itself-to acquire another, new character such that it would live
under the domination of time past. On the face of it this is silly. As Nietzsche con-
tinues, "[Tlo demand of strength that it 1Iot express itself as strength, that it not be
a will to overpower, to cast down, to become master, a thirst after enemies, opposi-
tions and triumphs, is just as absurd as to require weakness to express itself as
strength" (GM 1:13). The lamb wants, however, precisely this "absurdity." He wants
the eagle not to act as an eagle; that is, he wants the eagle not to act in accord with
what he, the eagle, considering all things, knows to be his eagle's desire.
But there is a problem: the eagle has no other will than the will of an eagle. So
what we learn here from Nietzsche is that the eagle must require the acquisition of
specific qualities of character, ones that are not, as it were, natural to a particular
being. What does the lamb require of the eagle? He requires, first, that the eagle
need a reason for doing what it does; second, he requires that the eagle have a choice
in doing what he does (this follows from and requires the first); this requires, third,
that there be an independent common .framework in terms of which both the eagle
and the lamb can make judgments; and this requires, finally, that the eagle be reflec-
tive. The lamb wants the eagle to be rational.

RATIONALITY AND THE GENEALOGY

OF SLAVE MORALITY

These considerations lead us to a third element. They correspond to the acquisition

by the eagle of reflective rationality ("why am I doing this?"), that is, to the acquisi-
tion of those qualities for which Nietzsche attacked Socrates. In Nietzsche's reading,
Socrates sought to get people to give reasons for their beliefs. The Greek found that
das Unbewllsste (the "unconscious" but note that this is a dangerous translation)
could not account tor itself. So Socrates, in the agora as in the theater, Nietzsche
avers, wanted reasons for why individuals or characters act or think as they do, and
this made it impossible for him to accept tragedy as tragedy. "Whereas," Nietzsche
writes in BT, "in all productive men the instinct is precisely the creative-affirmative
power and consciousness (Bewusstsein) operates in a critical and dissuasive way, in
Socrates the instinct becomes a critic and consciousness the creator.... Here the
logical nature is, by a hypertrophy, developed ... excessively." (BT 13). As Nietz-
sche remarks in an early public lecture, a remark that shocked his audience: "Wenn
Tugend Wissen ist, so mu! der tllgendhafte Held Dialektiker sein.-If virtue is knowl-
edge, then the virtuous hero must be a dialectician" ("Sokrates und die Tragiidie,"
KSA 1,547).
100 Tracy B. Strong

If we take these thoughts back to the problem of the will of slave morality, it
appears that slave morality is something that one can learn ro have. The eagle will
continue to want to carry off the lamb, but having been subject to dialectical frustra-
tion, he will change his mind and not do what he desires but rather what is
"good"-in the "good/evil" sense of good. Most considerations of weak willedness
hold that one's will is weak when one does not do what one thinks is in one's best
interest, all things considered. Ie. Here, however, the transformed eagle becomes weak
precisely in taking account of all things. In this case, though, he has had to learn to
take these things into account. The noble qua noble cannot have a weak will because
for him character is in foct destiny.
It is thus the case that the lamb requires that the eagle exhibit what one writer
has in a different context approvingly identified as "a normal amount of self-con-
trol,"I? self-control defined in terms external to what the eagle is as eagle. In Nietz-
sche's reversal, slave morality consists in controlling oneself in terms of an external
and given framework; nonslave morality is thus to do what is one's own, no matter
what the expectations.
The matter does not stop here. The weakness of the will of the slave is in fact
the source of its victory over the noble or the strong. For what happens is that the
Unbewusstheit of the noble is unable to resist the dialectics of the slave: the victor is
always the weak. I " Nietzsche is quite clear on this: the ability to induce the knowl-
edge that one could have done otherwise is a decisive weapon. For Nietzsche, the
weak person-that is, the person who from his or her own viewpoint "could have"
acted otherwise-is actually the victor because of the fact that he or she can blame
someone else. Eventually, for Nietzsche, the genius of Christianiry will be to find in
oneself the source of oppression: hence the problem of maintaining the constant
source of oppression necessary to slave morality is permanently and irretrievably
solved in this world. The only way out will be a redemption from oneself. The point
of Nietzsche's analysis here is the recognition that the victory is always to the weak-
that the quality of character that allows one to be weak of will is the source of
strength. And the source of the triumph of slave morality over the noble morality
will always derive from the fact that the slave is rational. Nietzsche thus has stood
the standard analysis of the "weak" will on its head or back on its feet: rationality,
which was to counter weakness of will, is for him the central and defining quality of
those who have weak wills, and this, seemingly paradoxically, is the source of their
domination over those whose will is strong.
The slavely moral rype responds to the presence of a generalizable, hence rea-
soned, external or internalized threat of oppression. The slavely moral type can thus
nO( stand for him- or herself because that self depends on a dialectical relationship
to someone or something other, to a fixed and general framework. This is the reason
that Nietzsche refers to this condition as one of Entselbstzmg, as if slavely persons
had nothing that was theirs, as if they did not have selves of their own. Such beings
do nor in fact have, one might say, the right to their actions, those actions are not
really their own. I9
 Genealogy, the Will to Power, and the Problem ofa Past 101

It is in this sense that the will of the slavely moral is powerful and triumphs over
the master precisely because it is weak. By "powerful" Nietzsche means something
like "having on one's terms, be those terms authenric or not." By "weak" he means
here "not authentically one's own." This, however, does not get us very far. What
does it mean for an act not to be authentically one's own? Where contemporary
philosophers of weakness of will see the akrates as acting "surd"2°-without voice
or reason-Nietzsche sees him as acting from a being that is not his own. Nietzsche's
analysis thus calls into question the notion that rationality can provide a counter to
the dangers of slave morality-in fact, for Nietzsche, rationality makes slave morality
possible.
The politics of the slave are thus epistemological: they consist in altering the
moral grammar of the erstwhile noble. Here one might ask if there is anything to
be done. The genealogy of slave morality leads, as we saw above, to a situation where
persons would rather "will the void than be void of will," the condition of nihilism.
Against this Nietzsche sets a number of possibilities. They include the "sovereign
individual" (his reworking of Kamian autonomy), the "Overman," and, of impor-
tant focus in the Genealogy, the person with the "right to make promises."2! I shall
focus on the first and last here.
Why and how should an individual ever want to acquire the "right to make
promises"? After all, why should one wanr to bind oneself to a future that one might
well regret? How can one? As Nietzsche poses it, the question of not living in slave
morality can be brought back to the question of why and how it is that one should
ever be able to so bind oneself: or to find oneself bound.
The movement of the text in the first three sections of the GM II is a first key. 22
In each of them Nietzsche describes the possibiliry of a particular kind of being-in-
the-world (the right to make promises, the sovereign individual, the acquisition of
conscience) and then circles back to give an account for the genealogy of that qual-
ity. Thus the right to make promises requires first the development of calculability,
regularity, and necessity (GM II: 1). The sovereign individual requires the develop-
ment of a memory. This is the acquisition of a temporal dimension to the self. Each
of these qualities is what Nierzsche calls a "late" or "ripest" fruit, the coming into
being of which therefore has required ripening.
Nietzsche is quire clear that these earlier developments are the means to making
possible a "sovereign individual" (for instance). Nietzsche refers to this as "a prepara-
tory task" and includes in it what he calls human "prehistory." What is key here is
the understanding of hisrory: the past has made possible the present, but it has not
necessarily monoronically determined it. The resources for a variety of different pres-
ents are all in the past, if we can deconstruct the past we have received and reassem-
bled it.
What quality does the sovereign individual-whom I take here ro be an individ-
ual who has earned the right and capacity ro say what s/he is, something that slave-
moral individuals do not have and noble-moral individuals neither need nor have?
Nietzsche details a number of qualities in GM 11:2, all of which sound like or are
102 Tracy B. Strong

intended [0 sound like the megalopsuchos of Aris[Orle. 23 Yet there is a difference

between Nietzsche's sovereign individual and the great soul in Aristotle, for the sov-
ereign individual is the result of an achievement, a process by which a consciousness
has become instinct (cf. HL, cited above). What is important here is the insistence
that Nietzsche places on the "right to make promises."24
What then would/could keep me from not keeping my promises (being weak of
will) if, as we have established, rationality is for Nietzsche of no actual avail? Nietz-
sche is, I think, corren [0 say that one does not keep one's promise because one has
a reason to do so--l do nor need a reason (0 keep my promise. Nietzsche says that
promising requires that I have "mastery over circumstances, over nature, and over
all more short-willed and unreliable creatures" (GM 11:2). Those who have the right
to promise are like "sovereigns," because they can maintain their promise in the face
of accidents, even in the "face of fate." To have the right to a promise is to have
taken upon oneself, as oneself, all the circumstances present and future in which the
promise may occur. It is to maimain that promise-the requirement that the present
extend into the future-no matter what befalls. Thus when Kaufmann translates the
key passage-fiir sich als ZukunJt gut sagen zu konnen as "able [0 stand security for
his own future," one may pass by Nietzsche's point, which is that one should be able
"to be able [0 vouch for oneself as a future." One must earn emirlement (0 one's
"own."
What this means is that a person who has the right to make promises does not
regard his actions as choices. (What coums as a choice varies from person to person
and responds [0 who they are). A promise is thus a declaration of what I am, of that
for which I am responsible: as it is not a choice among other choices, there is no
possibility of slave morality. It is a way of being. As Stanley Cavell says: "You choose
your life. This is the wayan action Categorically Imperative feels. And though there
is not The Categorical Imperative, there are actions that are for us categorically
imperative so far as we have a will." 25
In this, and despite obvious echoes, Nietzsche's position is not Kant's. In the
Grundwerk and elsewhere Kam argues that one cannot break a promise because [0
do so would in eHect deny the point of the entire institution of promising. Kant
took this position with its very strong denial of the relevance of intention because,
as he argued, any breaking of a promise or unering of a lie for contingent reasons
(say, as with Same, you were being asked by the Gestapo the location of the partisan
they were seeking) would mean that you claimed to know precisely what the conse-
quences of your action would be. Since such a claim was epistemologically impossi-
ble, it followed that one must be bound by the only certainty one might have, that
of one's nomemporally limited reason.
Kant's reason for keeping a promise or not telling a lie was consequent [0 the
interplay of a fixed and actually rational self and an incompletely graspable world.
The difference in Nietzsche's analysis of the right [0 keep promises comes in his
insistence that neither the external world nor the self is knowable. The self is, for
him, what it has the power [0 be responsible for. Hence the binding of the self [0 a
 Genealogy, the Will to Power, and the Problem ofa Past 103

promise can only be rightfully accomplished by a power "over oneself and over fate"
and must penetrate below the level of assessment-where it remained with Kant-to
become part of the assessing itself, what Nietzsche calls "instinct" or the "unbe-
wusst." This means that promising must become part of what I am, for me to have
the right to it.
Nietzsche is also clear-now contra Kant, and post-Kantians from Rawls to
Habermas-that the self that is so committed is committed also to ail the pain and
all the reversals that will and may occur-pains that can be seen in his exploration
of what he calls mnemotechnics. In this, the sovereign individual in Nietzsche will
find an instantiation in Weber's person who has the vocation for politics and who
can remain true to his vocation, "in spite of all." (One might note here that the
insistence on the necessity of the pain and cruelty of existence was already central to
the argument in BY). Pain and cruelty are endemic to the possibility of life-they
are part of what make the sovereign individual possible.
In a note from 1885 he writes: "Basic idea: new values must first be created-we
must not be spared that! The philosopher must be a lawgiver to us. New types. (As
earlier the highest types (e.g., Greeks) were bred: this type of 'accident' to be willed
consciously.)" (KSA 11 :35 [47]). So the question that Nietzsche raises for us in rela-
tion co the overcoming of slave morality is that of the qualities that are necessary to
have in order to have a different nonslavely will and of the politics by which those
qualities are acquired. If rationality produces or is a quality of slave mDrality it can-
not be the solution. A question remains: if rationality cannot be the basis of keeping
one's promise (which is what Nietzsche tells us), what can possibly be the case that
ensures that someone will keep his or her promise? What does it mean to be a person
with the "right to make a promise"? If rationality is not the question-hence his
praise of the body against Plato-what qualities does such an individual have? If the
problem with slave morality is Entselbstung, what is the basis of Verselbstung?
Verselbstung is to be aClUally the person you know you are: it is as such that the
claim of time past and thus the possibility of slave morality is abolished. From his
youth on, one of Nietzsche's touchstone passages was from Pin dar' s Second Pythian:
genoi oios essi rnathon, rendered by Barbara Fowler as "Be what you know you are,"26
and by Alexander Nehamas as "Having learned, become who you are."2? As the
voice of his "Gewissen," his knowing conscience, Nietzsche tells us: "du sollst der
werden wer (or was) du bist-You should become the one you are" (GS 270).2" We
learn from Nietzsche that the slavely moral are those who cannot become what they
are, nor can they ever know what that is: there is no self that can become their own
(KSA 13:14 [102]). They "bob around like corks" in the image he uses in Zarathus-
tra and takes from Pindar. Slave morality for Nietzsche is not having a self that is
one's own.
So the question of how to escape or change the genealogy of slave morality is for
Nietzsche the question of how to be able authentically to use the first person singu-
lar, to say "I" and use the word correctly. As it turns out-and this should be no
surprise-this is the other problem confronting those who found Clio to have
104 Tracy B. Strong

become the principle muse. Kant, at the beginning of What is Enlightenment?"

insists that the problem is finding one's own way and each of the questions that set
up the three critiques is framed in terms of the first person singular (What can I
know? What ought I to do? For what may I hope?). Likewise, John Stuart Mill
sought in On Liberty to establish the conditions by which one might freely be one's
own person rather than someone whose actions and desires were shaped by and
respondent to the conformities in society. Nietzsche continues this enterprise-bur
as we have seen he understood the problem as far more difficult than did even Kant
and Mill.

NOTES

My thanks to Christa Davis Acampora for her insightful work editing this manuscript.

1. In John 8:58, Jesus says, "Before Abraham was, I am."

2. Here, as in performativity theory, contests over naming are contests over Being. See
Austin, Butler, Derrida, Wittig, and others.
3. See the complete discussion in my Friedrich Nietzsche and the Politics 0/ Transfigura-
tion, 3rd ed. (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2000), ch. 8.
4. This is not yet what Nietzsche means when he says there is "no will," see below. See
also chapter eight in my Friedrich Nietzsche ,md tbe Politics and lransjiguration, and Wolfgang
Miilkr-Lauter, Nietzsche: His Philosophy o/Contradictions and the Contradictions 0/ His Philos-
op/~y (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1999). [Ea. Note: MUlier-Lauter's chapter that
includes discussion of the "whither" of the will is reprinted in hili in this volume.)
5. What Freud called Besetzung-taking a place, or being cast as a character.
6. Such as Phaedo 96a: "Now I will tell you my own experience in the matter, if you
wish." It also refers to emotion and, in rhetoric, to the appeal to emotion.
7. I am helped by Liddell and Scott. It is thus not at all what is meant by physis and,
while I cannot deal with the matter here, insof.u as Heidegger wants to tie the idea of will to
power to physis, it seems to me he is mistaken. Physis has a number of meanings but it is
centrally the natural constitution of a thing as the result of growth. Nietzsche tends (0 use it
to refer (0 an achieved culture. See, namely, K,)A 7:30 [15]; HL 10; SE 3. Physis has, in other
words, a temporal or teleological dimension that pathos does not have.
8. A Macher is a maker, an active leader, in both Middle High German and Yiddish.
9. Nietzsche, Die Unschlild des Werdens: Der Nachla/. ed. Alfred Baumler, 2nd ed. (Stutt-
gart: Kroner, 1978), vol. 2, 78 (not in the KGW).
10. I leave unexamined here the complex relation of Nietzsche to the Kantian architec-
tonic. On Nietzsche as a radical Kantian see, inter alia, the fruitful discussion in B. Babich,
Nietzsche's Philosophy o/Science (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1994).
11. KSAB 6, 242; 7, 270, 275; 8, \06, 205, 247, 370.
12. See Thomas H. Brobjer, "Nietzsche's Knowledge of Marx and Marxism," Nietzsche-
Stlldien 31 (2002): 298-313, and especially Howard Caygill, "The Return of Nietzsche and
Marx," in H,lbermas, Nietzsche, and Critical Theory, ed. Babette E. Babich, (New York:
Humanity Books, 2004), 195-209. I leave aside here the dif~erences and similarities between
 Genealogy, the Will to Power, and the Problem ofa Past 105

the Rousseau/Hegel/Marx dialectical view of the relation of master and slave and Nietzsche's
genealogical one to look at what Nietzsche has to say about the master-slave relation.
13. I should note that Glaukos apparently gets cheated ("Zeus had stolen [his) wits
away")-Homer presents the whole scene in such a manner that one must read it as a doubly
ironic commentary on the war itself.
14. It has been done by Alasdair MacIntyre in his consideration of Homer in After Virtue
(Notre Dame: The University of Notre Dame Press, 1984), chs. 10 and 11.
15. Note that in the passages explicating these terms Nietzsche puts "good," "evil," and
"bad" in scare quotes.
16. One might argue that it is not a matter of best interest but rather of what is right.
Thus strength of will would have to do with the strength to do what is right. The Nazi guard
claims that he was simply carrying out his duty, claiming strength of will. Hannah Arendt's
rebuke, which for many readers is insufficient, consists in pointing out how little strength of
any kind is involved in the ordinariness of doing what is expected of one and which everyone
else does as well. Thanks to Professor Babette E. Babich for a discussion on these matters.
17. Gary Watson, "Skepticism about Weakness of Will," Philosophical Review 86 (1977):
316-39. The question here is as to the status of "normal."
18. Thus Marx foresaw the victory of the proletariat. Neither Nietzsche nor Marx was a
Social Darwinian.
19. We have an entry here into what Kant was after when he began his essay "What is
Enlightenmenr?" by asserting the importance of attaining one's OWII way.
20. See, namely, Donald Davidson, "How is Weakness of Will Possible?" in D. Davidson,
Essays 011 Actions and Events. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980),40.
if:
21. For an inreresting to my mind, somewhat overly Kantian, discussion of possibilities,
sec Aaron Ridley, Nietzsche s Conscience: Six Character Studies from the Genealogy (Ithaca, NY:
Cornell University Press, 1998).
22. It is worth noting that most readings of the second essay of GM II pass over the first
two sections and go immediately ro section 3 on conscience. See, namely, Werner Stegmaier,
Nietzsches Genealogie der Moral (Darmstadt: WissenschafrIiches Buchgesellschaft, 1994),
131 ff. He gets to the question of the sovereign individual on p. 136 without, however, (he
sense of the genealogical development that Nietzsche sees. See also Mathias Risse, "The Sec-
ond Treatise in 011 the Genealogy of Morality: Nietzsche on the Origin of the Bad Con-
science," in European journal ofPhilosophy 9: I (2001): 55-81, who does not begin until after
the first two sections.
23. See Magna Moralia I 25-26.
24. One of the very few commentators to focus on this is Randall Havas, Nietzsches Gene-
alogy (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press), 193ft: who does so with an eye to the move from
"animality" to "humanity," which I think misleading. He is on sounder gtound on p. 196
where he relates the idea of "right" to that of (he responsibility for intelligibility. See also,
importantly, David Owen, "The Contest of Enlightenment: An Essay on Critique and Gene-
alogy" in joun/al ofNietzsche Studies 25 (Spring 2003): 35-57 and David Owen, "Equality,
DemocraL)" and Self-Respect: Reflections on Nietzsche's Agonal Perfectionism" in The jour-
nal ofNietzsche Studies 24 (Fall 2002): 113-31. Further discllssion appears in Randall Haras,
"Nietzsche's Idealism" and Aaron Ridley, "Ancillary Thoughts on an Ancillary Text," both
in The journal of Nietzsche Studies 20 (2000): 90-99 and 100-108, respectively. See in this
volume Christa Davis Acampora, "On Sovereignty and Overhumanity: Why It Matters How
We Read Nietzsche's Genealogy II:2."
106 Tracy B. Strong

25. See the discussion in Stanley Cavell, The Claim of Reason (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1979),309.
26. Archaic Greek Poetry: An Anthology, selected and trans. Barbara Fowler (Madison: Uni-
versity of Wisconsin Press, 1992),279.
27. Alexander Nehamas, The Art of Living: Socratic Reflections ftom Plato to Foucault
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), 128. I am indebted for these two citations
to Babette E. Babich, "Nietzsche's Imperative as a Friend's Encomium: On Becoming the
One You Are, Ethics, and Blessing," Nietzsche-Studien 33 (2003): 29-58.
28. There is a considerable literature about what in Nietzsche's renderings happens (Q the
matbOn. Babich's paper (2003) deals with this very effectively. One can point out also that by
placing the imperative as that which the conscience says, Nictzsche has incorporatcd it also.
II
READING NIETZSCHE'S
GENEALOGY--FOCUSED
ANALYSES OF PARTS AND
PASSAGES
7
Slave Morality, Socrates, and the Bushmen
A Critical Introduction to On the Genealogy of
Morality, Essay 1*
Mark Migotti

The first tract of On the Genealogy of Morality tells the story of a "slave revolt in
morality" (GM I: 10), I In the present essay, I inquire first into the internal coherence
of this story, the slave revolt hypothesis, and second into its agreement with histori-
cal fact. I conclude that Nietzsche's hypothesis is coherent, plausible, and illumi-
luting.

BARBARIAN MASTERS, CREATIVE SlAVES

In the beginning were knightly-aristocratic "masters" who determined for them-

selves that they were "good," and everybody else "bad." Not surprisingly, the
numerous and miserable bad resented their lot. Somehow, sometime, their ressenti-
ment became creative, and bore fruit in the form of an unheard of new morality,
according to which those who had previously been regarded as wretched and bad in
fact are in tact pure and good. The masters, meanwhile, are deemed not good but
"evil." Shockingly, this idea caught on in a very big way; so much so that modern
Europeans tend to assume without further thought that certain values specific to
slave morality-altruism, for example-are in fact constitutive of any morality wor-

'This chaprer has been revised and excerpred by rhe author afrer irs publicarion in Philoso-
phy & Phenomenological Research 58:4 (December 1998): 745-80.

109
110 Mark Migotti

rhy of rhe name. Hence, according ro Nierzsche, rhe need for a genealogy of moral-
iry-and for rhe uncommon parience, erudirion, acumen, and daring needed to
carry ir our well.

Noble moraliry is self-esrablished. Developing "from a rriumphant affirmarion of

irself" (GM I: 10), ir is rhe morality of "self-glorificarion" (BGE 260). Against rhe
"bungled" genealogy of morals of unnamed "English psychologisrs," Nietzsche
insisrs rhat

the judgment "good" did not originate with those to whom "goodness" was shown!
Rather it was "the good" themselves, that is to say, the noble, powerful, high-stationed
and high-minded, who felt and established themselves and their actions as good, that
is, of the first rank, in contradistinction to all that is low, low-minded, common and
pkbeian. It was out of this pathos of distance that they first seized the right to create
values and to coin names for things. (GM 1:2)

When the English moral historians maintain rhar "originally, ... one approved of
unegoisric ace ions and called them good from rhe point of view of rhose to whom
rhey were done, rhar is to say, those to whom they were useful" (GM 1:2), rhey are,
Nierzsche rhinks, twice mistaken. Nor only does morality not originare in a favor-
able assessmem of self-sacrifice and unegoisric behavior, it is also nor by nature
beholden to the value of miliry. Noble moraliry, in face, is consritured by an exuber-
am transcendence of the standpoim of utiliry, a lofry disregard for rhe imponance of
mere comfon and survival:

What had [nobles] to do with utiliry! The viewpoint of utiliry is as remote and inappro-
priate as it possibly could be in relation to such a burning eruption of the highest rank-
ordering, rank-defining judgments: for here feeling has attained the antithesis of that
low degree of warmth which any calculating prudence, any calculus of utility, presup-
poses-and not for once only, not for an exceptional hour, but for good. (GM 1:2)

A crucial part of whar nobles affirm about rhemselves is their very ability to raise
themselves above the common crowd and irs vulgar needs. This ability, however,
would be unintelligible if it were not supported by orher "firsr order" excellences.
Without such support, we would have no idea why nobles should be spontaneously
self-affirming. The founders of noble morality are able to rhink well of rhemselves
because rhey have "received bountifully from rhe enormously diverse and splendid
mass of happy and desirable amibutes" (Frithjof Bergmann, "Nietzsche and Ana-
lyric Ethics," in Schacht, ed., Nietzsche, Genealogy, and Morality [Berkeley: Univer-
siry of California Press, 1994], 78). Initially and typically, their superiority is made
manifest in activities that involve strenuous physical effort and large and dramatic
risks; "knightly-aristocratic value judgments presuppose a powerful physicality, a
 Slave Morality, Socrates, and the Bushmen III

flourishing, abundant, even overflowing health, together with that which serves to
preserve it: war, adventure, hunting, dancing, competitive sports [Kampfipiele], and
in general all that involves vigorous, free, joyful activity" (GM 1:7). In deigning to
engage in (hem, nobles take themselves (0 honor these activities (cf. BGE 260), when
they excel at them, they can therefore honor themselves all the more. Nietzsche's
nobles set exigent standards of achievement and think well of themselves when they
meet these standards with aplomb.
Because the criteria of nobility are self-appointed, noble values are ultimately self-
generated and self-grounded. But because measuring up to these self-appointed cri-
teria is often a maHer of fact, not opinion, because superiority in respect of strength,
daring, or prowess, for example, is generally an ascertainable rather than a debatable
marrer, noble values are also grounded in the world. Nobles are nobles because they
set themselves certain targets and successfully hit them; and they set the targets and
strive to hit them, ... just because; not, that is, because they are constrained to, but
because they freely choose to. A noble zest for life is manifested in activities engaged
in for their own sakes, not demanded by material circumstance or external author-
ity.2 So noble morality is a morality of intrinsic value, a morality of lives lived for
the sake of the happiness inseparable from engaging in actions and activities deemed
worthwhile in and of themselves, together with the honor consequent upon excelling
at them in the eyes of one's peers. 3 In Thorstein Veblen's terms, the defining feature
of a Nietzschean nobility is its legislation of an "invidious" contrast between the
routine activity needed to sustain the material conditions of/ife-valued only instru-
mentally, as a necessary precondition for something better-and (he pursuit of
"exploit," which is valued for itself and constitutes that for the sake of which it is
worth seeing to mundane matters. 4
The powerful physicality and hearty ferocity of Nietzsche's early nobles is of a
piece with their "crude, coarse, external, narrow, and altogether unsymbolical" (GM
1:6) habits of mind. Although the masters value distinguishable qualities and activi-
ties, they experience each element in the "aristocratic value-equation," "good =
noble = powerful = beauriful = happy = God-beloved" (GM 1:7), as part of an
indivisible whole, so many facets of the single" Urwert" of "being and doing as we
are and do." Readers of GM cannot, in consequence, experience life as Nietzsche
imagines the originators of noble morality to have experienced it; their form of life
is practically inaccessible to modern men and women. It does not follow from this,
though, that the perspective of master morality5 is epistemically unavailable to inhab-
italHS of the modern world. Noble values are not so bizarre as to render it doubtful
that we can understand what it might have been like to live in accordance with
them.
Nietzsche's nobles live according to a crude "unity of the virtues" thesis. Since
their self·exaltation and commitment to their aristocratic value equation is instinc-
tive, the thesis will not appear ro them to stand in need of articulation or defense;
hut since excellence in running, jumping, hunting, dancing, fighting or command-
112 Mark Migotti

ing are objective matters, the virtues of the nobles are rooted in something better
than sheer mystification or groundless prejudice. It is nor that anyone, then or now,
need think that the noble identification of "superior in certain respects"-running,
hunting, commanding, and the like-with "just plain superior," "intrinsically better
overall," is inrellecrually defensible; it is simply that the relevant achievements of the
nobles are genuine achievements. And it is because of this basis in fact that the pejo-
rative view of the slavish "other" entailed by noble morality can be something of a
logically necessary afterthought; to the nobles, "the bad" are simply those who lack
the ensemble of desirable qualities that they have. The distinction introduced by
the slave revoir in morality, between good and evil, is a radically differenr sort of
contrast.
When slave moralists deny that the masters are good, the term "good" means
something differem from what it means for masters. In order to think of the masters
as evil, slave moralists must first "dye [them} in another color, interpret [them] in
another fashion, see [them} in another way, through the venomous eye of ressenti-
ment" (eM 1:1 1). When the eye of ressentiment looks at the nobles, it does not see
the tightly wound skein of power, wealth, courage, truthfulness and the like that the
nobles themselves had perceived; it sees instead only cruelty, tyranny, lustfulness,
insatiability, and godlessness (eM 1:7). Once the ressemiment of the weak becomes
creative and gives birth to a new kind of morality, slaves are able to look at them-
selves and see not unrelenting, unredeemed misery, but a new kind of goodness,
constituted by the voluntary cultivation of submission, humility, and a sense of
equality.
The most important accomplishment of slave morality, though, is not its turning
the tables on the masters and deeming the erstwhile bad to be good and the erstwhile
good to be evil; what is most important is tbat slave morality does this by introduc-
ing a new type of value, impartial value. Slave morality is the morality of impartial
value in that it is the morality of value chosen by an (allegedly) impartial subject,
one who is in himself neither master nor slave bur can freely choose to behave and to
evaluate either as the one or as the other. Slave moralists, says Nietzsche, "maintain
no belief more ardently than the belief that the strong man is free to be weak and the
bird of prey to be a lamb-for thus they gain the right to make the bird of prey
accollntable for being a bird of prey" (eM I: 13)."
In light of the "pathos of distance" separating nobles from their inferiors, it needs
to be asked how slave morality could ever have made its astonishing incursion into
noble morality, how this sublimely subtle slave revoir succeeded in a way unparal-
leled by any political or economic revoir of the poor and the weak against the strong
and the wealrhy. According to RUdiger Bittner ("Ressentiment," in Schacht, ed),
slave morality cannot bave originated in tbe slave revolt posited by Nietzsche. On
tbe Nietzschean hypothesis, slave morality was invemed as a means of compensating
slaves for their wretched lives, but nobody can compensate himself by means of a
revenge that he himself recognizes to be imaginary (133). Pace Binner, however, the
 Slave Morality, Socrates, and the Bushmen 113

reVt:nge of the slaves as Nietzsche portrays it resembles nO[ the sour grapes of Aesop's
fox, but a kind of collective Schadenfreude: the slaves make themselves happy by
making the masters unhappy. What matters is that the slaves actually be motivated
by their desire to exact revenge on the masters, nor that they be clearly aware of
this.?
Slave morality makes masters unhappy by making them feel guilty. Masters lose
their grip on their own morality by being made to feel anxious for being who they
are and doing what they do. "Men of ressentiment," we read in GM II:14, "could
achieve "the ultimate, subdest, sublimest triumph of revenge ... if they succeeded
in forcing their own misery, forcing all misery, into the consciences of the fortunate
so that one day the fortunate began to be ashamed of their good fortune and perhaps
said to one another: 'it is disgraceful to be fortunate; there is too much misery.''' But
how could masters be persuaded of anything by slaves, given that they rarely speak
to them at all and tend, when they do, to remain in the imperative mood? No satis-
factory answer will be possible if we follow Richard Rorty in thinking of rhe bellicose
nobles as "narcissistic and inarticulate hunks of Bronze Age beefcake."" Nietzsche's
nobles are not inarticulate but rather dialectically incompetent. Only because they are
articulate can they be argued into granting that they are free to choose whether and
how to allow expression to their deepest urges to act; only because they are dialectic-
ally incompetent can they be argued into granting the point, which Nietzsche him-
self believes to be false and pernicious.
A precondition of masters being coaxed into examining the Trojan Horse of slave
morality is their having already developed among themselves the practice of settling
certain issues by persuasion rather than by force. Not only are Nietzsche's nobles
articulare, they are also, in their relations with one another, wonderfully "resourceful
in consideration, self-comro!' delicacy, loyalty, pride, and friendship" (GM I: 11).
By frightful comrast, in rheir relations with the bad or the alien they could (and
often apparenrly did) behave "nO[ much bener than uncaged beasts of prey" {ibid.}.
Master moraliry thus operates (without a second thought) according to a double
standard; conduct that would not become a noble in his dealings with peers is not
regarded as similarly disgraceful vis-a-vis those beyond the pale. 9 Before the advent
of slave moraliry, this double standard is held not to have given the nobles any pause;
they practiced it with a good conscience.
Nobles become infected with bad conscience when they begin to worry about
whether they are responsible, not simply for conducting themselves as befits a noble,
but for being noble. These seeds of doubt in place, they are half way to being half
convinced that they are not justified in thinking of themselves in the way that they
had done. The inability of masters to justifY themselves before the bar of impartial
value is the result principally of their inability intellectually to defend two features
of their outlook: the double standard that allows the bad or the alien to be (feated
ignobly, and the powerful physicality that infuses the activities that nobles value
imrinsically.
114 Mark Migotti

SOCRATES

In addition to recognizing among themselves the difference between persuasion and

force and to acknowledging a peer-relative sense of responsibility, Nietzsche's master
class typically contained within it a priestly caste, a species of nobility that pays spe-
cial attention to the value of purity. Initially, this element in the value-equation is,
like all the others, construed in gross, tangible terms. "'The pure one,''' Nietzsche
writes, "is from the beginning merely a person who washes himself, who forbids
himself certain foods that produce skin ailments, who does not sleep with the dirty
women of the lower strata, who has an aversion to blood-no more, not much
more" (GM 1:6). Nevertheless, he goes on to say, "there is from the first something
unhealthy in ... priestly aristocracies and in the habits ruling in them which turn
them away from action and alternate between brooding and emotional explosions"
(ibid.). Because they become used to turning away from action, priests begin to spiri-
tualize the notion of purity to the point at which it demands as much abstention as
possible from the physical and the sensual altogether; and the more thoroughgoing
this spiritualization, the more likely it is that "the priestly mode of valuation [will]
branch off from the knightly aristocratic and then develop into its opposite," slave
morality and the ascetic ideal (GM 1:7).
1t is thus in the very idea of a priestly form of life that we find the beginnings of
a Nietzschean explanation of how slave moralists get the attention of nobles. But
how could brawny, marauding warlords have come to harbor brooding, neuras-
thenic priests in their midst?
According to GM II: 19, prehistoric tribes "recognized a juridical duty towards
earlier generations." The members of such tribes believed that "it is only through
the sacrifices and accomplishments of the ancestors that the tribe exists-and that
one has to pay them back with sacrifices and accomplishments: one thus recognizes
a debt that constantly grows greater, since these forebears never cease, in their con-
tinued existence as powerful spirits, to accord the tribe new advantage and new
strength" (GM II: 19). As the tribe prospers, so waxes the debt that the living owe
to the dead, especially the longest dead, the founders, until "in the end the ancestor
must necessarily be transfigured into a god" (GM II: 19). Initially, in other words,
ancestors and gods may be propitiated by sacrifices and accomplishments of a famil-
iarly predatory and aggressive sort; with time, though, there grows a sense that the
metaphysical "otherness" of these specially powerful beings demands that they be
treated with commensurately refined and mysterious forms of respect, with, for
example, buildings, sights, sounds, and smells dedicated to them alone. The priest-
hood thus becomes that department of the nobility that takes charge of commerce
with gods and spirits, leaving the knightly aristocrats to deal with mortal humans
and animals.
Nietzsche says that slave morality emered world history via the cult and culture
of ancient Judaism (cf. GM 1:7 and BGE 195) and that its success is epitomized by
the triumph of Christianity (cf. GM 1:8). But the origination of slave morality in
 Slal'e Morality, Socrates, and the Bushmen 115

the world of the Hebrew Bible cannot account for its insinuation into masterly cir-
cles, for it was not through widespread conversion to Judaism that slave morality
achieved its conquests. And although Christians eventually succeeded in spreading
the slavish word on a heretofore unprecedented scale, conversions to Christianity
cannot count as examples of slave morality's reaching knightly-aristocrats in the very
first place. The late Hellenistic and early Roman world within which Christianity
emerged and grew was already familiar with the crucial notions of impartial value
and anrisensual purity, it was a culture within which master morality had already
been contaminated by slave morality's characteristic mode of evaluation. In fact, the
key to Nietzsche's solution to his problem is found not in the Gertealogy but in his
interpretation of Socrates.
Nietzsche's Socrates confronted the nobility of Athens with a fateful puzzle. An
ugly, irritating plebeian, whose characteristic mode of inquiry by cross-examination
was impertinent by noble standards, he nevertheless commanded attemion; he was
"the butToon that got himselftaken seriously" (TJ "Socrates" 5). Socrates got himself
taken seriously by "discovering a new kind of agon" (TJ "Socrates" 8), a dialectical
agon; he "fascinated in that he touched the agonistic drive of the ancient Hel-
lene,-he imroduced a variant form of wrestling between young men and youths.
Socrates was also a great erotic (Erotiker)" (ibid.). In virtue of their inability to under-
stand him or to defeat him in the game of question and answer, Socrates' noble
comemporaries were forced to admit that where he was concerned, they were no
longer itt charge o/the situation. Since being a noble, being "one of us excellent speci-
mens of humanity," was supposed to guarantee the wherewithal always to be in
charge insofar as that was humanly possible, this admission brings with it an uncom-
t()rtable cognitive dissonance.
So when, to give a signal example, Alcibiades declares in the Symposium that Soc-
rates is the only man capable of making him feel ashamed of himself, the slave revolt
hypothesis would have us understand this on cwo levels. First, Alcibiades is ashamed
of himself by the standards of master morality. When Alcibiades realizes that, since
he cannot "prove Socrates wrong," he must agree that he is living his life according
to priorities that he cannot defend,1O he faces the following trilemma by his own
lights: either (1) he is not as noble as he had thought; or (2) the practice of justifYing
his choices with reason and argumem is not something worth his noble attention;
or (3) he need not care whether or not he is able intellectually to defend himself
against the plebeian Socrates. The second option is foreclosed because Alcibiades
must recognize that it is frequently incumbent upon nobles to justifY actions and
decisions to other nobles, for example in councils of war or on other matters of
public policy. And the third is foreclosed because Alcibiades has already been
seduced into caring very much how he fares in the eyes of Socrates; he has been
sminen by Socrates' strange new brand of eroticism. Hence a first spate of shame,
brought on by his failure to live up to his own standards of achievement.
Nietzsche holds that the inability of an Alcibiades to close his mind to the
demands of Socratic dialectic is already symptomatic of decay on the part of the
116 Mark Migotti

noble morality of fifth-century Athens. Socrates, he writes, "understood ... [that]

the old Athens was coming to an end, ... [that] the instincts were everywhere in
anarchy," and that as a result "all the world had need of him" (TI "Socrates" 9).
The robust appearance of noble morality turns out to have been deceptive, its naive
exuberance and unexamined self-confidence inherently fragile and subject to endog-
enous disintegration. Because of this undiagnosed and only inchoately felt degenera-
tion of fifth-century Athenian noble instincts and values, Socrates was able to
radicalize the practice of defending oneself with reasons in two ways: he demanded
that his interlocutors justify themselves to Socrates, a plebeian, and he demanded
that they justify the fundamental principles according to which they lived, rather
than simply justifying particular, local matters against the background of an unques-
tioned code of noble conduct.
Once ashamed as a noble in virrue of nor being able to defeat Socrates in his
novel agon of the elenchus, a figure like Alcibiades is ripe for experiencing furrher
shame-bordering on guilt-for not adopting the standards of evaluation Socrates
is proposing. When Alcibiades bemoans his "personal shorrcomings," he is speaking
as one already infected by Socratic values, one who has been forced intellectually to
agree that "reason = virtue = happiness" (TI "Socrates" 9), that one should never
voluntarily harm another, even if one has been wronged, and that the established
exemplars of wisdom, courage, piety, and justice are sadly ignoranr of what wisdom,
courage, piety, and justice truly are. Practically speaking, though, Alcibiades has not
been really convinced:

[T]he moment I leave [Socrates'] side, I go back to myoid ways: I cave in to my desire
toplease the crowd. My whole life has become one constant effort to escape from him
and keep away, but when I see him, I feel deeply ashamed, because I'm doing nothing
about my way of life, though I have already agreed with him that I should. (Symposium
216c)

Alcibiades thus bears witness, not only to the loosening grip of noble values on their
adherents, but also (0 the emerging confusion of master and slave morality, for he
himself does nor separate the two distinct sources of shame that a Nietzschean analy-
sis reveals, but speaks rather of a single disconcerting experience of inadequacy in
the face of Socrates.

In the second half of the chapter, I bring empirical evidence to bear on the slave
revolt hypothesis. This is necessary on the assumption that GAt I is meant (0 include
a historically serious reconstruction of the roots of modern Western ethical con-
sciousness. And this assumption had better be true. For the philosophical heart of
GM I's moral critique is the claim that the idea of impartial value originated in self-
estranged ressentiment, while the phenomenon of intrinsic value originated in a sclf-
affirming "active force" (GM II: 18), and this means that the soundness of the cri-
tique depends in large part upon the truth of the claim. I argue first that the slave
revolt hypothesis receives initial support from certain enduring facts of language use
 Slave Morality, Socrates, and the Bushmen 117

in English and other European languages; II and second that it is not impugned by
the existence of foraging societies with a strikingly egalitarian mode of life but no
history of nobles and slaves. If Nietzsche thought that egalitarianism required a slave
revolt, such societies would falsifY it outright. But an examination of the erstwhile
"Bushmen," or San, of southern Africa 12 in the context of a charitable reading of his
work will show that Nietzsche thought no such thing. If anything certain Bushmen/
San practices provide positive evidence for his account of the role of ressentiment in
human psychology.

MORAL VOCABUlARY

According to Peirce, a hypothesis is an attempt to account for something that would

otherwise be surprising. In an 1878 paper, he offers the following as an example of
the sort of thing he has in mind: "fossils are found; say, remains like those of fishes,
but far in the interior of the country. To explain the phenomenon, we suppose the
sea once washed over this land. This is tal hypothesis."13 Consider now the contin-
ued presence in English of a number of ambiguous words and phrases that fit the
following two descriptions:

(1) The central ambiguity in question is that between an evaluative and a descriptive
sense.
(2) from the perspective of a wholeheartedly egalitarian morality, the evaluative con-
tent runs directly contrary what would have been expected on the basis of the
descriptive sense.

The words "noble" and "common" can serve as examples. The Oxford English
Dictionary (OED) has as the second etHry under "noble": "illustrious by rank, tide,
or birth; belonging to that class of the community which has a titular pre-eminence
over the others," and as the fourth: "having high moral qualities or ideals; of great
or lofty character." The potential for discrepancy between the two senses is nicely
exploited in an 1829 citation, from Kenelm Digby. "The soldiers of Pavia were far
more noble than their Emperor, Friedrich II, when they remonstrated against his
barbarous execution of the Parmesan prisoners." Under "common," the OED has
twenty-three entries, divided into three main groups. The first group of (nine)
entries rings changes on the general sense "belonging equally to more than one,"14
the second group (of six) is introduced with the phrase "of ordinary occurrence and
quality, hence mean, cheap," while the final grouping contains various technical
senses, from mathematics and the law among other areas. The homonymy covering
the first two groups evidently conforms to the following logic: nothing that is too
common, in the sense of shared equally by many, can be very distinguished(!) or
desirable. The most revealing entry in the second group is sense fourteen, according
to which, "common" when predicated of "ordinary persons, life, language, etc."
means "lower class, vulgar, unrefined."15
118 Mark Migotti

These ambiguities of "noble" and "common" cannot be explained away as a theo-

retically unpromising peculiarity of the English language, as the ambiguity of "poor"
between "indigenr" and "substandard" can perhaps be; for the same ambiguity
occurs in other European languages; in, for example, the German "vomehm" and
"gemein"16 and the French "noble" and "commun." Why should single words yoke
together, on the one hand a politico-genealogical conception of superiority with a
meritocratic, characterological one, and on the other hand, an innocuous concept of
being shared with a pejorative term of opprobrium? According to the slave revolt
hypmhesis, these ambiguities are what the English anthropologist E. B. Tylor called
"survivals": remnants of a time bejilfe good and evil, linguistic analogues of Peirce's
inland fish fossils. What today might seem a tendentious yoking of disparate senses
was once, according to Nietzsche, a perfectly natural conceptual mixture.
In GM \:5, Nietzsche supports the slave revolt hypothesis by appealing to the not
easily translatable meanings of the ancient Greek "agathos," "esthlos," "dei/os," and
"kakos." The Liddell and Scott Greek-English Lexicon (L&S) gives four primaty
meanings for agathos: (1) well-born, genrle, (2) brave, valiant, (3) good, serviceable,
and (4) good in a moral sense; two for esthlos: (1) brave, stout, noble, and (2) morally
good, faithful; three for deilos: (I) cowardly, hence vile, worthless, (2) low-born,
mean, (3) miserable, wretched, with a compassionate sense;'? and five for kakos: (I)
ugly, (2) ill-born, (3) craven, base, (4) worthless, sorty, unskilled, (5) morally evil,
pernicious. On Nietzsche's view, the distinctions made by L&S are useful and intel-
ligible only to us, inheritors of the slave revolt ttying ro understand the language and
culture of ancient Greece. What is notable about the way the words were used in
their natural habitat is that they unproblematically blended together aesthetic, ethi-
cal, and socioeconomic qualities. '" If Nietzsche is right, the vety possibility of
sharply distinguishing the descriptive from the evaluative senses of terms of this sort
does not become a live option until slave morality has developed to a suitably sophis-
ticated level. '9
Etymology and usage cannot on their own establish the crucial Nietzschean con-
nection between the emergence of impartial value and the expression of ressentiment.
The systematic ambiguities \ have looked at show that our (still) current moral lan-
guage is not monolithic, but srratified, and that the older semantic stratum embodies
an aristocratic scheme of value, while the younger one shows an accelerating ten-
dency to identify the truly moral with a distinctively impartial, egalitarian mode of
evaluation. On their own, the ambiguities cannot show that it was ressentiment that
sparked the formation and spread of the egalitarian scheme of value. 20 Nietzschean
attention to the enduring stratification of our moral vocabulary does, however, bring
into relief a need for explanation on two fronts: that of the unexpected emergence
of the egalitarian stratum and that of the surprising vestigial persistence of the aristo-
cratic stratum.
And once aware of the subterranean presence of the older scheme of value within
a culture ever more committed both to purifying the moral realm of contamination
from considerations of brute force, or wealth, or beauty, or mental or physical dex-
 Slave Morality, Socrates, and the Bushmen II9

terity, ... or anything else that does not belong properly to morality, and to champi-
oning the moral equality of persons, reflective souls in the modern world face a
consequential choice between the project of expunging the anomalous evaluative
usages in an effort [0 carry on ethical life in the exclusive terms of an austerely impar-
tial, rigorously purified conception of moral value and that of rethinking the nature
and foundations of moral value. According [0 Nietzsche, the former choice is nihilis-
tic, the latter bold and hopeful. 21

THE BUSHMEN

To identifY the historical subject of GM I, to say what the historical story it tells is
supposed to be a story of, we can do no better than reach back for the term "Chris-
tendom": GM I attempts to lay bare the ethical significance of Christendom by lay-
ing bare its true origins. As Homer provides Nietzsche with his terminus a quo, the
knightly-aristocratic mode of living and valuing, so is his terminus ad quem the
"modern moral milk-sop," provided by that familiar nineteenth-century figure, the
tender-hearted intellectual who responds to a waning conviction in the truth of
Christian metaphysics with an ever more rationalized and spiritualized "clinglingl
... ro Christian morality" (TJ "Skirmishes" 5).
Certain of GM I's cenrral claims, however, seem to transcend this culturally spe-
cific ambit. When we read that it is certain that "sub hoc signo [the slave revolt] Israel,
with its revenge and revaluation of ali values, has thus far again and again triumphed
over ali other ideals, over all more noble ideals" (I: 9, emphases added, emphasis
deleted), we might take Nietzsche ro hold that slavish, egalitarian values are inher-
ently reactionary, and can originate only in ressentiment and revenge. But if this is
his view, the existence of egalitarian peoples such as the San of southern Africa poses
a problem. For it is widely agreed that such peoples have never developed the sort
of hierarchically organized form of life that is supposed ro be necessary for the exis-
tence of noble values, and that they demonstrate in their most firmly entrenched
customs a strikingly high regard for peaceable and equitable group relations; they
appear not simply to have happened not to develop distinctions of rank among them-
selves, they actively see [0 it that "there are no distinct haves and have-nots,"22 that
physical hostilities are rare, and that actions or attitudes likely to increase the risk of
hostility in any t()fm are assiduously discouraged by "unspoken sociallaws."23 Rich-
ard Lee goes so far as ro say that the egalitarianism of the San "is not simply the
absence of a headman and other authority figures, but a positive insistence on the
essential equality of all people and a refusal to bow to the authority of others."24 So
the San seem to abide by something very like an impartial respect for each other,
even though this outlook cannot have originated in a slave revolt in morality.25
To make matters worse, there are elements of San culture more reminiscent of
Nietzschean nobles than his slaves. The San take an intense and vital delight in
120 Mark Migotti

music and dance,26 are skilled, enthusiastic hunters, are known for their elaborate
and beautiful paintings on the walls of caves and on rockfaces, and are inveterate
storytellers. Their world, in other words, despite the absence of political hierarchy
and economic complexiry, suffers from no lack of "vigorous, free, joyful activity" of
just the variery Nietzsche prizes when it is engaged in by Homeric Greeks and their
likeY And it is hard [() imagine that they do not value these self-expressive sorts of
activity imrinsically by contrast with the (presumably instrumental) value accorded
[() the "menial tasks" devoted to "elaborating the material means of life." But if the
Sittfichkeit of the San is [() qualifY as a form of master morality, it is a master morality
without masters, since there is no evidence that San conrrast themselves and their
excellences with anything perceived as "low, low-minded, or plebeian."
If a commitment to peaceable egalitarianism entails a commitment to the impar-
tial value characteristic of slave morality, then San culture falsifies the slave revolt
hypothesis. Bur the conditional that grounds this inference is foreign to Nietzsche's
moral amhropology, which explicitly recognizes an epoch of peaceable egalitarian-
ism that precedes the emergence of master morality. In GM 1:5 Nietzsche refers to
"the commune" as "the most primitive form of society"; in Beyond Good and Evil,
he distinguishes the "pre-moral" phase of human his[()ry, during which "the value
or disvalue of an action was derived from its consequences," from the genuinely
moral phase, governed by the aris[()cratic habit of determining the value of an action
by reference to its "ancestry" or "origin" (Herkunft) (BGE 231); and in Human, All
Too Human he characterizes the first stage of human morality, "the first sign that an
animal has become human," as that in which "behavior is no longer directed [() ...
momentary comfort, but rather to . . . enduring comfort," and contrasts it with a
"higher stage" in which "man acts according to the principle of honor" (HH 94).
For Nietzsche, in other words, we find in the very beginning of moral history groups
of early humans struggling to survive and reproduce, and doing so in conformity
with "The First Principle of Civilization," that "any custom is better than no cus-
tom" (D 16). Though different particular groups developed different particular cus-
roms, all of them agreed on two fundamental ideas: "that the community is more
importam than the individual and that a lasting advantage is preferable to a transient
one" (AOM 89). Only after the human species had maimained itself in groups of
this kind for some time did the knightly-aristocratic inventors of master morality
emerge onto the scene. Nietzsche's description of this earliest form of ethical life as
that of "the commune" strongly suggests that he takes it to be egalitarian in nature.
Nietzsche's willingness to allow that a morality of, as they might be called, ur-
communities constitutes a form of ethical life distinct from both the master morality
that breaks from it, and the slave morality that in turn breaks from master morality,
means that he need not be troubled by the discovery of groups such as the San whose
arrirudes and behavior cannot be smoothly assimilated either to the ethos of the
masters, nor to that of the slave revolt. In fact, adding the hypothesis of a morality
of ur-communities [() Nietzsche's theoretical framework enables two interesting fea-
 Slave Morality, Socrates, and the Bushmen 121

tures of San culture to turn up on the credit rather than the debit side of Nietzsche's
theoretical ledger.
The role of ressentiment according to the slave revolt hypothesis together with the
brief account of the origins of the state found in eM II: 17 should lead us to expect
ur-communities to be marked by the relative absence both of the pent-up ressenti-
ment alleged to have engineered the slave revolt in morality, and of governmenr by
a state. According to eM II: 17, the function of the oldest "state" (the scare quota-
tion marks are Nietzsche's) was to "weld ... a hitherto unimpeded and unshaped
populace into a fixed form." The scare quotation marks are there, Nietzsche
explains, because he takes himself to be talking about nOlhing more than "some
pack of blond beasts of prey, a conqueror and master race which, organized for war
and with the ability to organize, unhesitatingly lays its terrible claws upon a popula-
tion perhaps vasrly superior in numbers but still formless and nomad" (ibid.). What
we know as the state, in other words, is descended from something invented by
barbarian nobles, and so cannot be supposed to figure in the lives of communities
that have experienced no admixture of master morality.2~
If conformity to custom is not enforced by a superordinate authority such as the
state, it must presumably be enforced by all against each and each against all. It
follows from this, I think, that the bonds that bind egalitarian ur-communities
together could not long survive any significant growth in ressentiment on the part of
its members. Not that Nietzsche would portray ur-communities as free of ressenti-
ment as such; that would run counter to his view that the experience of ressentiment
is strictly coeval with the emergence of a distinctively human animal.2~ What is vari-
able across time and type according to Nietzsche is the manner in which ressentiment
is experienced and handled. In a noble, Nietzsche tells us, "ressentiment consum-
mates and exhausts itself in an immediate reaction, and therefore does not poison"
(eM I: I O). And in an ur-community, no significant admixture of this latter, venom-
ous f(ll"m of ressentiment would be tolerable. For supposing it to crop up in an indi-
vidual or subgroup, it would be directed either against other individuals or
subgroups, or in some generalized way, against the community as a whole. In either
case, the persistence of "undischarged" ressentiment would severely handicap the
mechanisms of consensual decision making and behavior enforcement demanded by
a morality of ur-communities. We should, consequently, expect the members of ur-
communities to share with nobles the habit of dealing with immediately experienced
ressentiment-that is, the immediate response to perceived encroachments, humilia-
tions, inequities, and the like-by means of similarly immediate, outwardly directed
acrion.
When we test these consequences of the slave revolr-ressentiment hypothesis
against ethnographic evidence, it is confirmed on both counts. That the San have
no indigenous counterparts to state power and authority as these are understood in
the West is evident. As George Silberbauer observes, the regular dispersal of a Bush-
man/San band inro smaller household-like groups during seasons of scarcity would
render "a centralized, hierarchical structure, with specialized personnel and roles ...
122 Mark Migotti

unable to function [during these periodsl."30 And that they refuse to tolerate juSt
the sorts of festering grievance that feed the poisonous ressentiment ascribed by
Nietzsche to the originators of slave morality is attested to by the variety of "vent-
ing" practices they have developed, which serve to sustain cooperative harmony and
inhibit divisive hostility.
Silberbauer, for example, divides the relationships that an individual G/wi has
with his or her kin (which will typically include the entire band to which the indi-
vidual belongs) into "joking relationships" and "avoidancelrespecr relationships."
Avoidance/respect holds between an individual and his or her parents, opposite sex
siblings, and children past the age of seven or eight; while joking relatives include
the individual's grandparents, same sex siblings, opposite sex siblings-in-law, and
COUSIl1S.

An avoidancelrespect relationship [writes Silberbauerl ... requires that those so related

should ""ao (v.t., to be reserved or respectful toward, to be scared of) one another.
Their ptoper behavior is characterized by:
• Nor sitting close together and generally avoiding bodily contact if not of the same
sex.
• Being careful nor to swear or make bawdy remarks in the obvious hearing of those
in an avoidance relationship.
• Not touching their possessions without permission; if an object is to be passed
b~tween avoidance rdatives, an intermediary should, properly, be used and a direct
transfer avoided. 3 '

These restrictions on acceptable interaction virtually preclude direct conflict

between avoidance relatives. 32
Many G/wi conflicts will thus be articulated and resolved within joking relation-
ships, and it is of the essence of the joking relationship, Silberbauer argues, to allow
disputes to be conducted in such a way as to minimize the dangers of escalation and
lasting resentment. "The behavior appropriate to the joking relationship," he
explains, "permits free and trenchant public criticism of the actions of a joking part-
ner and imposes an obligation to accept the criticism without the kind of resentmel1l
that might exacerbate the conflicr."33 Writing twenty years earlier than Silberbauer
about the Nyae Nyae !Kung, Lorna Marshall had come to the same conclusion,
observing that the !Kung's vigilant attention to "getting things il1lo words" is some-
thing that "keeps everyone in touch with what others are thinking and feeling,
releases tensions, and prevents pressures from building up until they burst out in
aggressive acts."34 Richard Lee, meanwhile, remarks of the Dobe !Kung, that

they have evolved elaborate devices for puncturing the bubble of conceit and enforcing
humiliry. These leveling devices are in constant daily use-minimizing the size of oth-
ers' kills, downplaying rhe value of others' gifts, and treating one's own effortS in a self-
deprecating way. Please and thank you are hardly ever found in their vocabulary; in their
 Slave Morality, Socrates, and the Bushmen 123

stead is a vocabulary of rough humor, backhanded complimenrs, put-downs, and damn-

ing with faitH praise. 35

Egalitarian culrures such as that of the San are not, therefore, counterexamples to
the slave revolt hypothesis.
But, I ask in conclusion, if a sustained commitment to treating everyone alike
together with a pronounced aversion to arrogance and a tendency to shun competi-
tion do not add up to a commitment to impartial value, what does? Impartial value
in my quasi-technical sense, I answer, can be found only in moral outlooks similar
enough to that which has emerged in the course of Western civilization; its vague
identity condition is simply a sufficient conceptual resemblance to our, Western
sense of the concept. The slave revolt hypothesis presupposes that the diverse, inter-
related paradigms of slave morality-the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament, the
canonical moral philosophers from Socrates to Schopenhauer-exhibit enough
unity among them to make the proposed identity condition for commitment to
impartial value theoretically useful. So if it were to turn our that what divided, say,
Aquinas from Kant from Mill was more philosophically significant than anything
that united them, the hypothesis would be commensurately weakened. By the same
token, though, to identifY a network of concepts or commitments that, there is rea-
son to think, are common to the canonical slave moralists and that are of genuine
philosophical interest, is to have the materials for a satisfYing answer to the question:
What does it take to be committed to impartial value? The amwer would be that it
takes familiarity with these concepts and commitment to these views, the ones inte-
gral (0 the Hebrew Bible, and the New Testament, and Socrates, and the others on
rhe list.
When introduced in rhe first section of this chapter, the concept of impartial
value was characterized as "value chosen by an l... J impartial subject," one "who
is in himself neither nuster nor slave, but can freely choose to behave and to evaluate
either as the one or as rhe other" (cf. above, p. 112). This account implies that a
commitment (() impartial value is bound up with a commitment to a certain concep-
tion of agency. Of a piece with impartial value is the conception of a distinctively
moral sense or locus of agency. What are the conditions of moral agency? What are
the legitimate grounds of appraisal of a distinctively moral-as opposed (() aesthetic,
athletic, epistemic, prudential, ...-SOrt? These are questions that will occupy
thinkers within the culrure labeled by Nietzsche, with malice aforethought, the cul-
rure of slave morality; impartial value is an umbrella concept comprising the nest of
ideas and assumptions about value that generate the kind of question just listed.
Examining and rejecting the idea that rhe egalitarian culture of the San might
pose a counterexample to the slave revolt hypothesis has led us in conclusion to
recognize a deeper and more precise sense in which the history of GM I is a history
of Western morality. For Nietzsche's most interesting and defensible historical claim
is that it is distinctive of our culrure, the culture that has roots in borh the Hebrew
Bible and the Homeric epics, that self-affirmation and intrinsic value entered it by
124 Mark Migotti

way of a knightly-aristocratic leisure class, whose moral scheme was overthrown by

a slave revolt that introduced a novel morality of impartial value. Whether having
this hisrory is our fortune or our misfortune is as maybe; more ro the Nietzschean
point, it is our fiue.

NOTES

I would like [0 thank audiences at Bishop's Universicy, The Univcrsicy of Miami, The Cana-
dian and American Philosophical Associations, and Hamilton College for questions that
helped me improve earlier drafts of this chapter. I would like most especially to thank RUdiger
Bittner, Ken Gemcs, Jean Grondin, Susan Haack, Aimee MacDonald, Eric Saidel, James
Stayer, Allen Wood, and an anonymous referee for detailed criticisms and helpful suggestions;
and Christa Davis Acampora for help in trimming the originally published paper to its pres-
ent size.

1. For translations of Nietzsche's works, I have relied upon Kaufmann and Hollingdale's
GM and WP; Hollingdale's HH, D, Z, and 11; and Kautinann's GS and BGE, I have often
altercd the translation of particular words and phrases.
2. The inclusion of war on Nietzsche's list of characteristic noble activities might seem
to count against the suggestion that these activities are all engaged in for their own sakes.
With Aristotle, it might be thought that "nobody chooses to make war or provoke it for the
sake of making war; a man would bc regarded as a bloodthirsty monster if he made his friends
il1lo enemies in order to bring about battles and slaughter" (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics.
j. A. K. Thompson, trans., Hugh Trcdennick, revised !fans. [New York: Penguin Books,
1979], X 1177b 10). To think this, though, is to fail to understand the scheme of value that
governed the lives of barbarian nobles. If Aristotle's remark is an ethical truism, then Nictz-
sche's heroic warriors arc indeed "bloodthirsty monsters." As Nietzsche says, the nobles'
"indifference to and contempt for security, body, life, comfort, their appalling cheerfulness
(entsetzliche Heiterkeit) and profound joy in all destruction, in all the voluptuousness of vic-
tory and cruelty-all this came together in the minds of those who suffered ftom it, in the
image of the 'barbarian,' the 'evil enemy,' perhaps as the 'Goths,' the 'Vandals'" (GM I: 11,
275/42). Now there is nothing in the thesis that, as Arthur Damo puts it, Nietzschean nobles
take warmaking to be "not so much what [they] do but what [they] are, so that it is not a
marter of warring for, but as, an end" ("Some Remarks on On the Genealogy of Morals," in
Richard Schacht, ed., Nietzsche, Genealogy, Morality: tssays on On the Genealogy of Morals,
35), that precludes acknowledgment that nobles might also have valued war for the sake of
extrinsic goods such as territory, plunder, and honor that can be obtained by waging it suc-
cessfully. The case is entirely akin to, for example, valuing athletic ability both for its intrinsic
rewards and for its conduciveness to good health. Cf. on the intrinsic value of war, Zarathus-
tra, "Of War and Warriors": "You say it is the good cause that hallows even war? I tell you:
it is the good war that hallows every cause" (Z: I).
3. My characterization of master morality as a morality of intrinsic value has evident
affinities with Danto's description of it as a moralicy of "absolute and unconditioned value"
and the "categorical good" (Nietzsche as Philosopher [New York: Columbia Universicy Prcss,
1980], 159). Bur I think that Danto is mistaken to add that the contrast between master and
 Slave Morality, Socrates, and the Bushmen 125

slave morality "reduce[s] [0 a fairly simple and, since Kant, roucine distinction between an
absolute and unconditional value, and a hypotherical or conringem value" (ibid.). For Kam,
the unconditioned good must be independent of circumstance or restricrion of any kind,
including resrrictions having [0 do with contingent features of us. So for Kant a truly uncon-
ditioned good could not possibly be good for some but nor for others, while the goods valued
intrinsically by Nietzsche's nobles fir just this description; rheyare thought [0 be good for
nobles, but not for commoners. Jusr as the fonner view menial employments as unworthy of
them, so they view slaves as unworrhy of honorable activiry. For a Nietzschean noble, the fact
rhar he takes, for example, leading the rroops into batrle [0 be an intrinsically valuable thing
[0 do does nor email that it would be good for one of the rroops [0 attempt the same feat. At

roOt, the difference berween Kantian uncondirioned value and the intrinsic value 1 am attrib-
uting to Nietzsche's nobles is rhe difference between: a "value in itself" identified by contrast
[0 mere "value for us," and a "value in itself" identified by reference to "us nobles"; as Nietz-

sche puts it in BelE: "the noble type of man ... judges, 'what is harmful [0 me is harmful in
itself.''' [Ed. note: Extensive discussion of intrinsic value in Nietzsche is found in Ridley.
included in this volume.]
4. Thorstein Veblen. The Theory ofthe Leisure Class (New York: Random House. 1934).
5. As Alexander Nehamas (Nietzsche: Life as Literature [Cambridge. MA: Harvard Uni-
versity Press. 1985].254) poims out. Nietzsche only uses the phrase "master morality" once
in his published works (in BGE 260). Neverrheless. he speaks often enough of "noble moral-
ity" (elM 1:10 and A 24), "aristocratic values and value judgments" (GM 1:2. 7, 16) and
"nobler ideals" (elM II:9), and he identifies nobles with masters unambiguously enough [0
warrant the use of the term as a natural and convenient contrast to "slave morality." 1 shall.
in any case, use "master moraliry" interchangeably with "noble morality."
6. Nietzsche's model for the ethos of primeval man is the ethos of Homeric man. The
casual noble (mis)rrearment of inferiors is vividly illustrated by Odysseus's rebuking ofTher-
sires in Book Two of rhe Iliad. See The Iliad, translated by Richmond Lattimore (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1%1), Book II, lines 246-64.
7. Bittner thinks thar if we are to speak of creative ressentiment and a slave revolt, we
must imagine the earliest slave moralisrs to be in a situarion analogous [0 La Fontaine's fox;
they must look at the lives of nobles, "know" rhat such lives are healthier and happier than
their own, and yet convince themselves (and others) that the masters are in fact worse off
than themselves. 1 rhink it more charitable to imerpret Nietzsche as holding, with Bittner
himself, rhar the evolution of slave moraliry was a long, slow process. Why could Nierzsche
nor agree that slave moraliry "may have dawned on rhe slaves and grown on them, without
ever having been set up expressly" (Bittner, 133)? Because. Binner says, his "pathos of creativ-
ity" demands that a slave revolt spring from a creative act and something's being the result of
a creative act is incompatible with its "just growing on us." In effect, Bittner assumes that a
creative slave revoir requires fully-fledged Sartrean self-deception, and 1 disagree.
8. Richard Rorty, "Against Belatedness," London Review of Books, 16 June-6 July
198.3: 3.
9. In GM I's most incendiary passage concerning the propensiry of nobles periodically to
exempt themselves from their own standards of civilized behavior and return to the innocence
of a "predaror conscience" (elM I: 11). Nietzsche speaks of the nobles' releasing their pent-up
aggression on "das Fremde" (the foreign or alien). rather than on their inferiors. Furthermore,
the fact that the marauding warriors are depicred as "returning from a disgusting procession
126 Mark Migotti

of murder, arson, molestation, and torture, exhilarated and undisturbed of soul, as if it were
no marc than a student prank, convinced that the poets will have much to sing about for a
long time to come" (ibid.), suggests that Nietzsche has in mind an expedition such as that of
the Greeks to Troy rather than a day-to-day diet of less dramatic brutalities inflicted upon the
weak by the strong. I do not, therefore, think it obvious that master morality's double stan-
dard entailed that dealings between nobles and their subordinates were governed by no
remotely humane standards at all.
10. Plato, Symposium, Alexander Nehamas and Paul Woodruff, trans. (Indianapolis, IN:
Hackett, 1989), 216b-c.
11. In so doing, I will be expanding upon suggestions found in GM 1:4 and 5, as well as
in a modest way responding to Nietzsche's proposed prize question: "What light does linguis-
tics, and especially the study of etymology, throw on the histoty of the evolution of moral
concepts?" (GM I: 17).
12. The term "Bushman" derives from the Dutch "Bojesman," and was used by the
Dutch settlers of southern Africa to refer to one of the two quite different native groups that
they had found upon arrival. I have retained the word in my titles because, as Richard Lee
observes, it is the name by which these people "became known to the world" (The !Kung San
[Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 19791. 29). But I have chosen to refer to them as
the San in the text, since there seems ro be a consensus amongst those who work on and with
the people in question, that the term "Bushman" has acquired an unpleasantly derogatory
connotation (see l.ee op cit., 29-31 and Edwin Wilmsen, Land Filled with Flies [Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1989] 26-32; but note that George Silberbauer in Hunter and
Habitat in the Central Kalahari Desert [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981]
chooses Bushman over San ro refer to the larger group ro which the G/wi, who are the focus
of his study, belong). As it happens, even San is not, as Lee remarks, "an entirely satisfacrory
term," since it has a connotation signifYing "rascal" in Khoi-Khoi, the language spoken by
the other native people found by the Dutch in the seventeenth century, and it is not used by
any of the people referred to by it to refer to themselves. But in the absence of any single
term that does cover just the people under discussion and is used by those people themselves,
it seems to me that "San" is, at the risk of sounding mealy-mouthed, the "safest" term there
is for my purposes.
13. Charles Sanders Peirce, "Deduction, Induction, Hypothesis," in Collected Papers, Vol.
2. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1932), paragraph 625.
14. The definition is Dr. Johnson's.
15. "Vulgar" is itself a word that exhibits the ambiguity under discussion, and it is not
therefore surprising to find that "common" appears regularly in the OED's entries for it.
Many of these senses are evaluatively neutral, for example, "common or usual language, ver-
nacular," "in common or general use," "of common or general kind," while others are
strongly disparaging, for example entry thirteen: "having a common and offensively mean
character; coarsely commonplace; lacking in refincment or good taste; uncultured, ill-bred."
While we're at it, "mean" (as an adjective) offers yet another instance of the phenomenon. It
has a large number of senses clustering around "intermediate," "moderate," "of average value,
as in 'mean pressure, temperature' etc.," and it can also be predicated of things to mean "poor
in quality, of little value, interior, perry, unimportant, inconsiderable" and of persons, their
characters and actions to mean "destitute of moral dignity or elevation, ignoble, small-
mindcd."
 Slave Morality, Socrates, and the Bushmen 127

16. According to the etymological conjectures favored by the OED and others, "gemein"
is cognate both with "common" Cge-mein," like "co-mon") and with "mean."
17. Note in passing the support that this third sense gives to Nietzsche's contention, can-
vassed above, thar "almost all rhe [ancient Greek] words referring to the common man have
remained as expressions signifYing 'unhappy', 'pitiable'" (GM I: 10).
18. The modern lexicographer's need to provide, for agatho" esthlos, and kakos, a separate
entty stressing thar the words can mean "morally" good or bad as rhe case may be, is a good
example of the lack of philosophico-historical deprh that GM attempts to combat. When
Liddell and SCO([ illustrate the fourth listed sense of agathos with passages from Theognis and
Plato, as if in the same breath, they are, according to Nierzsche, eliding exacdy rhe gulf to
which attention needs to be drawn. According to Nicrzsche, Theognis is a spokesman for
noble values, while Plato is involvcd in a campaign ro undermine rhem.
19. As to the question wherher Nierzsche is right on rhis point, he appears to be so. Walter
Kaufmann's translation of GM includes, ar I §5, an editorial footnote that cites Gerald Else
in support of Nictzsche's view. Else wrires, inter alia, that "Greek thinking begins with and
for a long time holds to the proposition that mankind is divided into 'good' and 'bad,' and
these terms are quite as mllch social, polirical, and economic as rhey are moral" (Aristotle's
Poetics: The Argument [Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1957]. 75). To Else could
be added Moses Finley, The World o/Odysseus, revised cd., (New York: Viking Press, 1978),
and William Prior, Virtue and Knowledge: An Introduction to Ancient Greek Ethics (New York:
Routledge, 1991). The former notes rhat in rhe world of the Homeric poems, "'warrior'
and 'hero' arc synonyms, and the main theme of a warrior culture is consrructed on two
no res-prowess and honour. The one is rhe hero's essential attribure, rhe other his essential
aim. Every value, evety judgment, every acrion, all skills and ralents have rhe function of
eirher dcfining honour or realizing ir" (I 13), and maintains as well rhat "ir is self-evident rhar
the gods of the Iliad were the gods of heroes, or, plainly spoken, of the princes and rhe heads
of the great households" (ibid., 139). The latter characrerizes rhe Homeric hero as "a person
of noble rank who funcrions in a highly srratified society according to a stricr code of conducr.
He lives for glory, which he achieves by rhe display of virtue or excellence, particularly excel-
lence in combat, and which is accorded to him by his fellow heroes in the form of gifts and
renown" (9).
It is perhaps worth anticipating an objecrion to rhe effecr thar rhe Nierzschean view for
which I am claiming scholarly confirmarion is in fact so well known and accepted as to be
insignificant rarher than striking. It seems to me sufficient in reply to point out thar Nietzsche
expounded these ideas ar a rime in which no less an aficionado rhan Gladstone was able to
find in Homer, nor only "rhe 'essential germ' of the form of consriturion enjoyed in Brirain
and America" (Richard Jenkyns, The Victorians and Ancient Greece [Cambridge, MA: Harvard
Universiry Press, 1980), 202), but also a remarkable degree of convergence wirh Christian
rheology. Richard Jenkyns reports rhar Gladstone thought ir "evident thar Jupirer, Neprune
and Pluto (he used the Roman names) were a memory [sic!) of rhe Triniry, Apollo was a relic
of belief in a Messiah, as can be seen from his double characrer as Saviour and Destroyer (a
page is allotted to demonstraring rhat Apollo's rape of Marpessa was 'nor of a sensual charac-
rer'). Was Minerva rhe Logos or rhe Holy Spirir? Did Latona represent Eve or the Virgin
Maty? How curious (har rhe poems contained no mention of the Sabbath!" (ibid., 203).
20. I am grareful ro Allen Wood for showing me the force of rhis point.
21. A defense of rhese claims is, of course, beyond rhe scope of this chapter.
22. Lorna Marshall, "Sharing, Talking, and Giving: Relief of Social Tensions among the
128 Mark Migotti

!Kung," in Richard B. Lee and Irven DeVore, eds., Kalahari Hunter Gatherers (Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 1976). 357.
23. Ibid., 351, 370-71.
24. Lee, op cit., 457.
25. The view of San life that I am taking as canonical is not universally shared. Edwin
Wilmsen. for example. thinks that the image of the San that I accept here for the sake of
argument is scarcely more solidly grounded in the actual lives and history of the people in
question than was the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century image of the noble savage. If this
is so. the San do not pose nearly as direct a threat to the slave revolt hypothesis as I am
assuming they do. So I do not think that I need take a stand as between Wilmsen on the one
hand and Lee and Marshall on the other.
26. Van der Post writes that "music was as vital as water. food. and fire to [the Bushmen] .
. . . We never found a group so poor or desperate that they did not have some musical instru-
ment with them. And all their music. song. sense of rhythm. and movement achieved its
greatest expression in their dancing (Laurens van der Post. The Lost World of the Kalahari
[Hammondsworth: Penguin Books. 1958]. 225-26).
27. In addition to all this. Laurens van der Post provides evidence that. while thq may
not have developed a barbarian fondness for conquest on their own. the San can respond to
attacks from others in the manner of masters rather than slaves.

What, indeed. [writes van der Pose) could be prouder than the Bushman's reply to the young Mar-
tin du Plessis, a boy of fourteen who was sent into a great cave ... where the Bushman was sur-
rounded in his last stronghold by a powerful commando? The boy ... besought him to surrender,
promising to walk out in front of him as a live shield against any treacherous bullets. At last, impa-
rient thar his refusal was not accepred, the Bushman scornfully said: "Go! Be gone! Tell your chief
I have a strong heart! Go! Be gone! Tell him my lasr words are rhar nor only is my quiver full of
arrows bur rhat I shall resist and defend myself as long as I have life left. Go! Go! Be gone!" (van
der Posr, 01" cit. 46)

The preference for death before cowardice and dishonor exhibited here. it seems, is entirely
of a piece with that of an Achilles, a Hector, or the heroes of the Norse or Irish sagas. Note,
though, Elizabeth Marshall Thomas's contrary conclusion that "it is not in [the] nature of
[Bushmen] to fighr" and that "they would much rather run, hide. and wait until a menace
has passed than to defend themselves forcefully" (Elizabeth Marshall Thomas. The Harmless
People [New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1970] 21). Marshall Thomas goes so far as to say that
"Bushmen deplore and misunderstand bravery. The heroes of their legends are always little
jackals who trick. lie. and narrowly escape. rather than larger animals such as lions (who in the
Kalahari are something of a master race)" (ibid .• 22). Wilmsen would take Marshall Thomas's
evidence to be indicative, not of anything intrinsic to San culture as such. but rather of the
subjugated position into which the San have been forced over the past several hundred years
by other native Africans and by Europeans.
28. It might be thought that Nietzsche's references to prenoble ur-communities are incon-
sistent with his account of the origin of the state in GM I: 17. For that account is developed
in the course of articulating "a first. provisional statement of [an] hypothesis concerning the
origin of 'bad conscience,'" and according to that hypothesis bad conscience was "a serious
illness that man was bound to contract under the stress of the most fundamental change he
ever experienced-that change which occurred when he found himself finally (endgultig)
enclosed within the walls (in den Bann) of sociery and peace" (ibid.). Does this mention of
 Slave Morality, Socrates, and the Bushmen 129

"sociery and peace" nor imply that Nietzsche here identifies the origin of the state with the
origin of socialization uberhaupt, that he sees no substantial difference between hierarchically
structured human society and human socicty as such? In a word, no.
Translated more literally than he is by Kaufmann, Nietzsche (I) speaks of man finding
himself "conclusively under the spell of sociery and peace," (2) refers twice in the opening sen-
tences of GM II: 17 to identifiable "populations" (Beviilkerungen) that are conquered. subju-
gated, and reformed by more powerful and hierarchically minded invaders. and (3) maintains
that punishments figure prominently among the "fearful bulwarks with which the political
(staatliche) organization protected itself against the old instincts of freedom" (ibid.). In light
of all this. Nietzsche's argument in (;1\{ II: 16-17 positively requires the assumption that life
in hierarchically structured state-governed communities is preceded by something simpler,
more amorphous. and more egalitarian. It is the cataclysmic advent of the state that demands
the instinctual repression responsible for the growth of bad conscience. Life in a prehierarchi-
cal state is comparatively unformed. not yet fully "under the spell of sociery and peace." which
is to say that such communities lack the sort of sharply defined political identiry made possi-
ble by the institutionalized authority of law and the state. Chief among the "bulwarks" of
social order we can expect to be missing from ur-communities will be publicly enforced and
codified practices of punishment. Kaufmann's free translation of "in den Bann del' Gesel/schaft
und Frieden" as "within the walls of society and peace" makes the interpretation I wish to
defend rather hard to bring into view. for it would seem that groups must be located either
inside or ourside such walls. with no third location possible. On my view Nietzsche's language
draws attention. not only to the fact of being in a condition ofsociety and peace. bur also to the
met/11S by which this condition is achieved; namely by a kind of mental captivation reminiscent
of a magical spell. This subtlety. allows one to hold that egalitarian ur-communities are peace-
ful societies (rather morc peaceful in fact than the militaristic societies that succeed them)
without yet bdng "conclusively under the spell of society and peace" (or "under the sway of"
them. as Clark and Swensen pur it). that is. withour regarding society and peace as conditions
that have to be cnforced-Ie mot juste for once-hegemollical/y. I would like to thank the
anonymous revicwer for Philosophy and Phenomenological Research for bringing this point to
my attention.
29. I am assuming here that ressentiment in its most generic form can be identified with
the turning inward of an instinct denied ourward discharge spoken of in GM II: 16.
30. Silberbaua, op cit., 168.
31. Ibid .• 143.
32. Ibid .• 175.
33. Ibid .• 172.
34. Marshall. op cit.. 355.
35. Lee. op cit.. 458.
8
Lightning and Flash, Agent and Deed
(GM 1:6-17)*
Robert B. Pippin

THE STRONG AND THE WEAK

In his On the Genealogy of Morals, Nietzsche expressed great skepticism about the
moral psychology presupposed by the proponents of "slave morality," the institution
that we know as antiegoistic, universalist, and egalitarian morality simpliciter. I He
claimed to identity the foundational claim in such a moral psychology-belief in
"the submerged changeling, the 'subject'" (GM I: l3)-and he then offt:red a histor-
ical and psychological narrative about the origin of the notion. His story purported
to show why a certain type ("the weak," the "slavish") would try to justity its posi-
tion relative to the stronger type by portraying the stronger's "expression of
strength" as evil, and the situation of the defeated slave (powerlessness, humility) as
good. This, in turn, if it was to be an effective condemnation (rather than a mere
report of the facts), had to go one step farther than characterizing those who end up
by nature as such overpowering types, one step farther than just characterizing the
weak type, those who happen in empirical fact to be meek, humble, sympathetic to
the suffering of others, and so forth. The real genius of the slave rebellion, according
to Nietzsche, lies in its going beyond a simple inversion of value types, and in the
creation of a new way of thinking about human beings: the creation of a subject
"behind" the actual deed, one who could have acted to express his strength (or vinu-

'This chaprer originally appeared in Friedrich Nietzsche. Genealogie der Moral. edired by
Orfricd Hoffe (Berlin: Akademie Verlag. 2004), 47-63. Reprinred wirh permission of rhe
aurhor.

131
132 Robert B. Pippin

ous weakness) or not, and who thus can be condemned and held individually and
completely responsible for his voluntary oppression of others, even as the slave can
be praised for his supposedly voluntary withdrawal from the struggle. Nietzsche's
psychological narrative points to a distinct motive that explains this ideological war-
fare and invention-his phrase is, "thanks to the counterfeit and self-deception of
impotence"-and he draws a conclusion about the realization of this motive, such
that the slave can act, "just as if the weakness of the weak-that is to say, their
essence, their effects, their sole ineluctable, irremovable reality-were a volulHary
achievement, willed, chosen, a deed, a meritorious act. This type of man, prompted
by instinct fl)r self-preservation and for self-affirmation, needs to believe in a neutral,
independelH 'subject'" (GMI:13).
The experience of the two diftering motivations cited in these two passages is
obviously supposed to be linked. Nietzsche appears to assume that the experience of
such impotence itself is, if confrolHed unadorned, unbearable in some way, threatens
one's very "self-preservation"; requires a "self-affirmation" if one is to continue to
lead a life. Hence the "self-deceit," the compensatory belief that one's "impotence"
is acrually an achievement to be admired. In sum, this invention of a subject (or
soul) independent of and "behind" its deeds is what "the sublime self-deception
that interprets weakness as freedom, and their being thus-and-thus as a merit, makes
possible" (GMI:13).
However, as in many other cases, Nietzsche is not content merely to ascribe these
psychological motivations to the originators of some moral code. Even if the slaves
had such a "need," establishing that would not of itself establish the further claim
that this slavishly motivated commitment is acrually false, necessarily deceived.
Nietzsche clearly realizes this, and certainly walHs to establish that further point. He
suggests how he intends to demonstrate that in a famous simile proposed in GM
I: 13, just before the passages cited above. The simile appears to assert an ambitious,
sweeping metaphysical claim (despite Nietzsche's frequent demurrals about the pos-
sibility of metaphysics). His main claim is stated right after he notes that there is
nothing surprising or even objectionable in the fact that "little lambs" insist that the
greatest evil is "bird of prey" behavior, and that the highest good is little lamb behav-
ior. Nietzsche goes on, "To demand of strength that it should not express itself as
strength, that it should not be a desire to overcome, a desire to throw down, a desire
ro become master, a thirst for enemies and resistances and triumphs, is just as absurd
as to demand of weakness that it should express itself as strength .... For just as the
popular mind separates the lightning from its flash and takes the larrer for an action,
for the operation of a subject called lightning, so popular morality also separates
strength from expressions of strength, as if there were a neutral substratum behind
the strong man, which was free to express strength, or not do so. But there is no
such substratum; there is no 'being' behind doing, effecting, becoming; the doer is
merely a fiction added to the deed-the deed is everything" (GM I: 13; see also BGE
17).
This denial of a subject behind the deed and responsible for it is so sweeping that
 Lightning and Flash, Agent and Deed 133

it immediately raises a problem for Nietzsche. Ie is the same question that would
arise for anyone anacking the commonsense psychological view that holds that a
subject's intention (normally understood as a desire for an end, accompanied by a
belief about means or a subject's deciding or "willing" to act for some purpose or
end) must stand both "behind" and "before" some activiry in order for rhe event to
be distinguished as a doing (Thun) at alL, as something done by someone. We must
be able to appeal to such a subject's "intending" for us to be able to distinguish, say,
someone volunteering for a risky mission, as an ontological type, from steel rusting
or water running downhill or a bird singing. (The identification of such a prior
condirion is, in Witrgenstein's famous words, what would distinguish my arm going
up from me raising my arm.) Ie is "behind" the deed in the sense that other observ-
ers see only the movements of bodies-say, someone stepping out from a line of
men-and must infer some intending subject in order to understand and explain
borh what happened and why the action occurred. (If there "is just the deed," we
tend to think, stepping out of line is just body movement, metaphysically like the
wind blowing over a lamp.) A subject's intention is "before" the deed because that
commonsense psychological explanation rypically points to such a prior intention as
the cause of the act; what best answers the question, "why did that occur."

NATURAUSM?

Now Nietzsche is often described as a "naturalist," perhaps a psychological natural-

isr in his account of moral institutions. Nowadays, naturalism is understood as rhe
position that holds that there are only material objects in space and time (perhaps
just the entities and properties referred to by the most advanced modern sciences),
and that all explanation is scientific explanation, essentially subsumption under a
scientific law. However, even with such a general, vague definition, it is unlikely that
Nietzsche accepts rhis sort of naturalism, especially the latter condition. In GM
II: 12, he rails against the "mechanistic senselessness" of modern science, and he con-
trasts what he here and elsewhere calls this democratic prejudice with "the theory
that in all events a will to power is operating" (GM II: 12). But many people think
he accepts at least the former condition, and that such acceptance may partly explain
what is going on in the denial of any separare soul in GM I: 13; that is, that Nietzsche
mostly means to deny "free will."
And Nietzsche's descriprions of the strong and the weak in GM I: 13 have indeed
already expressed the antivoluntarist view that the strong can "do nothing else but"
express their strength. He seems to treat the commonsense p~'Ychology just sketched
as essentially and wholly derivative from the slave or ultimately Christian compensa-
tory fantasy of self-determining subjects and a "could have done otherwise" sense of
freedom. This all does make it rempting to regard him as indifferent to the distinc-
tion between ordinary natural events and actions, and as perfectly cOlHent to con-
sider the "reactive force" most responsible for the slave rebellion-ressentiment-as
134 Robert B. Pippin

one of the many natural forces in the (psychological) world that we will need to
appeal to in order to account tor various social and political appearances. All this by
contrast with a separate subject which could act or not, depending on what it
"decides." We could interpret eM I: 13 as only denying the possibility of this meta-
physically free or spontaneous, self-determining subject behind the deed and attri-
bute to Nietzsche a broadly consistent naturalism. Nietzsche certainly believes that
the free will picture is a fantasy (BeE 19,21; TJ "Errors" 7). And in eM 1:13 he
obviously thinks that the classic picture of a commanding will and the resultant
action give us, paradoxically and unacceptably, two actions, not one (cf. Williams
1994, 243), and that it pushes the basic question of origin back yet again.
The trouble with proceeding very far in this direction is that Nietzsche does not
seem interested in merely naturalizing all talk of motives, goals, inrentions, and aver-
sions; he denies that whole model of behavior. The passages just quoted do not
appear to leave room for corporeal states causing various body movements, as if, tor
example, a subject's socially habituated fear for his reputation (where fear is under-
stood as some sort of corporeal brain-state or materially embodied disposition) were
"behind" his stepping out of line and acting in a way he knew would count for
others as volunreering. If that model were adopted, we would still be pointing to
some determinate causal factor "behind" and "before" the deed. The perplexing
lighrning simile is unequivocal, though, and we would not be following its sugges-
tion if we merely substituted a material substance (like the brain or brain states or
corporeally embodied desire) for an immaterial soul. Moreover, such a naturalist
account relics on the material conrinuity through time of some identical substance
in order to attribute to it various manifestations and expressions as interconnected
properties. If there were no substance or subject of any kind behind or underlying
various different events, it is hard to see how we might individuate these expressions
of force, and even if we could, how we might distinguish a universe of episodic,
atomistic force-events from the world that Nietzsche himself refers to, a world with
some clear substantial conrinuities: slaves, masters, institutions, priests, and so on.
He nowhere seems inclined to treat such a world as arbitrarily grouped collections
of force-events (grouped together by whom or what, on what basis?), as if there were
either "becoming-master" events or "becoming subdued by" events, and so forth.
We thus still need a credible interpretation of: "But there is no such substratum;
there is no 'being' behind doing, effecting, becoming; the doer is merely a fiction
added to the deed-the deed is everything" (eM 1:13). Materialist or naturalist
bloody-mindedness is not going to help.

SUBJECTS AND PSYCHOLOGY

In order to understand what such an extreme claim could mean ("there is no light-
ning behind the flash and responsible for it," "no subject behind the deed"; there is
just the deed), we might turn to Nietzsche's own psychological explanations of the
 Lightning and Flash, Agent and Deed 135

slave revolt, and what appears to be his own general theory abour the psychological
origins of normative distinctions. One would certainly expect consistency between
his own account and GM I: 13. In some places, there is certainly language consistent
with the antiagent language of GM I: 13, but at the same time and more frequently,
language immediately in tension with it. In GM I: 10, Nietzsche appears to amibure
explana[Ory power to forces themselves, as if causally efficacious force-events: "The
slave revolt in moraliry begins when ressentiment itself becomes creative and gives
birth [0 values" (GM I: 10). It is odd to say that resentment itself could become
creative and could do something, and not that a subject, motivated by such resent-
ment, acted, but perhaps Nietzsche is deliberately looking ahead to his own denial
of any causal agent. Nietzsche also speaks of "the noble mode of valuation" as if it
were an independent explicans (although both these expressions still seem to "sub-
stantialize" force and a dispositional mode and [0 distinguish them from the mani-
festations they cause). And in his most important statement in On the Genealogy of
Morals of what appears [0 be his will to power "doctrine," Nietzsche seems [0 be
trying [0 deliberately avoid any commiunent to an agent-cum-intention causing-
the-deed model. "[AlII events in the organic world are a subduing, a becoming mas-
ter, and all subduing and becoming master involves a fresh interpretation, an adapta-
tion through which any previous 'meaning' and 'purpose' are necessarily obscured
or even obliterated .... But purposes and utilities are only signs that a will [0 power
has become master of something less powerful and imposed upon it the character of
a function" (GM II: 12). And likewise: in the Second Essay, he talks freely of such
things as a "struggle between power complexes" (GM II: 11).
On the other hand, Nietzsche would seem to be right in GM I: 13 about the inevi-
tably substantializing tendencies of language itself, even throughout his own
account. Immediately after his claim using ressentiment as the subjecr of a sentence,
he cannot himself resist parsing this as "the ressentiment of natures that arc denied
the true reaction, that of deeds, and compensate themselves with an imaginary
revenge" (GM I: 10, my emphasis). This reintroduction of the substantive bearer
of the property, "natures," who express ressemiment, rather than any claim about
ressentiment-events occurring, is also more consistent with the overall psychological
manner of explaining morality. It is hard enough [0 imagine appealing to something
like forces without substrates in which they inhere, of which they are properties, but
the core idea of Nietzsche's account is a picture of a social struggle, lasting over some
time, among human beings, not forces, which results in a situation of relative stabil-
ity, a successful subduing and a being subdued, wherein, finally, the reaction of the
subdued finds another outlet of response than a direct countcrforce. This last is
caused by an apparently unbearable feeling, impotence, responsible then for a reac-
tion motivated by an attempt to revalue such impotence. So, as he must, Nietzsche
rders both to "the noble mode of valuation" as explicans and directly to "the noble
man" as someone with morives, intentions, a self-understanding, a certain relation
to the slavish, and so forth. I say that Nietzsche "must" so refer because, as several
others have pointed out (Rudiger Bittner with regard to Nietzsche, Bittner 200 1,
136 Robert B. Pippin

34-46; Axel Honneth with regard (O Foucault, Honneth 1991), there cannot just
"be" subduing and subdued events. Someone must be subdued and be held in subjec-
tion, be prevented from doing what he might otherwise do, by the activities of some-
one else who is not so restricted, or by some internalization of such originally
external constraint (cf. Nietzsche's account of "internalization" [Verinnerlichung] in
GM II: 16). (Otherwise, we don't have a becoming-master, just an episodic, quantita-
tive more or less.) Even the "will {O power" passages cannot end by pointing {O a
mere "becoming-master" event. If such a striving is successful, what we are left with
is a Master, not the residue of an event, and thereby correspondingly a slave. 2
Finally, throughout On the Genealogy ofMorals Nietzsche treats his own explana-
tion of the slave revolt in morality as something not acknowledged by, something
that would be actively disputed by, the proponents of such a revolt, and for such an
account {O make sense, there must be such proponents, now quite complex propo-
nents it turns out. That is, while he might invoke the language of psychological
naturalism, the language of instincts, to account for this moralizing reaction, he also
notes that this instinctual force is not "for itself" what it is "in itself," to adopt a
non-Nietzschean form of expression. It is not just experienced as a desire pushing
for satisfaction. The "moral reaction" is not experienced by such a subject as what it
really is, even though the reaction could not be satisfYing unless also "experienced,"
somehow, as some sort of revenge. 3 Morality is a "counterfeit" and "self-deceit," and
its effectiveness as a weapon against the Master would disappear if it were correctly
unders{Ood by its proponenrs as a psychological ploy or strategy in the search for an
indirect route to power over one's oppressors.
But then, it would seem, it cannot be that "the deed is all there is (das Thun ist
Alles)." Nietzsche himself, it would appear, is only able {O account for the deed being
what it is (a reactive, revenge-inspired rebellion, motivated by the frustrations of
impotence) by appeal {O the standard psychological language of a subject's "true
intentions," the struggle to realize that intention, the conflict with other subjects
that this produces, and, as we have just seen, he must also be able to reter even to
the possibility of a self-deceived commitment {O an intention, acting for the sake of
an end one consciously and sincerely would disavow. Nietzsche's claim is that the
deed in question is not a discovery, or even the attempt at a discovery, of the true
nature of good and evil, but a revolt, because it is motivated by a vengeful reaction.
But if there were "only the deed, not a doer," the question-what deed?-would, it
appears, be unanswerable, or at least it could not be answered in the "divided sub-
ject" way Nietzsche appears committed to. Indeed, in pursuing that question, we
arc not only back with a "subject" and a subject's intentions behind the deed, but
involved in a hunt for true, genuine intentions, lying "back there" somewhere, but
hidden and unacknowledged, even though causally effective.
And finally the whole direction of Nietzsche's narrative seems {O depend on what
GM I: J 3 denies. Since the revolt is something the slaves did, is a deed, and not
something that happened to them, or merely "grew" in them, it is something that
can be undone, that, in the right situation, can be countered by a new "legislation
 Lightning and Flash, Agent and Deed 137

of values," once the "crisis of Christian honesty" occurs. (Oddly, this alternative
deed, or "revaluation" seems to be an idea that Nietzsche both accuses the slave of
fabricating in order to focus absolute blame on the master, and a possibility Nietz-
sche himself seems [() want to preserve, the possibility of an eventual "self-overcom-
ing.") And all of this requires not only subjects of deeds, but even possibilities
inhering yet unrealized in such subjects. Again, the denial of a causally autonomous
soul, the free will, and freely undertaken commitments does not get us very far in
understanding Nietzsche's own enterprise in a way that is consistent with eM I: 13.
And so we need to think again about what "the deed is all there is" might amount to.

NIETZSCHE'S PROBLEM

Now it may be that Nietzsche is such an unsystematic thinker that at some point in
any philosophical reconstruction, one will simply have to pick and choose, follow
one of the paths Nietzsche opened up and ignore another, inconsistent path that he
also pointed to. 4 But if we reject the substantializing of the will to power, or any
substantializing, the social account that results from its application would look like
so many heterogeneous episodes of conflicting and discontinuous fields of contin-
gent forces and it would resemble not at all the typology that Nietzsche so clearly
relies on. Accordingly, RUdiger Bittner has encouraged us to discard the "will to
power" explanation as a dead end, one ultimately wedded to a "creationist" and
projective theory of value and concentrate on what Bittner thinks is closer [() Nietz-
sche's interest: an adequate account oflife and living beings, and therewith the insta-
bilityand provisionality of any substance claim. To understand rhe domain of "life,"
we have to rid ourselves of substance presumptions and concentrate on subject-less
"activity" itself. (Bittner also wants us to take eM I: 13 as the heart of Nietzsche's
project, and abandon completely the language of subjects' "creating value.")
But, as we have seen, if we accept eM I: 13 at face value, and insist that there is
no doer behind the deed, we have to give up much more than the metaphysics of
the will to power, and its assumptions about exclusively created value. We will make
it very difficult to understand the whole of Nietzsche's own attack on the moral
psychology of Christian moraliry, since he appears to rely on a traditional under-
standing of act descriptions (that the act is individuated as an act mainly by reference
to the agent's intentions), and he invokes a complex picture of unconscious motives,
operative and motivating, but inaccessible as such [() the agents involved. Without
Nietzsche's own, prima facie inconsiStl:nt Doer-Deed language, the question of what
is supposedly happening in the slave revolt, which in his account clearly relies on
notions of subjection to the will of others, resentment, and even "madness" (eM
II:22), will be difficult to understand. Values cannot be said to simply "grow" organ-
ically, given some sort of context. For one thing, as Nietzsche famously remarked,
we must make ourselves into creatures capable of keeping promises, and this requires
138 Robert B. Pippin

many "centuries" of commitment, perseverance, and so the unmistakable exercise

of subjectivity. It seems a question-begging evasion [0 gloss all such appeals as really
about "what happens to us," what madness befalls us, in situations of subjection.
There would be little reason to take Nietzsche seriously ifhe were our to make what
Bernard Williams has called the "uninviting" claim that "we never really do any-
thing, that no events arc actions" (Williams 1994, 241).

THE INSEPARABILITY OF SUBJECT AND DEED

We might do better, I want to suggest, to appreciate first that the surface meaning
of the claims made in eM I: 13 remains quite elusive. As eM II: 12 pointed out, the
notion of an "activity" functions as a "fundamental concept" in what Nietzsche
himself claims, and he insists in that passage on a contrast between such an activity
and the "mechanistic senselessness" of the ordinary modern scientific world view.
We thus need to return to eM I: 13 and appreciate that Nietzsche is not denying
that there is a subject of rhe deed; he is just asserting that it is not separate, distinct
from the acriviry irself; it is "in" the deed. He is not denying that strength "expresses
itself" in acts of strengrh. He is in fact asserting just that, that there is such an expres-
sion, and so appears to be relying on a notion of expression, rather than intentional
causality to understand how the does is in the deed. ("To demand of strength that
it should not express itself as strength" is rhe expression he uses. He does not say,
"rhere are jusr strengrh-events.") That-rhe appeal to expression-is quire an
important clue. He is nor denying, in other words, that there is a genuine deed, and
that it must be distinguishable from any mere event. He maintains that distinction.
He has only introduced the category of deed or activity so quickly and metaphori-
cally that it is difficult to flesh out what he means. (Put in terms of his image, in
orher words, the "flash" (Leuchte) is nor just an elecrrical discharge in the air. A
certain sort of meteorological event is "expressed," and so a phenomenally identical
"flash" might not be lightning, but could be artificially produced. It would be a
phenomenally identical event, but not lightning.)
In order to understand this claim about a doer "in" the deed, I want to suggest a
comparison with another philosopher that will seem at first glance quite inappropri-
ate. Assume for a moment that there is a brotherhood of modern anti-Cartesians,
philosophers united in their opposition to metaphysical dualism, to a picture of
mind shut up in itself and its own ideas and so in an unsolvable skeptical dilemma
about the real world, and opposed as well to the notion of autonomous, identifiable
subjects, whose intentions and finally "acts of willing" best idemify and explain dis-
tinct sorts of events in the world, actions. There is a range in such a group, including
Nietzsche and Wittgenstein and Heidegger, but surely a charter member is also
Hegel. And in his Jena Phiinomenologie, Hegel formulated this issue of how to "find"
the agent "in" the deed in a way that suggests something of what Nietzsche may
have been thinking. Consider: "The true being of a man is rather his deed; in this
 Lightning and Flash, Agent and Deed 139

the individual is actual, and it is the deed that does away with both aspects of what
is [merely] 'meant' [intended] to be: in the one aspect where what is 'meant' has the
form of a corporeal passive being, the individuality, in the deed, exhibits itself rather
as the negative essence, which only is in so far as it supercedes mere being.... It
[the deed] is this, and its being is not merely a sign, but the fact itself. It is this and
the individual human being is what the deed is ... even if he deceives himself on
the point, and, turning away from the action into himself, fancies that in this inner
self he is something else than what he is in the deed" (Hegel 1979, 178-79; Eng!'
194). And even more clearly, in §404: "Whatever it is that the individual does, and
whatever happens to him, that he has done himself, and he is that himself. He can
have only the consciousness of the simple transference of himself from the night of
possibility into the daylight of the present, from the abstract in-itself into the sig-
nificance of actual being, and can have only the certainty that what happens to him
in the latter is nothing else but what lay dormant in the former. ... The individual,
therefore, knowing that in his actual world he can find nothing else but its unity
with himself, or only the certainty of himself in the truth of that world, can experi-
ence only joy in himself" (ibid., 220; Eng!. 242).
Modern Hegel scholarship owes a great debt to Charles Taylor for having focused
so much of our attention on this "expressivist" notion of action, as opposed to an
intentionalist or causal account, and it is quite relevant here for understanding how
Nietzsche could appear to deny any standard picture of agency and of normal voli-
tional responsibility, and yet still speak of actions, and of the expression of a subject
in a deed, indeed wholly in the deed. 5 The main similarity turns on what might
be called a nonseparability thesis about intention and action, and a corresponding
nonisolatability claim about a subject's intention (that the determinate meaning of
such an intention cannot be made out if isolated from a much larger complex of
social and historical factors).
According to the first or nonseparability thesis, intention-formation and articula-
tion are always temporally fluid, altering and being transformed "on the go," as it
were, as events in a project unfold. I may start out engaged in a project, understand-
ing my intention as X, and, over time, come to understand that this was not really
what I intended; it must have been Y, or later perhaps Z. And there is no way to
confirm the certainty of one's "real" purpose except in the deed actually performed.
My subjective construal at any time before or during the deed has no privileged
authority. The deed alone can "show" one who one is. This means that the act
description cannot be separated from this mutable intention, since as the intention
comes into a kind of focus, what it is I take myself to be doing can also alter. This
is partly what Nietzsche has in mind, I think, when he objects to the way other
genealogists search for the origin of punishment by looking for a fixed purpose that
subjects struggle to realize with various means. "[Alnd the entire history of a 'thing,'
an organ, a custom can in this way be a continuous sign-chain of ever new interpre-
tations and adaptations whose causes do not even have to be related to each other,
but, on the contrary, in some cases sllcceed and alternate with one another in a
140 Robert B. Pippin

purely chance fashion" (eM II:12). This is why, in the next section, Nietzsche
writes that "only that which has no history is definable" and that we must appreciate
"how accidemal the 'meaning' of punishment is" (eM II: 13).
Likewise there is a common "nonisolatability" thesis between Hegel and Nietz-
sche: attending only to a specific intention as both accounting for why the act
occurred and what is actually undertaken, distorts what is necessary for a full expla-
nation of an action. In the first place, the conditions under which one would regard
an imention as justifYing an action (or not, or connectable at all with it) have to be
part of the picture too, and this shifts our attention to the person's character and
then to his life-history and even to a community as a whole or to a tradition. We
have to have all that in view before the adoption of a specific imemion can itself
make sense. Indeed this assumption is already on view from the start in Nietzsche's
genealogy, since he treats the unequal distribution of social power as an essenrial
element in understanding "what the slavish type was attempting." The psychology
that Nietzsche announces as "the queen of the sciences" is also a social and historical
psychology.
And while, on the standard model, the criterion for success of an action amounrs
to whether the originally held purpose was in fact achieved, on this different model
"success" is much more complicated. I must also be able to "see myself" in the deed,
see it as an expression of me (in a sense not resrricted to my singular intemion),
but also such that what I understand is being attempted and realized is what others
understand also. I haven't performed the action, haven't volunteered for the mission,
say, if nothing I do is so understood by others as such an act.
Now Hegel and Nietzsche are going to part company radically very soon in this
exposition, but it is importam to have in view this way of understanding action as
"mine" without our needing to say that some prior "I" caused it by deciding it
should happen. On this model, as Hegel notes, we should understand successful
action as a conrinuous and temporally extended, an everywhere mutable translation
or expression of inner inro outer, but not as an isolated and separated determinate
inner struggling for expression in imperfect material. Our "original" intentions are
just provisional starting points, formulated with incomplete knowledge of circum-
stances and consequences. We have to understand the end and the reason for pursu-
ing it as both constantly transformed, such that what I end up with, what I actually
did, coums fully as my intention realized or expressed.
Thus, if! start out to write a poem, I might find that it does not go as I expected,
and think that this is because the material resists my execution, my inner poem, and
so what I get is a "poorly expressed poem." This is a very misleading picture on this
accoum, as misleading as "the commanding will" of BeE 19. The poem is a perfect
expression of what your imemion turned out to be. To ask for a berter poem is to ask
for another one, for the formation and execlltion of another intention. If the poem
Eliled; everything has failed. It (the expression of what has turned out to be the
intended poem) just turned out to be a b(ld poem; not a bad expression ofa good poem.
 Lightning and Flash, Agent and Deed 141

As Nietzsche keeps insisting, our egos are wedded [() the latter account; but the for-
mer correctly expresses what happened.
Now, philosophically, a great deal more needs [() be said before this understand-
ing of "the doer in the deed" could be defended. The anti-Cartesian and broadly
anti-Christian account asks for something quite unusual. These passages in Hegel
and Nietzsche seem [() be asking us [() relocate our attention when trying to under-
stand an action, render a deed intelligible, from attention to a prior event or mental
state (the formation of and commitment to an intention, whether a maxim, or
desire-plus-belief, and the like) to "what lies deeper in the deed itself" and is
expressed in it. (Where "deeper" does not mean already there, hidden in the depths,
but not yet fully formed and revealed.) Rather, the interpretive task focuses on a
cOlltinuing expression or translation of the subject into the actuality of the deed,
and conversely our translation back in[() "who the person is." As Hegel put it in his
clearest expression of this anti-intentionalist position: "Ethical self-collsciousness
now learns from its deed the developed nature of what it actually did" (Hegel 1979,
255; Eng!. 283).
This can all sound counterintuitive because it seems obvious that the final deed
may not express the agent simply because some contingency intervened and pre-
vented the full realization (thus reinsrituting a "separation" between the subject in
itself and the deed that actually resulted, shaped as it so often is by external circum-
stances and events). Or we easily accept that if someone did something unknowingly
and innocently, he cannot be said [() be properly "in" the deed, even though the
deed came about because of him and no one else, as when someone genuinely does
not know that he is revealing a secret, and does so, bur "guiltlessly," we want [() say.
The issues are quite complicated and cannot be pursued here. The central ques-
tion is: should not Nietzsche be aware that, by eliminating as nonsensical the idea
that appears [() be a necessary condition for a deed being a deed-a subject's individ-
ual causal responsibility for the deed occurring-he has eliminated any way of prop-
erly understanding the notion of responsibility, or that he has eliminated even a place
for criticism of an agent. If the strong is not at all free to be weak, is not free [()
express that strength in any way other than by "a desire [() overcome, a desire to
throw down, a desire [() become master, a thirst for enemies and resistances and
triumphs," in what "responsibility sense" is the agent in the deed if not "causally"?
A plant's life-cycle or nature might be said to be "expressed" in its various stages,
but, as we have seen, Nietzsche rejects such a reductionist reading, he shows no
indication of wanting to eliminate his "fundamemal concept," activity.
Now it is true that sometimes Nietzsche seems content with a kind of typological
determinism. People just belong to some type or other (whether biological or socially
formed) and some just are weak, base, vengeful, and ugly; others are strong, noble,
generous, and beautiful (cf. BGE 265). There is no way to justity these distinctions;
that is the ("Socratic") trick the former group tries to play on the latter. The whole
point is that you have to be a member of the latter group [() appreciate the distinc-
tion. But on the one hand, Nietzsche's own evaluations are not so tied to this fixed
142 Robert B. Pippin

typology. About the weak he also says: "Human history would be altogether too
stupid a thing without the spirit that the impotent have introduced into it" (eM
1:7). Likewise, he certainly seems to be criticizing the nobility by contrast when he
says: "[I Jt was on the soil of this essentially dangerous form of human existence, the
priestly form, that man first became an interesting animal, that only here did the
human soul in a higher sense acquire depth and become evil-and these are the two
basic respects in which man has hitherto been superior to other beasts" (eM 1:6).
Such passages suggest a radical flexibility and indeterminateness in the normative
value of such distinctions, an unpredictability in what they "turn our" to mean, as
if Nietzsche thinks that such oppositions look one way in one context and another
in another context. That raises the question of how this variation works, how this
interpretive struggle is to be understood and what its relation might be to the psy-
chological struggle.
Nietzsche has a great many things to say about this hermeneutical warfare, but
we should note that his remarks confirm attributing the "nonisolatability" thesis to
him, as noted above, and the second "success" condition for actions, as understood
on this alternate model. Not only is the determinate meaning of a subject's intention
not a matter of inner perception and sincerity, but a function in some way of a
certain social context, but also "what is going on" in such a context is itself con-
stantly contested among the participants. As he put it in a famous passage, "all
events in the organic world are a subduing, a becoming master, and all subduing
and becoming master involves a fresh interpretation, an adaptation through which
any previous 'meaning' and 'purpose' are necessarily obscured or even obliterated"
(eM II:12).
He makes the same sort of point about the variability and contestability of the
various understandings of punishment (eM II:14) and notes that even the noble
man needs the appropriate enemies if his actions are to have the meaning he sees
expressed in them (eM I: 10). In such cases, "the subject" is not absent; he is "out
there" in his deeds, but the deeds are "out there" too, multiply interpretable by others
(and that means, in Nietzsche's understanding, in multiple ways can be "appro-
priated" by others). These interpretations are themselves already expressions of vari-
ous types that cannot be isolated from historical time and from the contestations of
their own age. They are not existential "projections," motivated by some sort of self-
interest or self-aggrandizement (cf. Geuss 1999, 16). And we have already good rea-
son to be cautious of interpreters who think that there must be something appealed
to, underlying Nietzsche's account, as a kind of criterion: "life," and/or "the will to
power," to cite the most frequent candidates. If life must also turn against itself to
be life, and if we don't know what really counts as having established power, or even
what power is, we have only returned again to a social struggle abom the meaning of
deeds. In other words, if the most important deed is the legislation of values, what
actually is legislated cannot be fixed by the noble man's strength of resolve alone, or
guaranteed by his "pathos of distance." There is a difference between "actually"
 Lightning and Flash, Agent and Deed 143

legislating values, that is, succeeding in doing so, and, on the other hand, engaging
in a fantasy of self and value creation.
It is at this poilU that the similarities between Nietzsche and Hegel end. In a sense
one can read Nietzsche's infrequent, published references to the "will to power" as
attempts to dramatize the simple claim that there is no best, appropriate, finally
reconciling resolution to these sorts of conflicts. "There is" only the conflict, at once
potentially tragic and ennobling, and potentially dispiriting, a source of nihilistic
despair. Hegel of course claims that such conflicts have an inherent "logic," that a
developmental story can be told, say, in the Phenomenology, from the conflict
between Antigone and Creon, to the partial overcoming of morality in "Forgive-
ness," and that the heart of that story is the ever more successful realization of free-
dom as a kind of rational agency. There is no corresponding logic or teleology in
Nietzsche; just the opposite.

GUILT AND RESPONSIBILITY

I want to conclude by returning to the intuitive difficulties created by eM I: 13,

especially about responsibility. We should note, that is, Nietzsche's own response to
the responsibility question-how, on his picture of how an agent is wholly in the
deed, not separate from it-such reactions as regret, sorrow about what one did, and
the like, might be understood.
Not surprisingly (given their similarities on so many issues) Nietzsche turns to
Spinoza to make his point, and his remarks in eM II: 15 are perfectly consistent
with, and I think, confirm the position attributed ro him above. He muses that
Spinoza might have "one afternoon" asked himself, given that there is no "free will"
or separate subject underlying the deed in Spinoza's own system, what could remain
in that system of the morsus conscientiae, the sting of conscience. This is the very
intuitive or commonsense question we have posed above. Nietzsche first appeals ro
Spinoza by making his own a((empt at a "becoming master" as a "new interpreta-
tion" of Spinoza, invoking essentially Nietzschean language (especially the concept
of "innocence"), and announcing: "The world for Spinoza had returned to that
state of innocence in which it had lain before the invention of the bad conscience"
(eM II: 15). Bur then he notes that Spinoza reinvented this morsus conscientiae in
the Ethics. "'The opposite of gaudium,' he finally said to himsclf-'A sadness
accompanied by the recollection of a past event that floured all of our expectations.'
Eth. III, propos. XVI!, schol. I.II Mischief-makers overtaken by punishments have for
thousands of years felt in respect of their transgressions just as Spinoza did: 'here
something has unexpectedly gone wrong,' not: 'I ought not to have done that'"
(eM II: 15). So, disappointment that 1 was not who I thought I was, sadness at what
was expressed "in" the deed, replaces guilt, or the son of guilt that depends on the
claim that 1 could have done otherwise. Indeed, it is a kind of regret that depends
on my not really having had the option ro do orherwise; or at least that counterfac-
144 Robert B. Pippin

mal option, on this view, is like considering the possibility that I might not have been
me, a fanciful and largely irrelevant speculation, a mere thought experiment.
None of this settles the many other questions raised by Nietzsche's position: What
are the conditions necessary for rightly identifying what it was that I did? What role
do the judgments of others properly play in that assessment? Deeds, even under-
stood as expressions, rather than caused results, conflict, express incompatible if also
provisional and changing, purposes. How do we, as nonparticipants, understand and
even evaluate such conflicts? Are not our interpretations the expressions of current
contestations, and if so what would count as success, as prevailing now? How much
of "who I am" can be said to be expressed in the deed? How might I distinguish
imporrant "discoveries" about myself that I had not known and would have denied,
from trivial or irrelevant revelations? If whatever it is that is expressed in such deeds
is not a stable core or substantial self, neither as an individual soul nor as a substan-
tial type, what could form the basis of the temporal story that would link these
manifestations and transformations?
These are difficult questions, but, I have tried to show, they are the right sort of
questions raised by Nietzsche's remarks in GM I: 13, and they are very different from
questions about metaphysical forces, naturalized psychologies, instinct theories, or
existential, groundless choices, leaps into the abyss. Whether Nietzsche has good
answers to such important questions is another story.

REFERENCES

Bittner, R. 1994. "Ressemimcm." in Nietzsche. Genealogy. Morality. ed. R. Schacht, Univer-

sity of California Press. 127-38.
Bittner. R. 2001. "Masters without Substance," in Nietzsche's Postmoralism: Essays on Nietz-
sche's Prelude to Philosophy's Future, ed. R. Schacht. Cambridge University Press, 34-46.
Geuss. R. 1999. Morality. Culture and History: Essays on German Philosophy, Cambridge Uni-
versity Press.
Hegel. G. W. F. 1979. Phenomenology ofSpirit. cransl. A. V. Miller. Oxford University Press.
German text: Phiinomenologie des Gesites. Bd. 2. Hauprwerke in sechs Banden. Hamburg
1999.
Honneth. A. 1991. The Critique of Power: Reflective Stages in a Critical Social Theory. transl.
by Kenneth Baynes. MIT Press.
Taylor. C. 1975. Hegel. Cambridge University Press.
Taylor. C. 1985. Human Agency and Language. Philosophical Papers. Vol. I. Cambridge Uni-
versity Prcss.
Williams, B. 1994. "Nietzschc's Minimalist Moral Psychology." in Nietzsche, Genealogy,
Morality. ed. R. Schacht. University of California Press. 237-47.

NOTES
I. Nietzsche does not creat "morality" as univocal and certainly not as a phenomenon with
a single necessaty essence. But it is clear that he has a standard form of nineteemh-cemury
 Lightning and Flash, Agent and Deed 145

Christian morality often in his sights. For a summary of its characreristics, see Geuss 1999,
171. For my citations of Nietzsche's writings, I have used Kaufinann's translations of BGE,
GS, and Z; Kaufmann and Hollingdale's GM; and HollingJale's translations of Tf and A.
2. There are of course, several other genealogical 0figins of moraliry sketched in On the
Genealogy ofMorals: suffering itself seems to require a compensatory mechanism; there is the
feeling of guilt traced back to debt; the "Verinnerlichung" of aggression, turning it toward
oneself, and so forth. But all of these raise the same ptoblem, the compatibiliry of their psy-
chological accounts with GM I: 13.
3. Bittner claims in "Ressentiment," that this makes no sense; that there can be no such
thing as self-deception (1994, 127-38). That's one way to solve the problem.
4. Cf. also Bernard Williams's remark, "With Nietzsche ... the resistance to the continua-
tion of philosophy by ordinary means is built into the text, which is booby-trapped, not only
against recovering theory from it, but in many cases, against any systematic exegesis that
assimilates it to theory" (I994, 238).
5. Cf. "Aims of a New Epoch" in Taylor 1975, 3-50; "What is Human Agency" and
"Hegel's Philosophy of Mind," in Taylor 1985, 15-44, 77-96.
9
On Sovereignty and Overhumanity
Why It Matters How We Read Nietzsche's
Genealogy 1[-2*

Christa Davis Acampora

There is nearly unanimous agreement, among those who bother to pay attention to
Nietzsche's anomalous claim about the "sovereign individual" in the second essay
of On the Genealogy of Morals that the "sovereign" is Nietzsche's ideal, and many
more still take sovereignty as the signature feacure of the overman Nietzsche heralds
in his Thus Spoke Zarathustra and other writings. I describe the reception among
Nietzsche scholars as "nearly unanimous" because there has been at least one cry of
dissent: that issued by Lawrence Hatab.! Curiously, his brief but incisive comments
about the problematic nature of several readings along these lines continue to be
ignored. With this chapter, I add my voice [0 his and call for a rally. Emphases on
Nietzsche's sovereign individuality encourage what I shall argue is a misreading of
the passage in question. Moreover, this mistake has far-reaching consequences inso-
far as it supportS a mischaracterization of Nietzsche's philosophy generally and
results in a failure to consider significant ways in which Nietzsche's conception of
the subject might be relevant for contemporary moral philosophy.
Nietzsche most certainly is not upholding what he calls "the sovereign individual"
as an ideal for which we should strive, and there is plenty of evidence to support the
assertion. Few matters ill Nietzsche interpretation are clearly and decisively settled,
but I intend to add this one to that meager stock. In what follows, I scrutinize the
context of the passage in question and its resonance with the overarching theme of

*Revised by the author from its original publication in International Studies in Philosophy 36:3
(Fall 2004): 127-45.

147
148 Christa Davis Acampora

the work in which it appears (my section I). I then consider what would be necessary
to further support the majoriry view and show why such projects are untenable (sec-
tion II). Finally, I briefly discuss why I think it matters very much that we get this
one right (section III). The "sovereign individual" has animated numerous discus-
sions of Nietzsche's politics and ethics. How we read GM II:2 strikes at the heart of
what we take to be the most significant features of Nietzsche's constructive philo-
sophical projects.

I. "THE SOVEREIGN INDIVIDUAL": WHAT IT IS

The passage in question is familiar:

I f we place ourselves at the end of this tremendous process, where the tree at last brings
forth fruit, where society and the morality of custom at last reveal what they have simply
been the means to: then we discover that the ripest fruit is the sovereign individual, like
only to himself, liberated again from morality of custom, autonomous and supramoral
(for 'autonomous' and 'moral' are mutually exclusive), in short, the man who has his
own independenr, protracted will and the right to make promises-and in him a proud
consciousness, quivering in every mllscle, of what has at length been achieved and
become flesh in him, a consciousness of his own power and freedom, a sensation of
mankind come to completion.'

A good place to begin is to consider what is the nature of "this tremendous process"
so that we can better appreciate how it is that the sovereign individual is its fill it.
The second essay of the Genealogy explicidy treats the development of concepts asso-
ciated with moral responsibility and culpability. There, Nietzsche considers the fun-
damental basis of "'guilt,' 'the bad conscience,' and the like," beginning with
promise-making. Nietzsche is essentially asking: What SOrt of being, what sort of
animal, must one become in order to be able to make promises?3
On our way toward considering how Nietzsche addresses this question, which
orielHs the rest of the essay, we might note a consideration to which we will return
in the next section: Kaufmann and Hollingdale's translation of the very first sentence
of the second essay has led many astray. It is often cited precisely as it appears in
their English translation: "To breed an animal with the right to make promises-is
not this the paradoxical task that nature has set itself in the case of man? is it not
the real problem regarding man?" ["Ein Thier heranzlichten, das versprechen daif-
ist das nicht gerade jene paradoxe Aufgabe selLm, welche sich die Natur in Hinsicht
auf den Menschen gestellt hat? ist es nicht das eigendiche Problem vom Menschen?"
(KSA 5, 291)] Rendering "das versprechen daif" as "with the right [0 make prom-
ises" has encouraged those who rely on the translation to think that Nietzsche sees
promise-making as an enridement that one must earn or which one is granted, and
which presumably stands in contrast with something [0 which one might be inher-
ently obliged. As I shall discuss at greater length below, it has been associated with
 On Sovereignty and Overlmmanity 149

a cerrain kind of freedom. Moreover, since Nietzsche seems to emphasize orders of

rank and entitlement throughout his writings, some compound their first error with
a second in suggesting that it is Nietzsche's position that this sort of entitlement is
something that might actually be desirable, that our seizure of it would represent
some sort of completion of ourselves, the full realization of humanity. The more
literal translation "who is permitted to promise" or "who is capable of promising"
clearly better captures the sense of Nietzsche's phrase, since the very next sentence
contrasts promising with its counteracting Kraft-the power or force of forgetting. 4
Thus read, we better appreciate Nietzsche's suggestion that promising relies upon
some kind of power (we soon learn that it is remembering) that has been cultivated
to the point that it outstrips forgetting. Promising depends upon a Kraft-it is not
an entitlement or right-and its enhancement emerged through a developmental
process in which a counteracting Kraft was diminished.
The second account of the genealogy of morality that constitutes GM II charts the
struggle of the two opposing forces of remembering and forgetting, thereby casting
morality in terms similar to how Nietzsche describes tragic art as resting upon the
contest of the artistic forces of creation and destruction in The Birth o/Tragedy. The
task of GM II is to offer an account of how the Kraft of remembering accomplished
its victory, and to chart the deleterious effects of the atrophy of forgetting in the
course of human development. The message is: the acquisition of the kind of willing
that is had in promise-making came with a price-the diminution of forgetting, and
we allow it to wither only at our peril. This interpretation is reinforced in Nietz-
sche's insistence that forgetting is not merely an absence or failure of remembering,
but is rather something that is positively active in its oUin right. Nietzsche couches the
matter in organic, biological terms of nutrition and digestion: "it [forgetting} is ...
responsible for the fact that what we experience and absorb enters our consciousness
as little while we are digesting it (one might call the process 'inpsychation')-as does
the thousandfold process, involved in physical nourishment-50-called 'incorpora-
tion'" (GM II: 1). Were it not for forgetting, it is suggested here, we would not have
a soul, a psyche, much as we would not have a body, a corpus, were we not able to
eat. The themes of forgetting as an active force and Nietzsche's use of metaphors for
digestion have not gone unnoticed. But what seems to have been overlooked is what
this has to do with what Nietzsche says in the very next section of essay two in which
the reference to the sovereign individual occurs. How is the sovereign individual the
product of a process in which the active forces of remembering and forgetting strug-
gle, with the result that remembering surmounts and suppresses its opponent? More
precisely, what in the course of this struggle does the sovereign individual trump?
Answering the latter question leads us back to a deeper investigation of forgetting.
Briefly, we can recall that the good of forgetting, as Nietzsche writes in GM II: I,
issues from its effects of inpsychating consciousness; another way of putting it is that
forgetting plays a role in the regulatory process that permits us to appropriate our
experience such that we take from it what is necessary and rid ourselves of what is
nor.' Nietzsche does nor think that an individual is simply a monadic unitary emity.
150 Christa Davis Acampora

Instead, we are composed of a multiplicity of forces such that "our organism is oli-
garchically arranged." Nietzsche's claim about the organization of the kind of organ-
ism we are warrants underscoring here, because it is both consistent with what
Nietzsche does write about the "fiction" of the concept of individuals (e.g., BGE
16-20 and GM I: 13), and inconsistent with (what he doem 't write about) an individ-
ual who actually is sovereign and self-legislating. We shall have occasion to address
this issue in greater detail in the second section of this chapter.
Returning to the maner with which Nietzsche's second essay begins, we can now
reformulate its inaugural question thus: What must have happened-from an
organic developmental standpoint-in order for us to be able (jOr nature to have
granted us the ability) to make promises? Clearly, this is a question that is raised
about humankind generally. It applies to the kind of being that makes us human
beings. It is not asked about individual humans. Indeed, each of the essays of the
Genealogy endeavor, from a variety of perspectives, to offer a creation story of how
the human animal, generally, came to be what it is, entwined with an etiology of
moral concepts. The second essay is about the development of humankind as the
animal with a conscience. What characterizes our species, at least as it is cast in this
second essay, is the fact that some forces were strengthened over others in the course
of our development. This process was completed (hence, it is not some tantalizing
possibility for future philosophers to achieve) in pursuit of a particular "conscious-
ness of ... power and freedom," a "sensation" stemming from having and exercising
the kind of power realized in promise-making. Hooked on that feeling, so to speak,
human beings have (perversely) embraced their characteristic deformity (i.e., the
atrophy of forgening that occurs through the hyper-development of remembering).
Indeed, the aesthesis of power that courses throughout the entire economy of
promise-making-making promises, breaking them, and punishing others who are
unable or unwilling to keep promises-is so great that humans have even instigated
their own further deformity (i.e., more sophisticated mnemonics and the extirpation
of forgetfulness).
Nietzsche's preoccupation with this process in On the Genealogy of Morals and
elsewhere is tied to his concern for figuring out whether autonomy really is the telos
of humanity that modern philosophy and the emerging social sciences claim it to
be. What development might take us beyond ourselves, Nietzsche asks, and what
would we be like if we overcame humanity as such? Would such overhumanity entail
sovereign individuality? I believe Nietzsche thinks not, at least not as it is described
in GMII:2.

II. "THE SOVEREIGN INDMDUAL":

WHAT IT IS NOT

In the course of sorting through this particular issue it is necessary to consider how
the idea of the sovereign individual has been pressed into service in various interpre-
 On Sovereignty and Ollerhumanity 151

tat ions in the scholarly literature, (0 consider what general image of Nietzsche those
interpretations support, and (0 see whether such readings become difficult to sustain
once the support lent by the concept of the sovereign individual is withdrawn. It is
quite difficult to select which readings of GM II:2 should serve as the basis of this
discussion. Once I committed myself to this ropic, 1 was surprised to discover just
how rampant the problem is, and how frequently the "sovereign individual" creeps
into all manner of discussions of Nietzsche's works. 6 Those who point to the sover-
eign individual as Nietzsche's ideal generally associate it with "the higher men," and
sovereign individuality is often discussed in the context of clarifYing what it means
to "become what one is." In this section, I shall recount Hatab's points against the
prevailing readings of the sovereign individual, supplement his claims, and critique
several recent exemplary discussions that affirm the sovereign as Nietzsche's ideal.
In his A Nietzschean Deftme ofDemocracy, Hatab asserts that the "sovereign indi-
vidual" names "the modernist ideal of subjective autonomy," and that "Nietzsche
displaces" rather than embraces such ideals.! This becomes clear when one notices,
as virtually no one else does, that Nietzsche thinks that modern conceptions of the
individual as autonomous have been crafted in order to press them into the service
of moral accountability and retribution: "'Autonomy,'" Hatab writes, "is some-
thing that Nietzsche traces to the inversion of master morality; freedom in this sense
means 'responsible,' 'accountable,' and therefore 'reformable'-all in the service of
convincing the strong to 'choose' a different kind of behavior (GM 1:13)."" Thus,
the distinguishing characteristic of the sovereign individual as it is described in GM
II:2-namdy, that it autonomous-is precisely what Nietzsche identifies as the leg-
acy of moralization, which has produced the decadence that he associates with
humanity in its modern formY I have addressed above how Nietzsche advances a
quasi-physiological hypothesis about this process in terms of the development of
powers of forgetting and remembering, and I shall return to this matter below.
Related to the issue of autonomy is Nietzsche's conception of freedom, which
ambiguous as it may be, Hatab advises, is nevertheless clearly in tension with the
kind of freedom associated with the sovereign individual who would be "master of
free will." Hatab asks his rt:aders (0 recall BGE 21 in which Nietzsche rejects idea of
the completely free will: "the desire to bear the entire and ultimate responsibility for
one's actions oneself, and (0 absolve God, the world, ancestors, chance, and society
involves nothing less than to be precisely {a] causa sui," which Nietzsche describes
as "the best self-contradiction that has been conceived so far, it is a sort of rape and
perversion of logic." But Nietzsche's rejection of free will does not signal his suppo-
sition of a completely unfree will instead: "Suppose someone were thus to see
through the boorish simplicity of this celebrated concept of 'free will' and put it out
of his head altogether, I beg of him to carry his 'enlightenment' a step further, and
also put out of his head the contrary of this monstrous conception of 'free will': I
mean 'unfree will,' which amounts to a misuse of cause and effecr." Nietzsche
advances ideas about the concept of causality in numerous works. In the passage
under consideration from BGE, Nietzsche advises holding "cause" and "effect" as
152 Christa Davis Acampora

"pure conceprs," ficrions rhat are useful for communication but which do not have
explanatory power. )()
Finally, Hatab notes that, "the sovereign individual is described as claiming power
over fate, which does not square with one of Nietzsche's central recommendations,
amor foti (EH II, 10)."11 About the so-called sovereign individual, Nietzsche writes,
"The proud awareness of the extraordinary privilege of responsibility, the conscious-
ness of this rare freedom, this power over oneself and over fate, has in his case pene-
trated to the profoundest depths and become instiner, the dominating instinct.
What will he call this dominating instinct, supposing he feels the need to give it a
name? The answer is beyond doubt: this sovereign man calls it his conscience" (GM
Il:2). Committing oneself to conquering fate, which the sovereign individual of GM
Il:2 does as part of taking responsibility for the promises he makes, would seem to
stand in the way of, would specifically bind one to an idea that would prevent one
from, loving one's fate. Replacing the ideal that prevents one from loving one's fate
is precisely what Nietzsche envisions at the end of GM II, and Zarathustra is sup-
posed to make such overcoming possibleY As I shall discuss below, it is overcoming
the ideal of humanity as ultimately and fundamentally sovereign in the sense pro-
vided in GM Il:2 that "overhumanity" is supposed to represent.
But, the fact that the "sovereign individual," as described in GM II:2, is at odds
with how Nietzsche thinks about the composite nature of the self: his critique of the
concept of free will, and his emphasis on amor foti, does not hinder those keen on
locaring sovereign individuality at rhe heart of Nietzsche's philosophy. A representa-
tive view of the sovereign as Nietzsche's ideal is advanced in David Owen's "Equality,
Democracy, and Self-Respect: Reflections on Nietzsche's Agonal Perfectionism,"1J
and Richard Whire devotes an entire book to the concepr of sovereignty in Nietz-
sche's philosophy, Nietzsche and the Problem of Sovereignty, 14 both of which I con-
sider here. Without doubt, others could be added, and the meager review of the
literature thar I am able to elaborate here by no means represents every approach to
the topic. I) Although I do rhink I engage some of the most significant and promi-
nent themes, the lirerature would repay yer more specific consideration. There are
rwo general points I wish to make about the use of the sovereign individual in vari-
ous interpretations: (I) there is little in the way of support for the majority view that
the sovereign individual is one of the core ideas of Nietzsche's positive project given
that reference to such a being is limited to the one section under discussion here; and
(2) any interpretation rhat places sovereign individuality at the heart of Nietzsche's
philosophy requires commitring him to affirming other ideas, particularly about the
narure of human subjectiviry, which he clearly finds problemaric.
The first point is very easily addressed. There is no mention of sovereignty per se
in Z, preoccuparions wirh the Ubermensch withsranding. One finds not a peep about
the souveraine Individuum in BGE (where one might expect to encounter it in irs
polirical context, especially if such individuals are supposed to have earned special
rights) or the works that follow the GM. There are just a smattering of references to
 On Sovereignty and Overhumanity 153

rhings "souverain" in rhe norebooks berween 1882 and 1889, and rhese scam refer-
ences suppon the reading of that I have oftered in the first section of rhis chapter.
Simply pur, there is nor enough textual evidence to suppon the general and oft-
repeated claim rhat rhe sovereign individual of GM II:2 is Nietzsche's ideal type.
The more interesting issues emerge when we consider what one must take Nietz-
sche to be saying when one considers the sovereign individual to be the ideal. A
prominent tearure of such discussions revolves around rhe matter of "having rhe
righr to make promises." I take it thar those who are wont to emphasize this phrase
wish to draw a distinction between promising as an obligarion that "the herd"
imposes upon others in order to protecr itself, and rhose who have risen above sim-
ply meering that imposed obligation and who are willing to accept rhe responsibility
to secure their word for themseives. 16 Pur another way, the distinction drawn
appears to be: (1) relying upon the institution of promise-keeping (and the desire
people have to avoid rhe harm that might come from the breaking of promises given
to rhem) as the basis upon which a promise is made versus (2) agreeing to serve as
rhe guaranror of one's word for oneself. I can see how such an inrerpreration can be
rendered consistent wirh Nierzsche's preoccupation wirh drawing disrinctions
berween the herd and those who somehow escape it, bur how could ir be rhat rhe
Nierzsche who so emphasizes becoming, and who is suspicious of the concept of
the subject (as the "doer behind the deed"), could rhink rhar is desirable-let alone
possible-thar a person could ensure his or her word in the future? How could one
promise to do somerhing, to stand security for something, that cannot be predicred
and for which one is, in a sense, no longer the one who could be responsible for ir?
Either Nietzsche in GM II:2 remporarily sets aside rhe concerns that preoccupy not
only his earlier rhinking bur also rhe very same book in which the passage in ques-
rion appears (cf. GM I: 13), or there is somerhing wrong wirh amibuting such views
to Nietzsche. I am inclined to think rhe laner is the case, because this is not the only
inconsisrency at rhe hean of such imerprerarions.
Nor only does Nierzsche rhink of rhe human subjecr, and all other entiries for
thar maner, as having rheir being as a kind of becoming, bur rhere is plenty of evi-
dence rhar Nietzsche also rhinks rhat our very conception of individuals is suspect.
Nietzsche conceives of human beings, like all other organisms, as pluraliries, as com-
plexes of forces, nor as discrere individual entiries. This is not to say thar rhere are
no individuals; the particularity of rhe relations among (or arrangement of) rhe
forces we are accounts for our individuality. I? The very imeresring recent work on
Nietzsche's knowledge of and conception of science bears our rhis maner and rraces
the relevanr literature. IX Nierzsche thinks thar a well-functioning plurality, as noted
above, is one rhat is governed as an oligarchy (and this stands in contrast with rhe
view of Plato's Socrates in the Republic, who characterizes the best soul as modeling
an aristocracy).
It is at rhis point thar rhe earlier discussion of forgening, which sets the theme of
rhe second essay, becomes significant again, because forgening makes the oligarchic
154 Christa Davis Acampora

arrangement possible. A pretense to sovereignty is achieved with the substitution of

monarchic aspirations. I~ The process of strengthening the force of remembering for
the purposes of achieving moral accountability bears the fruit (i.e., yields the result
upon its completion) of an entity that undermines the very purposes for which its
direction was set: in the course of producing a morally responsible agent, the hyper-
cultivation of remembering and the withering of forgetting yields a so-called sover-
eign individual who, as sovereign, no longer recognizes the claims of moral law.
Thus the process of moralization that produces such an individual overcomes or
undermines its very end. Like Christianity, discussed in GM III, a morality that
endeavors to ground itself in radical autonomy is self-overcoming. The question that
the Genealogy raises, without conclusively answering it, is- What comes next?-and
we cannot begin to try to answer that question if we misread (or ignore) the begin-
ning of GM II. Given that Christian morality and its secular alrernatives have turned
oUl to undermine their very own ~oundations, what, if anything, can serve as the
basis for how we should cultivate ourselves and our relations to others? How can
any action at all become meaningful or significant?
To consider how the problem plays out in a specific interpretation, I wish to
return to the troublesome issue of promising. If it is really such a crucial feature of
the ideal Nietzsche envisions, then why is it that one finds nowhere else such great
emphasis placed upon promise-making and promise-keeping? Those who wish to
proffer this idea must undertake some serious contortions in order to have it appear
as though Nietzsche really does say as much himself. David Owen does this well.
He reconciles Nietzsche's sovereign-individual-as-promise-maker with the egoistic
strands in Nietzsche's philosophy by claiming that the sovereign individual realizes
his sovereignty first and foremost in relation to himself. And that such is a condition
for the possibility of meeting others on these terms. Autonomous individuality is
cast as the pinnacle of Nietzsche's aspirations, and Owen endeavors to ascribe to
Nietzsche the view that one has a duty (first to oneself, and then presumably to
others) to "own" one's humanity, which fundamentally lies in recognition of oneself
as a sovereign individual. Thus, servility, or herd mentality, is a foilure to undertake
one's duties. And failure to recognize sovereign individuality in others, Owen claims,
"undermine[sl the grounds of my own recognition self-respect, that is, that I am,
qua human being, a being who can stand to myself as a sovereign individual."20 Per-
haps so, if those lupine beasts of prey from GM I can be donned in Kant's civil
sheepish clothing. But Owen's specification of the defining characteristic of human-
ity is telling: "I am, qua human being, a being who can stand to myself as a sovereign
individual" (underlined emphasis mine). Nietzsche's discussion begins with consid-
eration of what the human animal is, the "breeding" or developmental process
required in order to make it capable of promising (i.e., chiefly by hypertrophic devel-
opment of the power of memory and the withering of forgelting). What Nietzsche
anticipates as the future for humanity in GM III and in Z is precisely the overcoming
of the human such that even if we don't become a different species altogether, we
might at least develop different capacities or different relations among the order of
 On Sovereignty and Ovel'humanity 155

forces that characterizes human existence generally. Nietzsche does not call us to
realize the height of our humanity in becoming sovereign individuals (a capability
already characteristic of the human animal, a "fruit" already borne)21 rather, he
anticipates overcoming the concepr of autonomy thar buoys the contradictoty ideal
of rhe sovereign individual, and that requires the culrivarion and heightening of dif
firmt powers, which are not alien to us but which are nonetheless latent.
Owen does the best job of finessing how the sovereign individual stands in rela-
tion to Nietzsche's emphasis on becoming. It is worth considering his account at
some length. The confines of this chapter do not afford the opportunity to give
Owen's paper the full consideration it deserves, so I shall fc.)Cus only on a passage
that constitutes Owen's most explicit definition of the sovereign individual, which
as Owen describes it, is "not a telos" but rather a dramatization of

an artirude, a will ro self-responsibility (in Emerson's language: self-teliance), which is

manifest in the perpetual striving to increase, to expand, one's powers of self-government
such that one can bear, incorporate and, evcn, love one's fate----{)ne's exposure ro chance
and necessity. (In other words, the sovereign individual represents the attitude of amor
fati, that is, the affirmation of the fact of our exposure to fortuna.) The noble soul
reveres itsdf because it is engaged in overcoming itself. To stand ro oneself as a sovereign
individual is, thus, ro stand ro oneself as one who seeks ro extend oneself beyond one's
currcnt powers. In holding this view, Nietzsche is commirted to a processual (i.e., non-
teleological) perfectionism. 21

If the sovereign individual can be conceived as realizing or manifesring its sover-

eignty as an on-going process, then we can resolve a number of rhe issues thar I have
identified as problemaric, most notably the conception of subjecriviry and irs facul-
ties that seem to be required for the kind of activity rhat is characteristic of rhe animal
who has the capaciry (0 make promises-namely, regularity, completeness, and
idenriry. This reading wriggles out of conflict with Nierzsche's other more promi-
nenr rheme of hosrility coward releological thinking, suggesrs how it can be recon-
ciled wirh amor flti, and somehow ties it co self-overcoming and an extension of
powers as a kind of self-enhancement. But notice what is not emphasized in this part
of Owen's interpretation, indeed what completely disappears, namely the idea of
sovereignty as tied to promising. This is no accident. Rather than an exercise of
self-legislating freedom, the autonomy of sovereign individuality instead becomes an
attitude coward necessity and change. Promise-making completely recedes as it must,
because what is required for promising-successfully distinguishing between chance
and necessity, thinking causally, correcrly predicting the future, being mindful of
the future in the present, even at the expense of the presenr, being able co decide
with certainty about what it would be right to do and how (0 go about doing it,
being calculable, etc. (GM I1:l}-cannot be garnered while emphasizing the "proc-
essual" and perpetual striving that the self becomes when we are attentive to most
of the rest of Nietzsche's philosophy.23 This leads me to wonder what good it does
156 Christa Davis Acampora

(0 tie the model of self-reliance as "processual perfectionism" with the obscure refer-

ence to the 50Ul1eraine Individuum in GM 11:2. Deriving a basis for democratic

respect (and perhaps respectability for Nietzsche among those with Kantian and lib-
eral philosophical inclinations) seems (0 be Owen's goal, bur I do not think it would
be Nietzsche's. Moreover, I am unsure that Nietzsche's work is the best place to
look for the richest notion of what democratic respect might be, and I do not think
it advisable (0 dis(Ort Nietzsche's texts in order (0 make it such.

III. READING GM I1:2-WHY IT MATIERS

At the root of the notion of the sovereign individual is the ideal of radical autonomy
and, along with ir, a kind of power over oneself and freedom or distance from orh-
crs.24 Once ascribcd (0 Nierzsche, the idea seems (0 easily fit wirh the general reading
of Nierzsche's cririque of morality, which would presumably constrain radical
autonomy, and, more curiously, with his appeals to a new nobility (given the talk
of special "rights" and entitlements rhar the sovereign individual has "earned").
Thus, even when rhe sovcreign individual is not called by name, its core idea
stands-namely, rhat Nietzsche envisions rhe emergence of an ideal type whose sig-
namre characteristic is a form of auronomy so highly developed that it can success-
fully exercise its will ryrannically not only in matrers political but also in those
cpisrcmic and axiological. But if, as I havc argucd above, the sovcreign individual is
nor Nietzsche's idcal-on rhe grounds that borh terms arc problematic for Nictz-
sche-then rhe core idea of rhe powcr and freedom of autonomy, of which the "sov-
ereign individual" is supposedly emblematic, is similarly undermined. And wirh
rhar, rhe interpretations that radiatc from rhat fault line are also thrown in doubr.
Thus, ir matters very much how we read GM II:2.
By the dramatic conclusion of the section in question, the process of producing a
conscience is summarized in its entirety. With that, Nietzsche suggests the process
of our development that is contained in our current concept of human beings is
completed. The quesrion remains whether this is truly the pinnacle of human exis-
tence. The sensation of power we get from the mnemonics of responsibility leads us
to believe it is, but Nietzsche entertains the thought that there are some possibili-
ties-beyond continuing relishing and relentlessly endeavoring to manifest sover-
cign individuality-that remain open (0 us. If we mistake rhe sovereign individual
as Nietzsche's ideal for that which we ought (or might want) to strive, then we over-
look what Nietzsche cnvisions beyond the overcoming of humanity anticipated in
rhird and final essay of the Genealogy.
Most associate the sovereign individual with "higher humanity,"25 claiming that
thcy are the same or at least quite similar. But I have sought (0 make rhe case for
rhe claim that Nietzsche sees the sovereign individual as standing at rhe end of a
process of becoming rhe kind of animals that human beings are. In other words, the
sovereign individual is the pinnacle of the current state of exisrence of humankindY'
 On Sovereignty and Overhumanity 157

If it is the case that Nietzsche envisions a kind of overcoming of humanity, some

sort of development toward what we might call over-humanity, and the sovereign
individual stands at the end of the process that produced human animals, then over-
coming the sovereign individual is what Nietzsche envisions. If the sovereign individ-
ual continues to stand as our end, even if the character of "the end" is construed so
as to reconcile it with becoming, then we will fail both in understanding the task of
pursuing that something higher that Nietzsche anticipates, and, consequently, in
reaching it. 27
Still, the ideal of sovereignty is certainly not alien to Nietzsche, and clearly the
exercise of will that is cultivated in the strengthening of memory that promise-
making requires is compatible with Nietzsche's emphasis on willing and its role in
the creation of meaning and significance. If the sovereignty of the sovereign individ-
ual named in GM I1:2 is not precisely that for which Nietzsche is striving, then what
is the other sense of sovereignty that Nietzsche can be said to affirm? How does it
differ from the sovereign of GM? In brief, I think much of this work has been done
already by Richard White, whose interpretation of what he describes as Nietzsche's
problem of sovereignty deserves greater attention and careful examination. White
argues that Nietzsche presages the problem of sovereignty in which we find ourselves
caught since modern, humanist conceptions of the subject have been undermined
by the likes of philosophers as diverse as Derrida and Dennett. Our contemporary
philosophical labors seems to leave us with something of a false dilemma regarding
how we conceive the self: either the self is determined by nature and "sovereignty"
is merely a product of history so that the sovereign individual is something that
can be appreciated from an aesthetic point of view as the "creation" of necessity, or
sovereignty is found in the freedom ofnecessity in which case "the sovereign individ-
ual represents the transfiguration and salvation of nature from itself."2" White pro-
poses a third alternative that casts Nietzsche as holding the view that sovereignty
is something that is a "strategic possibility," something Nietzsche advances from a
"perflrmative perspective" and that his writings aim to "provoke" in his readers. This
allows White to take seriously Nietzsche's writings about eternal recurrence, fate,
and necessity, while considering their tension with Nietzsche's appeals to creativity,
willing, and a new sense of freedom. White does this without much reference to the
sovereign individual of GM II:2,2~ and I think the direction of funher study should
follow White's lead.
The misreading of GM II:2 and its overemphasis on Nietzsche's interest in power
potentially mischaracterizes his explorations (and exhonations) of mastery. It encour-
ages associating Nietzsche's views with cenain strands of existentialism that are actu-
ally quite at odds with many things Nietzsche has to say about fate, his interest in
naturalism, and his complex views on freedom and necessity. Finally, such readings
overlook and even obscure significant ways in which Nietzsche works through sev-
eral problems in contemporary philosophy, particularly regarding the issue of con-
ceiving the subject as contingent and relational while at the same time "natural,"
158 Christa Davis Acampora

and articulating the bases upon which we might model our relations to other sub-
jects in light of contemporary critiques of the ideals of rationality and autonomy.
The real problem of sovereignty draws us toward more deeply exploring how we
might reconcile Nietzsche's appeals to creative willful activity with his critiques of
subjectivity and the key ideas about identity and causality that are crucial for the
conception of sovereign individuality that serve as the basis of Kantian moral philos-
ophy and contemporary theories of justice and moral psychology. This is a problem
for Nietzsche scholars, and its pursuit just might point toward promising further
contributions Nietzsche's philosophy could make to contemporary moral philoso-
phy. But if we continue to misread GM II:2, I think we will miss those opportuni-
ties, and, both within and outside the community of those who endeavor to practice
reading well, Nietzsche will cominue to be read as one obsessed with romantic exis-
tential fantasies about radical self-creation or self-rranscendence and whose ideal
type is nearly thoroughly unsuited for social life and unable to achieve the bonds of
meaningful community.

NOTES

\. See his A Nietzschean Defense 0/ Democracy: An Experiment in Postmodern Politics (Chi-

cago: Open Court, \995),37-38.
2. Here, I cite Kaufmann and Hollingdale's rranslation, which I amend below. KSA 5,
293: "Stellen wir uns dagcgen an's Endc des ungeheuren l'rozesses, dorrhin, wo der Saum
endlich seine hUchte zeitigt, wo die Societat und ihre Sittlichkcit der Sine endlich zu Tage
bringt, wozu sie nur das Minel war: so finden wir als reifste fruclu an ihrem Baum das souver-
aille Individuum, das nur sich selbst gleiche, das von der Sittlichkeit der Sine wieder losgck-
ommene, das autonome Ubersinliche Individuum (denn 'autonom' und 'sinlich' schliesst sich
aus), kurz den Menschen des eignen unabhangigen langen Willens, der versprechen daif-und
in ihm ein stolzes, in allen Muskeln zuckendes Bewusstsein davon, was da endlich errungen
und in ihm leibhaft gewordcn ist, ein eigentliches Macht- und Freiheits-Bewusstsein, ein Vol-
lendungs-Gefiihl des Menschen Uberhaupt."
3. Subsequent to the original publication of this chapter, Paul S. Loeb published an arti-
cle endorsing my view that Nietzsche's ideal is nor the "sovereign individual" but arguing for
a different reading of Nietzsche's claims about forgcning ("Finding the Ubermensch in Nietz-
sche's Genealogy o/Morality, " Journal a/Nietzsche Studies 30 [Autumn 2005]: 70-10\; revised
excerpt included in this volume). Loeb lunher develops what comes after the "overcoming of
humanity." In this slightly revised version, I add a few minot clarifications in light of Loeb's
comments. Rather than argue point by point, I simply note here that Loeb and I apparently
disagree considerably on Nietzsche's conception of nature and the status of the human in
relation to nonhuman animals in Nietzsche's texts. This bears quite significandy on whether
Nietzsche has a view of human beings (and further, the overhuman) as somehow transcending
nature. Although I do not think Loeb would explicitly endorse the latter, it is implied in his
argument. I do not find Nietzsche distinguishing between the "mere animal" and (he
"human." As they arc characterized in eM, humans arc the animals who make promises-
they have not transcended their animality on account of their being able to make promises,
 On Sovereignty and Overhllmanity 159

despite the common view to the contrary in the history of Western philosophy; the overhllman
does not constitute a transcendence of this natute either.
4. Thus, for translation of this section, the best we have is the one rendered by Maude-
marie Clark and Alan J. Swensen (Hackett, 1998), bur that will change with the new edition
of the Cambridge translation by Catol Diethe, edited by Keith Ansell Pearson (On the Geneal-
ogy ofMorality [Cambridge: Cambridge Universiry Press, forthcoming 2006]). In their notes
on the phrase in question, Clark and Swensen take notice of my first point about the absence
of any language associated with rights and entitlements, but they do not follow me in my
second point about the context of making a comparison between powers and capabilities.
5. Forgetting, it seems, is an important condition for experience-important for giving
the shape, form, rhythm, texture, and depth that make the seemingly endless srream of possi-
ble objects of concern and attention an experience, to recall Dewey's famous distinction, not
simply by piling experiences up or onto one another, but by taking some away, byencourag-
ing some to fade, recede, fall away. Forgetting in this sense grants rather than evacuates or
eliminates; too much remembering leaves us with experience without pause and strips from
us possibilities for action. Nietzsche engages in more elaborate discussion of this idea in his
earlier writings, particularly BT (in the association of the Dionysian with forgetting) and HL
(where differentiation of the "stream of becoming" is described as necessary).
6. The best defense of the case for the sovereign individual is found in Keith Ansell Pear-
son's "Nietzsche on Autonomy and Morality: The Challenge to Political Theory," Political
Studies 39 (1991): 276-301.
7. Hatab, A Nietzschean Defense ofDemocracy, 37.
8. Hatab notes that HH 618 refers to "Individuum" in a similar vein.
9. I provide further textual evidence drawn from Nietzsche in support of this claim as I
interpret his analysis of the mnemonics of punishment in my "Forgetting the Subject," in
Reading Nietzsche at the Margins, edited by Steven Hicks and Alan Rosenberg (West Lafayette,
IN: Purdue University Press, forthcoming 2007).
10. I discuss this idea at greater length in my "Nietzsche's Moral Psychology," Blackwell
Companion to Nietzsche, edited by Keith Ansell Pearson (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers,
Inc., 2006), 314-33.
II. Hatab, A Nietzschean Deftnse of Democracy, 38.
12. Interestingly, Kaufinann and Hollingdale inappropriately insert the notion of rights in
their translation of the passage with which the second essay concludes. They render the last
sentence as follows: "At this point it behooves me only to be silent; or I shall usurp that to
which only one younger, 'heavier with future,' and stronger than I has a right-that to which
only Zarathustra has a right, Zarathustra the godless.-" But there is nothing in the German
original that implies that Nietzsche is talking about rights. Instead, he is clearly indicating a
kind of freedom, not entitlement, when he writes, "-was allein Zarathustra freisteht, Zara-
thuma dem Gottlosen" (KSA 5, p. 337).
13. David Owen, "Equality, Democracy, and Self-Respect: Reflections on Nietzsche's
Agonal Perfectionism," in The Journal ofNietzsche Studies 24 (Fall 2002): 113-31.
14. Richard White in his Nietzsche and the Problem ofSovereignty (Chicago: University of
Illinois Press, 1997).
15. Subsequent to the original publication of this article are Loeb's article noted above;
and Thomas Miles, "On Nietzsche's Ideal of the Sovereign Individual" (unpublished paper
presented to the North American Nietzsche Society, 28 April 2005).
160 Christa Davis Acampora

16. Randall Havas makes this point. See his Nietzsche's Genealogy: Nihilism and the Will to
Knowledge (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1995), esp. 193ff. I briefly discuss the views
of Havas and Aaron Ridley in a note below.
17. On this idea, see Steven D. Hales and Rex Welshon, Nietzsche's Perspectivism (Urbana:
University of Illinois Press, 2000).
IS. Numerous commentators have developed these ideas at greater length, particularly
along the lines of Nietzsche's conception oflanguage and grammar and his relation to Boscov-
ich and Spiro For a concise review on the relevant issues, see Wolfgang Muller-Lauter, "On
Judging in a World of Becoming: A Reflection on the 'Great Change' in Nietzsche's Philoso-
phy," in Nietzsche, Theories of Knowledge, and Critical Theory, edited by Babetre E. Babich
and Robert S. Cohen (Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1999), 16S-71. Compare Nietz-
sche's own discussion in "On the Prejudices of Philosophers" in BGE. See further Greg Whit-
lock's "Roger J. Boscovich and friedrich Nietzsche: A Re-Examination" in Nietzsche,
Epistemology, and Philosophy of Science, edited by Babette E. Babich and Robert S. Cohen
(Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1999); Robin Small, "Boscovich Contra Nietzsche,"
in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 19S4 (46): 419-35; Robin Small, Nietzsche in
Context (Aklershot, England: Ashgate, 2002); Gregoty Moore, Nietzsche, Biology, and Meta-
phor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002); and Michael Steven Green's Nietzsche
and the Ihmscendental Tradition (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2002).
19. This is not at all to suggest that Nierzsche claims we should aim to return to our
prehuman histoty-it should be quite obvious that such is not possible in the same way that
it is not possible for anyone to selectively return to some prior stage of human evolutionary
development. The history of Western philosophy exhibits a severe allergy to forgetting and
an association with knowledge, or enlightenment, strictly with remembrance. I find the same
in Loeb's conception of the "second forgetting" associated with Zarathustra's "enlighten-
ment," which curiously involves a forgetting (in the sense of foregoing) forgetting (in the
sense of not remembering); see PI'. 166, \70-71.
20. Owen, "Equality, Democracy, and Self-Respect," 116.
21. Owen is one of the few who at least recognize that the sovereign individual is not
Nietzsche's ideal in the sense of a future possibility (although Owen appears to think it is a
worthy ideal for the present). Owen righdy poims our that Nietzsche associates the sovereign
individual with the "moraliry of custom," a stage, in Nietzsche's historical account of the
development of morality that he considers "premoral" (with Kant, Sittlichkeit precedes Moral-
itat). However, I consider the sovereign individual to be the ideal that serves as the inaugural
transition between the premoral and moral stages. Since the Genealogy appears to be oriented
toward envisioning a "postmoral" stage of development, it is curious that Owen would
endeavor to sketch Nietzsche's view about that stage by drawing on the type produced by the
process of premoral customs.
22. Owen, "Equality, Democracy, and Self-Respect," liS. Compare with David Owen
and Aaron Ridley, "On Fate," International Studies in Philosophy 35:3 (2003): 63-7S.
23. Instead, Owen seems to emphasize "self-responsibility" and upholding one's commit-
ments. For some concise accounts of the sovereign individual that do keep promise-making
front and center, see Randall Havas, "Nietzsche's Idealism" and Aaron Ridley, "Ancillary
Thoughts on an Ancillary Text," both in The Journal of Nietzsche Studies 20 (2000): 90-99
and 100-8, respectively. For Havas, the sovereign individual is the paradigmatic willing
subject: he offers us instruction on what it means to will something: "giving our word" is
 On Sovereignty and Overhumanity 161

how this happens, and it is in this that we realize our "shared humanity" with others. Ridley
apparently arrributes ro Nietzsche the idea that taking responsibility is a achievement or an
accomplishment for which we might aim. I have endeavored ro argue that Nietzsche is chal-
lenging the idea that sovereign individuality and all that it entails is the pinnacle of human
progress. I am not suggesting that Nietzsche does not see anything at all that is valuable in
the process of moralization and the working of the bad conscience that produces the sovereign
individual as an ideal type. Indeed, I think a vety interesting and pt:rsuasive case could be
made that Nietzsche considers the practice of willing that the (vain) pursuit of sovereign indi-
viduality allows us to exercise has significant advantages, much as the slave revolt in morality
(discussed in GM I) makes human beings interesting and creative in ways they had not been
previously, and much as the ascetic ideal is shown ro have been a highly effective (yet also
destructive) mechanism for producing value (in GM III). But the ideal of the sovereign indi-
vidual like slave morality (and, perhaps, the ascetic ideal) is something that Nietzsche envi-
sions overcoming.
24. It is precisely this reading that leads many to claim that Nietzsche's politics are decid-
edly arisrocratic and antidemocratic. Owen and Havas endeavor to associate Nietzsche's views
with perfectionism and liberalism, thereby making Nietzsche's philosophy compatible with
democratic theory. But if we grant that Nietzsche is not embracing the sovereign individual,
but rather is calling for its overcoming, the need ro discuss how sovereign individuality can
be rendered compatible with democratic political theoty disappears. Lawrence Hatab accom-
plishes the same without recourse ro the sovereign individual.
25. As an example, see Richard Schacht, Nietzsche (New York: Routledge, 1983),294.
26. This is not ro say that we are all already sovereign individuals but rather that the con-
cept of humanity that we presently hold is one that takes sovereign individuality as a real and
desirable possibility for us to endeavor to achieve.
27. I maintain that whatever is involved in overlJllmanity, and I have not endeavored to
describe it here, the beings who attain it or are involved in the process of pursuing it remain
nonetheless animals. Nietzsche thinks the human is animal through and through. Of course,
the human animal has its distinctive features, JUSt as other animals do, but there's no reason
ro think that these particular features somehow make the human animal more than merely an
animal, they merely make the human an animal of a particular sort. The focus upon some
possible Right from or transcendence of animality is precisely what Nietzsche aims to over-
come in his philosophical anthropology, and it plays a significant role in his critique of moral-
ity (e.g., GM 11:7). Further discussion of this can be found in the numerous essays included
in A Nietzschean Bestiary: Becoming Animal Beyond Docile and Brutal, edited by Christa Davis
Acampora and Ralph R. Acampora (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.,
2004).
28. Richard White, Nietzsche and the Problem o/Sovereignty, 86.
29. White reads Nietzsche as affirming the sovereign individual. but his discussion of the
relevant passage is rather limited (see his Nietzsche and the Probkm o/Sovereignty, 144ff). Still,
his account of sovereignty and Nietzsche's conception of the individual is richer than those
that begin from the sovereign individual as Nietzsche's paradigm. Sovereignty is a decidedly
problematic issue for Nietzsche, on White's account; it is not a specific ideal that we ought
to pursue.
 10
Finding the Ubermensch in Nietzsche's
Genealogy ofMorality*
Paul S. Loeb

Although scholars quite reasonably tend to assume that Nietzsche's later thinking
supersedes his earlier thinking (see, e.g., Clark 1990), he himself instructs his readers
to think of his analysis in the Genealogy as preemptively superseded by the philoso-
phy of his earlier Zarathustra. GM, he writes, is a "fish hook" meant to attract and
prepare readers for the superior insights of his earlier Z. GM, he tells us is a No-
saying, destructive book focused on the contemporaneous; while his earlier Z is a
Yes-saying, constructive book focused on the future (EH "BGE"). In this chapter, I
will show more specifically how Nietzsche's supposedly immature and discarded Z
concept of the Ubermensch does indeed supersede his supposedly mature and final
ideas in GM ILl
The most obvious candidate for the Ubermensch in the Genealogy is Nietzsche's
famous "sovereign individual." In GM II:2 and 3 Nietzsche praises this sovereign
individual as the completion of humankind, as emancipated from morality, and as
the master of a free will with power over himself and over fate. This is why Simon
May, for example, writes that the sovereign individual is "none other than the Uber-
mensch: for in mastering every obstacle to promising himself, he, like the Ubermen-
sch, has nothing left to overcome" (May 1999, 117).2 However, as Christa Davis
Acampora has recen rly argued, there are several good reasons for rejecting this sug-
gestion (Acampora 2004). First, the sovereign individual is not mentioned or cele-

* Excerpted and revised by the: author from its original publication in Journal of Nietzsche
Studies 30 (Autumn 2005): 70-101. Reprinted wirh permission of rhe Pennsylvania Srare
University Press.

163
164 Paul ~~ Loeb

bra ted anywhere else in Nietzsche's published writings, nor is he explicitly linked
anywhere to the Ubermensch. Second, the introductory section to GM II celebrares
the instinctive, regulative, and active force of forgetting and warns about the costs
of countering it. In the mnemonic sovereignry, by contrast, no room is left in con-
sciousness for the proper oligarchic functioning of our instincts. Third, the kind of
freedom and autonomy Nietzsche associates with the sovereign individual-
responsibility, promise-keeping, accountabiliry-are traced by him in the first essay
to slave morality, and so cannot be regarded as his ideal. Finally, although Nietzsche
says that the sovereign individual represents the already-attained completion of
humankind, Zarathustra insists that humankind must be overcome in the furure
Ubermensch.
1 do not agree completely with Acampora's reasons, however. First, although
Nietzsche does praise animal forgetting, it is clear that he does not atavistically think
that humankind can somehow go back to this state (TI "Skirmishes" 43, 48-49).
Yet Acampora valorizes the pre-human forgetting of GM II: 1 and does not say any-
thing about what Nietzsche thinks forgetting might look like after our millennia-
long history of mnemonic breeding. 1 will do so. Second, Nietzsche claims at the
end of GM II thar Zarathustra will employ the resources of bad conscience, rather
rhan abolish it. This suggests that Acampora is too quick to dismiss the sovereign
individual's perfection of bad conscience. Although she rightly notes Nietzsche's
depreciation of the sovereign individual's talent for responsibility and autonomy, she
assumes without much argument that these qualities are in themselves depreciated by
Nietzsche. 3 But this assumption is contradicted by Zarathustra's extravagant praise
and exemplification of these qualities: as obtaining, for example, in the self-legislator
who must obey his own laws and commands (Z:Il "On Self-Overcoming"); or,
more radically, in the spirit-become-child and self-propelled wheel that wills its own
will (Z:I "On the Three Metamorphoses"). So perhaps Nietzsche depreciates the
sovereign individual because he is nor responsible and autonomous enough-
compared, that is, to Zarathustra or the Ubermensch. I shall argue that this is indeed
the case. Finally, alrhough I think Acampora is right to cite Zararhustra's claim that
the already-completed human must be overcome in the future Ubermensch, this cita-
tion assumes precisely what Nietzsche scholars usually deny (see, e.g., Leiter 2002,
p. 115n2) and what I aim to show here: namely, that the Z concept of the Uberm-
ensch continues to playa crucial role in the later Genealogy.
A key to understanding this role is Nietzsche's claim that the sovereign individual
is the ripest fruit of bad conscience. But bad conscience, he argues further, is an
illness, in fact the worst illness ever contracted by the human animal, one from
which it has not yet recovered, one that makes the human animal the sickest animal
on earth (GM 11:13, 16, 19; see also GM 1II:20). As Nietzsche vividly describes the
terms of this illness, it involves above all a kind of social incarceration or imprison-
ment in which the will to power cannot be externally discharged and therefore must
be turned inward so as to inflict self-torture, self-punishment, and self-cruelty.
According to Nietzsche, the conquered, imprisoned, and tamed human animal
 Finding the Obermensch in Nietzsche 5 Genealogy of Morality 165

invented bad conscience in order to hurt itself. Worse yet, it then seized upon the
presupposition of religion so as to drive its self-torture to its most gruesome pitch
of severity and rigor. Whereas previously the human animal felt itself able to repay
its debts to its ancestors and gods (for example, through sacrifice and achievements),
the aim now was to invent a holy God so as to preclude pessimistically, once and
for all, the prospect of a definitive repayment. In this new psychic cruelty, where the
human will now infected the fundamental ground of things with the problem of
eternal guilt and punishment, Nietzsche finds an unexampled madness and insanity
of the will, an earth that has become a madhouse (GM II:21; see also GM III:20).
Now, as far as I know, no one has yet poinred out that these famous remarks
contain clear allusions back to Nietzsche's earlier Thus Spoke Zarathustra chapter,
"On Redemption" (Z:II). For Zarathustra speaks there of the human will as a pris-
oner in chains or feners, as being powerless and impotent, as foolishly trying to
escape its dungeon by seeking a revenge that it calls "punishment," and finally as
becoming insanely obsessed with finding this punishment in the very nature of exis-
tence. Even more specifically, Nietzsche's analysis of bad conscience and guilt in GM
II alludes back to Zarathustra's further claim in that same speech that the prison of
the human will is the past. 4 For although Nietzsche emphasizes the role that social
confinement plays in the inhibition and suppression of the human animal's instincts
(so that they are eventually internalized), his deeper point is that the socially-bred
memory foculty is the true inhibitor and suppressor of these instincts. 5 This is because
the memory faculty suspends or disconnects (ausgehangt) active forgetting and repre-
sents an active will not (0 let go, to keep willing, that which it once willed in the
past (GM II:I-3). But this means that the remembering human animal is forced to
recognize for the first time an entire arena of possible willing-much more extensive
than the sphere outside society-that is completely and forever outside of its reach:
namely, that which was willed and can now never be unwilled, deeds that can never
be undone, in shon, the past, the "it was." Before socially bred memory, the pre-
human will actively forgot anything outside the present moment that could confine
its activity. But with the advent of society and its mnemo-techniques, some things
were impressed upon the moment-centered animal affects so that they remained
there-inextinguishable, omnipresent, fixed-just as they once were. The human will
therefore now perceived itself as confronted with a new stone, a new barrier, "that
which was," which it could not move and in rclation to which it fclt impotent and
inhibited.
It is ironic, then, that the start of GM II emphasizes the power and freedom of
the sovereign individual. For insofar as this power and freedom depend upon the
sovereign individual's highly developed faculty of memory, they are in fact sharply
curtailed. Unlike the mere animal, the sovereign individual that is the completion
of the human animal is at each and every point confined and burdened, not only by
his own immovable "it was," but also by the "it was" of the whole human prehistory
of custom and tradition that has led up to him. The sovereign individual may seem
to have power and mastery over circumstances, nature, accidcnrs, fate, himself, and
166 Ptlul S. Loeb

others less reliable than himself. But since he has no power over any of the "it was"
that determined all of these, he ultimately has no power over these either. Indeed,
because the sovereign individual's mnemonic will has itself been determined by a
past that is fixed and gone forever, it cannot be said [0 ordain the future in advance
after all. So the sovereign individual's power over time turns out to be illusory. This
is why Nietzsche describes the sovereign individual in terms that he has already criti-
cized in Z as being linked to the spirit of the camel and the spirit of gravity: namely,
as bearing on his strong shoulders a rremendous responsibility and weight that
makes him proud, self-conscious, measured, controlled, serious, solemn, and grave.
So what is required for the human will to free itself from the prison of the past
imposed by its socially bred millennia-old capacity of memory? Nietzsche suggests
at the end of eM II that Zarathustra-the man of future who makes the will free
again-must turn bad conscience against the unnatural inclinations. Bur bad con-
science is fundamentally memory, and the unnarural inclinations are all traceable ro
bad conscience. Further, the law of life, the law of necessary self-overcoming, dic-
tates that all great things are the cause of their own destruction (eM III:27). Hence,
in an act of self-cancellation, memory must be rurned against memory itself so as [0
bring about the kind of forgetting that Zarathuma equates with freedom and the
absence of guilt (Unschu/d, usually translated as "innocence"): "Innocence is the
child and forgetting, a new beginning, a play, a self-propelling wheel, a first move-
ment, a holy Yes-saying" (Z:I "On the Three Mctamorphoses").6 However, this can-
not be a going back to the forgctting of our animal ancestry, ro the "partly obruse,
pardy flighty understanding of the moment (A ugenblicks- Verstande)," or to "the
moment-enslaved (Augenblick;'-Sklaven) affects and desire" (eM 11:3). Nor should
we hope for such a return (TJ "Skirmishes" 43).7 Instead, Nietzsche suggests, we
must go forward and exploit to its fullest the very illness that is also a pregnancy in
order to attain a new and ubermenschlich forgetting.
What Nietzsche means by this is that memory-or the suspension of mere animal
forgetting-is what forces the human will to hold on to the past, to fix the past, and
thereby to recognize an immovable "it was" in relation to which it feels impotent
and inhibited. Memory is what teaches the human animal that it cannot will back-
ward. In ordcr to liberate itself, therefore, the human animal must employ this same
memory ro recover the past so deeply and so completely that it is led ro forget the
past in a new and ubermenschlich sense-that is, to let go of the past, to unfix the
past, and thcreby to recognize that the "it was" is not immovable after all. Bur what
causes the human will to perceive the "it was" as immovable is its limited perspective
on time that shows it running forward in a straight line for eterniry. From the per-
spective of the human animal's present willing, the "it was" always appears behind
and gone forever our of reach. As Zarathusrra says in his redemption speech, the will
sees that everything passes away and that time devours her children. The human
animal must therefore use its memory to recover the past so thoroughly that it recog-
nizes that time actually circles back upon itself and that the "it was" always returns.
Hence Zarathustra's new teaching: "Do not be afraid of the flux of things: this flux
 Finding the Ubermcnsch in Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morality 167

turns back into itself: it flees itself not only twice. All 'it was' becomes again an 'it
is.' All that is future bites the past in the tail" (KSA 10:4[85]). With such a mne-
monic self-overcoming, the human animal learns how to will backward, how to
break time and its desire, and how to gain a true power over time (something higher
than mere reconciliation with time).
These ideas refer us of course to Zarathustra's doctrine of the eternal recurrence
of the same." As Nietzsche describes it in Ecce Homo, this is a cosmological theory
of the unconditional and endlessly repeated circular course of all things (EH "BT"
3)Y Because he rejects any conception of universal and absolute time wherein time
exists independently of these things, it follows for him that time itself has an end-
lessly repeated circular course. 10 And from this there follows the unconditional and
endlessly repeated circular course of every human life (KSA 9: II [148]).11 Thus, from
his proof of the circular course of all things, Zarathustra deduces that he and his
dwarf-archenemy must have already encountered each other before eternally and
must return to encounter each other again eternally (Z:I1I "On the Vision and the
Riddle" 2). And Zarathustra's animals know that he teaches "that all things recur
eternally and we ourselves with them, and that we have already existed an infinite
number of times before and all things with us." Similarly, from the revolving great
year of becoming, these animals know Zarathusrra's deduction that "we ourselves
resemble ourselves in each great year, in the greatest things and in the smallest."
And they know as well what he would say to himself if he were about to die: "But
the complex of causes in which I am entangled will recur-it will create me again!
[ ••. J I shall return eternally to this identical and self-same life, in the greatest things
and in the smallest" (Z:lII "The Convalescent" 2),'2
According to Zarathustra, therefore, every human animal has lived its qualita-
tively identical life innumerable times before. And since every human animal pos-
sesses a faculty of memory, it must be possible for it to remember these innumerable
identical previous lives. More precisely, as we have seen, Nietzsche defines human
memory as a counterfaculty by means of which animal forgerting is suspended or
disconnected. And animal forgetting, he writes, is

an active and in the strictest sense positive faculty of repression that is responsible for
the fact that what is only absorbed, experienced by us, taken in by us, enters just as little
into our consciousncss during the condition of digcstion (one might call it "inpsycha-
don") as does the entire thousandfold process through which the nourishing of our
body (so-called "incorporation") runs its course. (GM II: I)

Thus, every human animal subconsciously absorbs and experiences the reality of its
innumerable identical previous lives, but this reality is actively forgotten and sup-
pressed for the sake of psychic room and order. Still, this forgetting and suppression
can be suspended, in which case the cosmic reality of eternal recurrence will enter
into human consciousness and thought. 13
Now, it might seem impossible that any human animal could ever remember the
168 Paul S. Loeb

recurrence of its life. For any such memory would add something new to that life
and thereby violate Nietzsche's insistence on the qualitative identiry of that life. '4
However, this objection presupposes some initial or original life in which there was
not yet a recollection of its eternal recurrence. On Nietzsche's view, there is no such
original life, and as long every recurring life contains the qualitatively identical recol-
lection of this recurrence, there is no inconsistency in supposing that there could be
such a recollection. Indeed, quite the reverse: given Nietzsche's anthropological
account of the human animal as the remembering animal, and given Zarathustra's
cosmological teaching of the eternal recurrence of the human animal's qualitatively
identical life, it must be the case that every human animal has the potential to recall
this recurrence.
So why did Nietzsche emphasize Zarathustra's doctrine of eternal recurrence if
he thought that this was something every human animal could remember on its
own? The reason is that he did not think that anyone belonging to his age was strong
or healthy enough to affirm the thought of an eternally recurring life. In fact, he
admits this even of himself: "I do not want life again. How have I borne it? Creating.
What has made me endure the sight? the vision of the Ubermensch who affirms life.
I have tried to affirm it myself-alas!" (KSA 10:4[81]). Due to their base-line life-
impoverishment, he and his contemporaries were far from being well-enough dis-
posed toward themselves and their lives to desire their idemical return. In GS 341,
Nietzsche imagines that he and his contemporaries would feel the thought of eternal
recurrence as a crushing one: the question in each and every thing, "do you want
this once more and innumerable times more?" would lie upon their actions as the
greatest heavy weight. He even imagines that he and his contemporaries, upon hear-
ing the news of eternal recurrence, would throw themselves down, gnash their teeth,
and curse the bearer of this news as a demon.
Bur, according to the doctrine, this messenger, this news-bearer, must be memory
itself. And according to Nietzsche's proto-Freudian psychology, the human animal
will repress any memory that is too painful [0 bear: "'I have done that,' says my
memory. 'I cannot have done that,' says my pride, and remains unyielding. Eventu-
ally-memory yields" (BGE 68). Extrapolating from GS 341, Nietzsche directs us
to suppose a similar sequence of psychological events with respect to our memory
of eternal recurrence: "I have lived this identical life innumerable times before," says
my memory. "I cannot have done that," say my life-hatred and my self-hatred, and
remain unyielding. Eventually-memory yields." In terms of Nietzsche's definition
of memory, although we may at some poim be led to suspend our forgening of the
recurrence-reality that we have subconsciously experienced, we will certainly return
to this forgening if the recurrence-reality is too painful to bear. On Nietzsche's epi-
stemic accounr of eternal recurrence, rhere is thus no important distinction to be
drawn between the question whether we are able to know eternal recurrence and the
question whether we are able to affirm ic. '6
In GS 342, Nietzsche presents us with his contrasting vision of a far stronger
and healthier future age (enabled by Nietzsche himself) in which there will arise an
 Finding the Obermensch in Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morality 169

individual, Zarathustra, so overflowing with energy and vitality that he is completely

well-disposed toward himself and toward his life. Such an individual, he proclaims,
will long for nothing more fervently than for the eternal recurrence of his identical
life. For this reason, he will bless the news of such recurrence as an eternal confirma-
tion and seal, and he will regard the bearer of such news as a god. This affirmation,
Nietzsche predicts, will be the start of the "great noon" [Grosse Mittag] hour for
humankind, that is, the hour in which the shadows of God cease to darken the
human mind and the sun of human knowledge stands at its peak: "And in every
ring of human existence as such there is always an hour in which the mightiest
thought emerges, at first for one, then for many, then for all-the thought of the
eternal recurrence of all things" (KSA 9:11 [148j)Y This is why Nietzsche ends GM
II by proclaiming Zarathustra as "this bell-stroke of noon" [dieser Glockenschlag des
Mittagsl and why he begins GMby alluding to Zarathustra as "one divinely preoccu-
pied and immersed in himself into whose ear the bell has just boomed with all its
strength the twelve strokes of noon [and who] awakens all at once and asks himself:
'what really was that which just struck?'" (GM P: I).
By way of preparing Zarathustra's great-noon affirmation, Nietzsche spends some
time showing that he carries within him a latent knowledge of his life's eternal recur-
rence. IX For example, after his terrifYing prevision of the serpent biting itself fast in
the throat of the shepherd, Zarathustra speaks of having been bitten himself by the
silent, burrowing and blind worm of his most abysmal thought (Z:lII "On Involun-
tary Bliss," "The Convalescent"). This poetic image, with its allusion to death
(worms burrowing in corpses), and to the ancient ouroboros symbol (a worm that
bites its own tail), captures Nietzsche's idea that Zarathustra's eternally recurring life
is a closed circle in which the end always returns to the beginning. Zarathusrra's
knowledge of eternal recurrence is most abysmal (abgriindlicher) and blind because
it lies burrowing in the darkest depths of his subconscious. And it is silent and sleep-
ing because Zarathustra has so far repressed and buried it in subconscious depths
where it is then carried as a fearfully heavy weigh£. This is why Nietzsche is especially
interested in depicting Zarathustra's experience of falling asleep, when his conscious
intellect drops away and "no time" passes for him until he awakens. In this blink of
an eye (Augen-blick) between falling asleep and waking, Zararhustra paradoxically
feels himself falling into "the well of eternity" (den Brunnen der Ewigkeit) and sleep-
ing "half an eternity," in which he perceives the world as a perfect "golden round
ring" (Z:IV "At Noon"). With these metaphors, Nietzsche indicates the descent of
Zarathustra's sleeping mind into its subconscious awareness of his eternally recurring
life. This awareness, Nietzsche suggests, necessarily has an infinite depth that is
beyond the scope of Zarathustra's waking consciousness's comprehension (Z:lIl
"Before Sunrise," "On the Three Evils").
At the right time, however, Zarathustra must choose to deliberately awaken and
summon up his dormant knowledge so that it may speak to him directly (Z:III "On
Involuntary Bliss"). Since the rest of humankind will still be concerned to keep this
reality suppressed, Zarathustra will have to escape collecrive thought and choose the
170 Palll S. Loeb

most solitary solitude (einsamste Einsamkeit) as a means of diving, burrowing and

sinking into reality (GS 341; Z:III "On the Vision and the Riddle" 1; GM 1I:24).
So in Z Nietzsche poetically imagines the strong and solitary Zarathustra summon-
ing and awakening his knowledge of eternal recurrence out the darkness of his deep-
est depths (Z:lII "On the Vision and the Riddle" 2; "The Convalescent" 1). This
invocation leads to an awakening or enlightenment in which Zarathustra's long-
hidden knowledge is finally revealed in the full light of day and rationally under-
stood at a surface conscious level. 19 In the concluding chapters of the published end-
ing of Z-and in keeping with the prevision in which Zarathustra sees himself
springing up, no longer human, a transformed being, radiant, laughing a laughter
that is no human laughter (Z:III "On the Vision and the Riddle" 2)-Nietzsche
depicts the soul of this enlightened, laughing Obermensch as affirming and blessing
the seal of eternal recurrence in just the manner he had anticipated in GS 341-42
(Z:III "The Seven Seals").
According to Nietzsche, then, the experience of the reality of the eternally repeat-
ing cosmos cannot be incorporated by mere animals (nO( even Zarathustra's) because
they have no faculty of memory. Nor, however, can it be incorporated by most
human animals, because their ill-disposition toward themselves and their lives keeps
them from suspending their forgetting of this experience. Only an exceptionally
strong and self-loving individual like Zarathustra, who fervently longs for nothing
more than his own eternal recurrence, is able finally to recover and incorporate his
deeply buried subconscious experience that this is actually the case. As a result, how-
ever, his relation to time is completely transformed. Since it is a cosmological truth
that Zarathustra will eternally relive the qualitatively identical life he has already
lived, his faculty of memory is no longer confined just to the "it was" of his life.
Whereas mere animals can live only in their present moment, and whereas human
animals can also mnemonically live in their past, Zarathustra's recovered memory of
his eternal recurrence allows him to live even in his future. This is why Zarathustra
calls himself a prophet (Wahrsager) throughout the narrative of Z, and this is why
Nietzsche calls attention to Zarathustra's ptophetic ability by constructing crucial
narrative episodes in which Zarathustra has previsions that are later fulfilled.
Although these previsions are usually inrerpreted as literary devices meant to convey
Zarathustra's psychological states, Nietzsche's claim that eternal recurrence is the
basic conception (Grundconception) of Z (EH "Z" 1) suggests instead that they are
devices meant to convey the manifestations of Zarathustra's eternally recurring life. 20
In Thus Spoke Zarathustra, then, Nietzsche imagines a future Zarathustra who
employs his memory against itself so as [0 attain a kind of second forgetting of the
remembered past that previously seemed fixed and gone forever. Unlike the mere
animal, he still has a memory-faculty that allows him [0 transcend the present
moment. But also, unlike the merely human animal, he is able to employ this faculry
so as to transcend the past as well. Because he has a recovered memory of the entire
circular course of his life, Zarathustra no longer shares the limited human perception
that there is an asymmetry between the past and the future such that the past is
 Finding the Obermensch in Nietzsche 5 Genealogy of Morality 171

always fixed and gone fi)fever compared [0 the future. Instead, his recurrence-memory
shows him that his eternally returning past also lies ahead of his present and is there-
fore just as open [0 his will's influence as is his future. Of course, this does not mean
that Zarathustra can change or alter the past, or that he can undo what is already
done. Nowhere does Zarathustra claim to have stopped the flow of time or reversed
the direction of this flOW. 21 In fact, he goes out of his way to trace the origins of
such "stomach-turning" ideas to the thought of God (Z:II "Blessed Isles"). Instead,
Zarathustra's recurrence-memory shows him only that what he has already done
may be such precisely because of the influence of his willing in the present or even
the future. Speaking to his "it was," he may therefore say: "But thus I will it! Thus
I shall will it!" (Z:II "On Redemption").
Indeed, considered more closely, it is precisely Zarathustra's faculty of memory
that makes his "backward-willing" influence possible. For by impressing or s[Oring
mnemonic messages, commands, or reminders to himself at an "earlier" stage in
his life, the fully developed and perfected Zarathustra can transmit this very same
development and perfection throughout his entire life so as to guarantee it meaning,
necessity, and wholeness. 22 Alluding [0 Socrates' daimonion (BT 13-14; TI"Socra-
tes"), as well as [0 the Christian conception of conscience as a kind of divine "voice"
that conveys warnings or instructions (GS 335; EH "GM"), Nietzsche imagines that
Zarathustra will hear disembodied whispers calling to him, admonishing him, and
commanding him at critical times in his life when he is tempted away from himself
or does not feel adequate to his destiny (see especially Z:II "The Stillest Hour").
Because this voice is easily identified as that of his own self at a "later" point in the
narrative, Nietzsche imagines that Zarathustra will possess a kind of second con-
science, a recurrence-conscience, that enables him to keep promises [0 his future self
and to become who he is in the future (GS 270,335). In fact, Nietzsche suggests, it
is this very backward-willing that allows Zararhustra [0 affirm his life in such a way
that he is led to long for its eternal recurrence and thereby becomes able to recover
the experience of recurrence that teaches him backward-wiIIing. 23 Zarathustra's self-
liberated will is thus a truly sovereign "self-propelled wheel" (ein aus sich rollendes
RaJ) or circulus vitiosus (BGE 56) that wills its own will and that enables Zarathustra
to become a fully self-actualized poet-anist-crea[Or of his own life and self (GS 290,
299).24
To return to Nietzsche's famous formulation, human memory is an illness as preg-
nancy is an illness. By increasing its power and sophistication to a horrific and
deforming extent, the human animal is at the very limit finally able to recover its
deeply forgonen experience of life's eternal recurrence. Because this new knowledge
releases and opens up an arena of possible willing that had seemed forever blocked,
the self-overcoming human animal is once again free to fully externalize and express
its instincts. This time, however, its will to power extends vastly further, and is
directed in a vastly more focused manner, than that of his merely animal ancestor
tethered to the present moment. Since the past is now just as open and malleable as
the future, there is no longer any deterministic influence of the past to chain,
172 Paul S. Loeb

imprison, haunt and burden its present willing. And because the "it was" is also the
"it shall be," its memory (a suspension of its first forgetting) is now precisely the
means whereby the self-overcoming human animal is able to anain a new kind of
forgetting of the "it was" and to influence its own development in a way that truly
grants it freedom, autonomy, and self-mastery. This new forgetting will extend to
the past millennia of breeding and custom that produced its faculty of memory in
the first place. Hence, the crushingly heavy debt of millennia that once seemed irre-
deemable will finally be lifted and redeemed. 2s From the womb of bad conscience,
a new child will be born: self-propelled, free, weightless, innocent, affirming, joyful,
and at play with novelty and creation. 26

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Auflage. Berlin: Walter de Gruytcr, 1998.
Acampora, Christa Davis. "On Sovereignty and Overhumanity: Why It Maners How We
Read Nietzsche's Genealogy Il:2." In International Studies in Philosophy 36:3 (2004):
127-45.
Allison, David B. Reading the New Nietzsche. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Linlefield, 2001.
Clark, Maudemarie. Nietzsche on Y;'uth and Philosophy. New York: Cambridge University
Press, 1990.
Gooding-Williams, Robert. Zarathustra's Dionysian Modernism. Stanford: Stanford Univer-
siry Press, 200 I.
Glide!, Kurt. "A Remark about the Relationship berween Relativity Theory and Idealistic
Philosophy." Pp. 557-62 in Albert Einstein: Philosopher-Scientist. The Library ofLiving Phi-
losophers, VoL VII, ed. Paul Anhur Schilpp. Evanston, IL: Open Court, 1949.
Gott, J. Richard. Time Tmvel in Einstein's Universe. Boston: Houghton Miffiin, 200 I.
Klossowski, Pierre. Nietzsche and the Vicious Circle. Trans. Daniel W. Smith. Chicago: Uni-
versity of Chicago Press, 1997.
Leiter, Brian. "The Paradox of Fatalism and Self-Creation in Nietzsche." In Nietzsche, ed.
John Richardson and Brian Leiter. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001: 218-321.
- - - . Nietzsche on Morality. New York: Routledge, 2002.
Loeb, Paul S. "The Moment of Tragic Death in Nietzsche's Dionysian Doctrine of Eternal
Recurrence: An Exegesis of Aphorism 341 in The Gay Science." In International Studies in
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- - - . "The Conclusion of Nietzsche's Zarathustra." In International Studies in Philosophy
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- - - . "Time, Power, and Superhumanity." In Journal of Nietzsche Studies 21 (2001):
27-47.
- - - . "Identity and Eternal Recurrence." Pp. 171-88 in A Companion to Nietzsche, ed.
Keith Ansell Pearson. London: Basil Blackwell, 2006.
May, Simon. Nietzsche's Ethics and His" War on Morality." Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999.
Moles, Alistair. "Nietzsche's Eternal Recurrence as Riemannian Cosmology." In International
Studies in Philosophy 21 (1989): 21-35.
- - - . Nietzsche's Philosophy ofNature and Cosmology. New York: Perer Lang, 1990.
 Finding the Obermensch in Nietzsche's Genealogy of Moraliry 173

Richardson, John. "Nietzsche on Time and Becoming." Pp. 208-29 in A Companion to

Nietzsche, ed. Keith Ansell-Pearson. London: Basil Blackwell, 2006.
Ridley, Aaron. Nietzsche's Conscience: Six C'haracter Studies from the Genealogy. Ithaca, NY:
Cornell University Press, 1998.
Savitt, Steven F. Time's Arrows Today: Recent Physical and Philosophical Work on the Direction
of Time. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
Soli, Ivan, "ReHections on Recurrence: A Re-examination of Nietzsche's Doctrine, Die Etvige
Wiederkehr des Gleichen." Pp. 322-42 in Nietzsche: A Collection ofCritical Essays, ed. Rob-
ert C. Solomon. Garden Ciry, NY: Doubleday, 1973.
Stambaugh, Joan. The Other Nietzsche. Albany: State Universiry of New York Press, 1994.
Staten, Henry. Nietzsche's Voice. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Universiry Press, 1990.
Yourgrau, Palle. Godel Meets Einstein: Time Travel in the Godel Universe. Chicago: Open
Court, 1999.

NOTES

I. In the original complete publication of this chapter, I provide further evidence for my
claim that Nietzsche instructs ns in this fashion about the relation between GM and Z. I also
provide an explanation as to why he does so.
2. See also Ridley 1998, 18, 143-45. However, May argues that Nietzsche does not actu-
ally endorse this figure as an arrainable or desirable ideal but rather as an ironic depiction of
the human "urge to be insulated from contingency" that he "so powerfully decries in its
metaphysical or religious manifestation." By contrast, I argue below that the reason Nietzsche
does not endorse the GM II sovereign individual as his iibemlensch/ich ideal is that he is not
sovereign enough.
3. The closest Acampora comes to making such an argument is her suggestion that the
ideal of a reliable promise-keeper is at odds with Nietzsche's philosophy of becoming, espe-
cially as applied to the subject: "how could it be that the Nietzsche who so emphasizes becom-
ing, and who is suspicious of the concept of the subject (as the 'doer behind the deed'), could
think that it is desirable-let alone possible-that a person could ensure his or her word in the
future? How could one promise to do something, to stand security for something, that cannot
be predicted and for which one is, in a sense, no longer the one who could be responsible for
it?" (Ibid., 134-35; see also p.138). I think that Acampora is riglu to raise the question
whether promise-keeping is really possible for the sovereign individual and I argue below that,
because of the "it was" problem, Nietzsche himself ultimately denies that it is. But this does
not mean that he denies this capacity to the Ubemlensch who has solved the "it was" problem
through Zarathustra's teachings of eternal recurrence and backward-willing.
4. Nietzsche also anticipates his later GAl II analysis of guilt when he has Zarathustra
teach that it is not a deed, but rather the pasrness of a deed, its undoability, that leads to self-
lacerating guilt: "No deed can be annihilated: how could it be undone through punishmentl
This, this is what is eternal in the punishment 'existence,' that existence too must be an eter-
nally-recurring deed and guilt (Schu/d)!" (Z:Ii "On Redemption"). Here and throughout this
chapter I have consulted the translations of Nietzsche's writings by Kaufmann, and the trans-
lations of GM by Kaufmann and Hollingdale.
5. See, by contrast, Henry Staten's claim (1990,51,61, 65ff.) that for Nietzsche the
174 Paul S. Loeb

imprisonment in society is an empirical condition of humankind, while the imprisonment in

the "it was" is a transcendental condition of lift. But Nietzsche's emphasis on the mere ani-
mal's ignorance of the past, and on the human animal's socially inculcated and memory-
enabled awareness of the past, shows that he considers the "it was" to be equally an empirical
condition of humankind.
6. Most Z commentators (see Gooding-Williams 200 1,43-44) fail to notice this impor-
tant link between Zarathustra's "Three Metamorphoses" speech on forgetting and Unschuld,
on the one hand, and Nietzsche's GJd II analysis of memory and Schuld, on the other.
7. See, by contrast, Joan Stambaugh's suggestion (I 994, 105f[) that Nietzsche aims for
us to regain the state (as described by him at the beginning of HL) in which we live "totally
in the moment, in the present."
8. Nietzsche first proposes this theory when, in GS 341, he has the demon make a cate-
gorical assertion as to the cosmological truth of eternal recurrence: "The eternal hourglass of
being is turned over again and again." He returns ra this same description in Z when he has
Zarathustra's animals proclaim what they know his teaching must be: "You teach that there
is a great year of becoming, a colossus of a year: this year must, like an hourglass, turn itself
over again and again, so that it may run down and run out anew: so that all these years
resemble one another, in the greatest things and in the smallest" (Z:III "The Convalescent"
2). And he expands upon this theory in Z when he has Zarathustra present a dialectical proof
in support of cosmological etcrnal recurrencc that is drawn from his own notebook proofs in
support of what he called the most scientific of all possible hypotheses (Z:IIl "On the Vision
and the Riddle" 2; KSA 12:5[71]).
9. As Gunter Abel (1988) and Alistair Moles (J 989, 1990) have shown, most of the
ostensibly rigorous objections ra the scienrific status of Nietzsche's cosmological doctrine pre-
suppose an outdated Newtonian physics of absolute universal time that was rejected by Nietz-
sche himself when formulating his premises for eternal recurrence. Most of these objections
are also quite uninformed about the diversity and peculiarity of recent cosmological theories.
In particular, Godel's 1949 valid solutions ra Einstein's GRT field equations, widely dis-
cussed raday, certainly allow the kind of global closed time-like curve that seems described in
EH. For a philosophical examination of Godelian spacetime structure and its implications,
see Youtgrau (1999) and the essays by Paul Horwich and John Earman in Savitt (1995). For
a physics-based examination of other possible global time-like curves, see Gott (200 I).
10. In Loeb 2001, I argue that Zarathustra's dismissal of the dwarf's assertion that time
itself is a circle (Z:III "On the Vision and the Riddle") is not a dismissal of circular time.
This is because the dwarf's Platonic answer assumes a background of atemporal reality com-
pared to which time itself is an illusion.
11. Since Nietzsche holds a perspectival view of time, and since one's perspective does not
exist in the time observed by others between one's death and one's recreation, one's last con-
scious moment is immediately followed by one's first conscious moment (KSA 9: II [318)).
Sec Loeb 2006 for a further explanation of this argument that an individual's eternally recur-
ring life has a self-enclosed circular course.
12. Commentators since Heidegger have pointed to the convalescent Zarathustra's ambiv-
alence toward his animals' speeches, but have failed to note Nietzsche's careful narrative dis-
tinction between what Zarathustra's animals say that eternal recurrence is for those who think
as they do, on the one hand, and what they say that eternal recurrence is according to Zara-
thustra's teaching, on the other (Z:1I1 "The Convalescent" 2). Also, in his preparatory notes
 Finding the Ubermensch in Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morality 175

for Z, Nietzsche has Zarathustra himself teach all of what the animals in Z say they know
Zarathustra teaches (KSA 11:25[7]). Nietzsche's point, therefore, is not that Zarathustra's
animals do not know what he teaches, but rather that they are not able to understand why
this new teaching should cause him such pain, nausea and sickness. This point derivcs from
Nietzsche's claim that merc animals have no memory, and therefore cannot be nauseated or
burdened as Zarathustra is.
13. There are of course strong affinities between this epistemology of eternal recurrence
and Plato's theory of anamnesis, and Nietzsche himself points to this influence when he
alludes to Plato's Phaedo in GS 340-41 (see Loeb 1998) and when he depicts Zarathustra's
dialectical contest with the Socratic dwarf (Z:lII "On the Vision and the Riddle" 1).
Although Pierre K1ossowski is famously concerned to show that "[ajnamnesis coincides with
the revelation of the [EtemalJ Return" (1997, 57), his point is quite different from mine.
Whereas I am arguing that for Nietzsche forgerring eternal recurrence is a suspendable condi-
tion of psychic efficiency, K1ossowski argues (see also Allison 200 I, 122) that forgetting eternal
recurrence is an ulJSuspendable condition of the truth ofeternal recurrence (59).
14. See, for example, Ivan Soli's claim that "[a] person can have no direct memories of
earlier recurrences." For ifhc did, "the increment of his mental life would make him different
from his predecessors and hence not an identical recurrence of them" (Soil 1973, 340). I
discuss this objection at length in Loeb 2006.
15. In Loeb 1998, I argue that GS 340-41 convey Nietzsche's conjecture that Socrates'
hatred of life led him to conceal from himself his subconscious knowledge of his life's eternal
recurrence until his deathbed daemonic reminder loosened his tongue and led him to take
revenge on life. In Loeb 2006, I show how Nietzsche leads us to interpret the demon's mes-
sage in GS 341 as a recollection of life's eternal recurrence.
16. Hence Zarathustra's challenge to the dwarf who is a symbol of the weak human: "I,
however, am the stronger of us both-: you do not know my most abysmal thought! That-
you could not bear!" (Z:III "On the Vision and the Riddle").
17. See KSA 9:11[I96J; GS 108-109; Z:I, "On the Gift-Giving Virtue"; and l1"World."
Although Zarathustra announces the dawn of his great-noon day at the ending of Z:IV, I
argue in Loeb 2000 and 2004 that Nietzsche intended us to read this ending as leading chron-
ologically into the start of rhe "Convalescent" chapter where the fully ripened and lion-voiced
Zarathustra awakens his thought of eternal recurrence during the high-noon moment of this
same great-noon day.
18. Although Nietzsche most orren characterizes Zarathustra's doctrine of eternal recur-
rence as his" most abysmal thought" [abgrnndlicher Gedanke], he also has Zarathustra agree
with his stillest hour that he "knows" [weiss] his teaching but will not speak it (Z:II "The
Stillest Hour"). And Zarathustra's animals ask him if perhaps a new, bitter and oppressive
"knowledge" [ErkmntnisJ has come to him once he has awakened his most abysmal thought
(Z:III "The Convalescent" 2).
19. See TJ "Socrates," for Nietzsche's equation of surface and daylight with consciousness
and reason, and of depth and darkness with the unconscious and instinct.
20. In particular, and most important, the convalescent Zarathustra tells his animals that
his confrontation with his most abysmal thought was a horrific torture and crucifixion (Z:III
"The Convalescent" 2). Since Nietzsche argues that pain is the most powerful aid to memory,
it should be the case that he depicts this experience as the one Zarathustra remembers the
best. And, indeed, in the "Prophet" and "Vision and Riddle" chapters, we see the younger
176 Paul S. Loeb

Zarathustra having an accurate prevision-that is, recurrence-memory-of this later experi-

ence. In Loeb 200 I, I offer a fllfthcr analysis of this scene that shows more precisely how
Zarathustra's psychic pain is an aid to his recurrence-memory.
21. See, by contrast, Joan Stambaugh's interpretation ofliterally willing backward in time
as "reversing the direction of time" so as to "change what has already occurred" (85-86).
Given this extreme interpretation of literal backward-willing, Stambaugh (along with most
other commentators), sees herself as forced to choose instead a merely metaphorical interpreta-
tion of backward-willing that "at least makes more sense"-namely, "to will things and events
back, to will them to come again, to return." But Zarathustra's whole point in his redemption
speech is that we already do will things and ewnts to return, and that it is precisely this willing
that founders against the immovable stone "it was." We will things and evems in the past to
return, but our willing seems impotent. Stambaugh's interpretation thus merely poses the
terms of Zarathustra's ptoblem without offering a reading of his solution.
22. See Loeb 2001 for an exegesis of Z that explains, supports, and illustrates this claim.
23. This interpretation should be sharply distinguished from the usual one according to
which backward-willing is merely metaphorical and Zarathustra retrospectively reinterprets his
past in such a way that he finds it all worthy of affirmation (see, for example, Richardson
2006, 224-25). In GS 277 Nietzsche argues that such metaphorical backward-willing must
at some point involve some kind of self-deception and therefore never actually succeeds.
24. On my interpretation, then, Nietzsche's claim that Zarathustra succeeds in giving aes-
thetic style to his life and self depends on his assumption of the literal truth of cosmological
eternal recurrence. As such, my interpretation helps to explain Nietzsche's famous but puz-
zling praise of physics (Physik) as the means whereby certain unique and incomparable indi-
viduals may become those they are, give laws to themselves, and create themselves (GS 335).
By contrast with Walter Kaufmann's dissatisfYing explanation of Nietzsche's term "Physik"
(in his foomote to his translation of GS 335, also adopted by Leiter 200 I, 315-16), my
account explains Nietzsche's characterization of physics-"the study of everything that is law-
ful and necessary in the world"-as naturally pointing forward toward his unveiling, six apho-
risms later, of the cosmological doctrine that "the eternal hourglass of being is turned over
again and again" (GS 341). In addition, my interpretation shows how Nietzsche's doctrines
of eternal recurrence and backward-willing allow him to conceive of a tculy radical self-cre-
ation that does not depend upon the causa sui theory of free will that he criticizes in BGE 21
and that does not conflict with his teaching of amOT filti (Leiter 2001, 292-93 and 286-89;
see also Acampora 2004, 132-33, 140). By contrast, Leiter writes that we need to acknowl-
edge "that by 'creation,' Nietzsche really doesn't mean 'creation' in its ordinary sense" (2001,
317) and that "his talk of 'creating' the self is merely the employment of a familiar term in
an un~amiliar sense, one that actually presupposes the tcuth offatalism" (2001, 319).
25. Nietzsche thus depicts Zarathustra's iibermenschlich forgetting as lifting the weight of
the past from his soul and as rendering him weightless so that his body dances and his spirit
flies like a bird (Z:I1I "The Seven Seals" 6-7). Also, in contrast to the regular, calculable, and
predictable sovereign individual of GM II, Zarathustra's ubermenschlich soul is sudden like
lightning and earthquakes, stormy like the wind, chance-governed like the dancing stars, play-
fullike the gambling gods, and adventuring like the seafilrer (Z:III "The Seven Seals" 1-3, S).
26. At the published end of Z, Zarathustra describes his own redeemed soul as a newborn
child that is just washed, naked, innocent, yes-saying, free, tied to rime's umbilical cord, bap-
tized with new names, and playing with colorful toys (ZIII "On the Great Longing").
 11
The Genealogy of Morals and
Right Reading
On the Nietzschean Aphorism and the
Art of the Polemic

Babette E. Babich

Dionysus is, as is known, also the god of darkness.

-Nietzsche, Ecce Homo "GM"

Like Rene Descartes, an excerpt from whose Discourse on Method had served "in lieu
of a preface" to the first edition of Nietzsche's Human, All Too Human, a book that
was prototypical for both Beyond Good and Evil and On the Genealogy of Morals,
Nietzsche was fond of betraying his intentions while nonetheless masking them: lar-
vatus prodeo. Accordingly, Nietzsche attaches the warning subtitle, A Polemic to his
On the Genealogy of Morals. Yet the tide-page hint concerning the challenging
dimension of the book has not prevented scholars from reading On the Genealogy of
Morals as a Tractatus or straightforward account of Nietzsche's thinking on moral
philosophy, and it is a commonplace to claim that GM is Nietzsche's most system-
atic and coherent book. I
Nietzsche himself was anxious about the likelihood of being misunderstood,
above all: of being misread. Hence the anxiety of noninfluence, as we might call it,
characterizes his most repeated tropes. The problem of misreading (a stylistic and
rhetorical issue) is compounded by the subject matter of GM itself. In what follows,
I question the rhetorical allusiveness of the book, an allusive indirection Nietzsche
emphasizes in his bio-bibliographical reflections on the Genealogy in Ecce Homo:

177
178 Babette E. Babich

"Every time a beginning calculated to mislead: cool, scienrific, even ironic, deliber-
ately foreground, deliberately holding back" (EH "GM").
At the conclusion of the preface of GM, Nietzsche details what he regards as an
essenrial prerequisite for an adequate reading. 2 Not a maner of authorial responsibil-
ity, "the fault," Nietzsche writes, will rest with any reader who has not read his
previous writings with unsparing attention. With this presupposition, Nietzsche
demands more than that his readers be open to his writings-able, as he says refer-
ring to his Zarathustra, to be both "profoundly wounded and at the same time pro-
foundly delighted by evety word" (GM P:8). Beyond such readerly sensitivity,
Nietzsche also supposes a writerly competence in the rhetorical form per se, a
demand he placed on his readers following the failure of The Birth of Tragedy to find
"right readers," even among (especially among) philologists supposedly trained in
rhetoric. The "difficulty some people have with the aphoristic form" was thus for
Nietzsche a limitation stemming from a lack of training, that is, "from the fact that
today this form is not taken seriously enough" (GM P:8).
In an earlier text, Nietzsche had already underlined the therapeutic efficacy of
"psychological observations" or "reflection on what is human, all-roo-human" (HH
35). This salutary benefit was the function of the aphorism or maxim with respect
to the subject maner of his friend Paul Ree's On the History of Moral Sensations3 (a
tirle Nietzsche uses in HH, and which could well have served as an alternate tide for
GM). True to its classical origins, in the psychological researches required for such a
hisrory (or genealogy) of morality, as Nietzsche recalls, the aphorism is a literary
therapeutic form, a reference ro both Hippocrates and the Stoic tradition in its
Greek and its Roman instaurarions. But Nietzsche would warn, and Pierre Hador's
Philosophy as a Way of Lifo recalls this caveat for contemporary thought,' a veritable
art (or practice) of reading bur also the craft of writing (as Nietzsche emphasizes) is
required in order to understand the aphorism: "even the subtlest mind is not capable
of properly appreciating the art of polishing maxims if he has not himself been edu-
cated for it and competed at it" (HH 35). Unless one has practiced the aphoristic
art in the service of life-such reflections constitute the "art of living" as Marcus
Aurelius articulates this technical spiritual practice in his Meditations--one will be
inclined, in Nietzsche's words, to imagine the forming of maxims a trivial art, to
think it "easier than it is" (HH 35).
In this way, Nietzsche's claims regarding the understanding of his work assume a
complex interplay between readerly and writerly approaches to his text. There are a
number of issues at stake, but to begin to consider these approaches here, I return
to the question (and it should be regarded as a genuine question) of the role of the
aphorism in Nietzsche's writings.

THE APHORISM IN NIETZSCHE-AND PHILOSOPHY

The aphorism seems to cut philosophy down to size-bite size. Armed with teeth,
as Nietzsche might have said, the cuning edge or, even, the violence of the aphorism
 The Genealogy ofMorals and Right Reading 179

is manifest in the case of Nietzsche, nor is this less in evidence with respect to Her-
aclitus, his antique antecedent, nor indeed, though Nietzsche would have known
nothing of this parallel, in the case ofWittgenstein.
The aphorism begins historically in the UIPOQlD!lOl of Hippocrates, that is, max-
ims in place of a handbook or physician's manual for the physician who would have
no time to consulr one in the field. Parricularly apposite, we can recall the first and
most famous of these: "Life is short, art long, opportunity fleeting."> Said otherwise,
t()r the physician in the field, the life of the wounded soldier hangs in the balance,
the conventions of the art of healing are protracted and cumbersome, the chance to
act quickly lost, and so on.
On the battlefield, and this locus was shared by Nietzsche's favorite laconic poet-
mercenary Archilochus, the healer had to carry his maxims in mind. Their brevity
(and this is the ingeniousness of the structured design) is the reason the aphorism
can be remembered. Above all, this same brevity is why it can be understood, at least
in part. Short, one is able to get some bit of the point, even if one finds, in retrospect,
that one has missed the half or more.
This is the beauty of the quick take. Quickly read, like the cold baths Nietzsche
suggested as the best way to sidestep the announced visitation of nothing so seem-
ingly unobtrusive as a letter (and today's experience of the urgency of e-mail offers
a conremporary illustration of Nietzsche's sense of violation): the same tactical con-
cision corresponds to the author's vanity, to offer and, at the same time, to conceal
his offering (thereby an offering for everyone and no one).
Nietzsche expresses this ambitious presumption in Zarathustra, as he speaks of
writing in blood: "Anyone who writes in blood and sayings does not want to be
read bur learnr by heart" (Z:I "On Reading and Writing"). More emphatically still,
Nietzsche larer affirms his "ambition" to say in the aphorism whar others say-
interrupring himself wirh a thought-slash (Gedankenstrich) to sharpen his point: " -
what everyone else does not say in a book" (TI "Skirmishes" 51).
Unlike Hume, unlike Kant, unlike Heidegger (in spite of Heidegger's best efforts
to imitate Nietzsche)," Nietzsche writes--or, as he says: he composes or casts-his
aphorisms. And ifWittgenstein also wrote in aphorisms, Nietzsche is more readable
by half and then some, (which is not to say that he is understood).
For the sake of a review of the complexity of rhe aphorism as a self-elaborating
form of self-deconstruction and, simultaneously, of self-protection, we consider
Nietzsche's own prefatory comment on the wayan aphorism functions just because
ir reflects his prescription for reading his aphorisms, and thereby, his writings. Like
the essay, treatise, or indeed, like the epigraph (with which, in the case of On the
Genealogy ofMorals, ir is peculiarly liable to be mistaken), the aphorism is a particu-
lar literary form'? Beyond the rhetorical and poeticological, the aphorism has a sin-
gularly philosophical or reflective dimension." In Nietzsche's hands, I argue, rhe
aphorism implicates the reader in the reading and at the same time, formulaically
and all too comfortably (we will return to this point later), the aphorism seems to
absolve Nietzsche as author. It is also worth noting that, at least for some contempo-
180 Babette E. Babich

rary scholars, part of the difficulty in reading Nietzsche's aphorisms has been the
problem of their idenrificarion.
Obviously enough, not everything Nietzsche wrote was an aphorism, what is
more: the aphoristic form was one that he developed and perfected throughout his
writings. But the first problem of idenri/Ying and distinguishing Nietzsche's apho-
risms has called fi.)f(h an instrucrively nonhermeneutic engagement on the part of
traditionally analytically trained phiiosophersY These scholars undertook the task of
identifYing the particular aphorism Nietzsche "fined" or "pre-fixed" or, perhaps
bener, "set at the beginning (vorangestel1t) of the rhird essay of On the Genealogy of
Momls, the aphorism for which, in his words, "the entirety" of the third essay "is a
commentary" (sie selbst ist dessen Commentator) (GM P:8). For many commentators,
and this reading continues, a likely candidate lor the contested aphorism has tended
[0 be the epigraph [0 the third essay, but John Wilcox and Maudemarie Clark

observe, and I agree, that is is rather the first section of third essay, titled "What is
rhe meaning of ascetic ideals?" It is key to my reading that this idenrification that
the second section (GM I1I:2) likewise begins with the same title question, the title
question to be sure of the third essay as a whole. 10
The first section of the third essay thus begins wirh a review of the meaning of
ascetic ideals in the case of artists, philosophers and scholars, women, the "physio-
logically deformed,"-who constitute (as Nietzsche parenthetically tells us) "the
majority of morta/s"-as well as ascetic ideals in the case of priests and saints. This
roster recalls the emphases advanced in the first and second essays, but the point
here is that the overdetermination of ascetic ideals, that one would "rather will noth-
ingness than not will" at all (cf., the final section of the third essay, GM III:28),
requires the "art of exegesis" first invoked in Nietzsche's preface. Thus the first sec-
tion of the third essay concludes with a resume of the conclusion [0 the preface itself
(and it could not be clearer that the whole of rhe third essay will thus serve as a
commenrary or explication): "-Am I understood? ... Have I been understood? ...
Not at all my dear sirl-Well then, let us start again, from the beginning."11
It is as readers or scholars that we remain "unknown to ourselves" (GM P: 1), an
inevitable ignorance, Nietzsche reminds us at the start of his preface, because, "we
have never sought ourselves" (ibid.). Thus we recall rhat at the end of the preface,
the reader will be upbraided on the same terms. In an aggressive swipe at Aristotle
and the straightforward ideal of authorial clarity, as we recall, Nietzsche challenges
the reader who finds his writing "difficult [0 understand,"12 declaring his texts "clear
enough, presuming what I presume: that one has first read my early writing and
without sparing oneself a few pains in the process" (GM P:8).
For Nietzsche, we recall further, the aphorism is not taken seriously enough. Note
the compound complexity of Nietzsche's complaint as we have analyzed its function
above. If the allure of the aphorism lies in its brevity and if the beauty of brief things
is that one take them fast and light, like a witticism or a clever saying (and here we
see why the epigraph could have been taken for the aphorism in question), Nietz-
sche's prescription to us is, by contrast, [0 take his aphorisms more slowly, seriously,
 The Genealogy ofMorals and Right Reading 181

as good medicine: and that is also to say, as philosophy, that is, again, the art of
living.
This dissonant dimension echoes in Nietzsche's concluding word in his prefatory
reflection on reading in his GM, where he also adds, for the art of reading his texts,
a metaphor usually reserved for religious writings: sweet as honey, such texts are to
be eatenY Thus we are told that the way to understand Nietzsche's words will be
to chew them over and over, to turn them over in ourselves, in our mouths, again
and again, rumination, das Wiederkiiuen (GM P:8).
But such rumination fails us, and we hastily pass over passage after passage,
spurred on as often as not by well-meaning introductory works by noted scholars or
the encouraging advice of helpful translators. One is advised to read Nietzsche until
one finds a passage one likes, then look for another, and so on, just as one might surf
the Internet, moving hom link to link, until one finds something vaguely worthy of
being "bookmarked" as a "favorite," or else, as one might take a tour through a
vacation spot or shopping mall. By contrast with such "searching and finding," to
use metaphors borrowed from the scholarly disaster that is an electronic or search-
able text, Nietzsche instructs us that "an aphorism consummately coined and mol-
ded, is not yet 'deciphered' in that it is read out; much rather has the interpretation
first to begin" (GMP:8). Nor is it enough simply to begin to interpret. The herme-
neutic work of reading is required here: we need an "art of interpretation" (ibid.).
The task of so interpreting Nietzsche's aphorism thus requires a commentary-
indeed, a commentary that would otherwise be matched to what others say (or fail
to say) "in a book." Nor do we lack an illustration of what such a commentary
would look like. Nietzsche offers us an example of such a reading illuminated on
the musical model of a coda. Note again that this is not simply prescribed or recom-
mended on Nietzsche's part as a task for the reader to accomplish as he or she will.
Instead, and this is the point, an example is provided in an elaborate form, going so
far as (0 position a resume (the scholar's nutshell) at the beginning of the third essay
of the book, just where the author tells us to find it at the conclusion of his preface:
"In the third essay of the book, I offer an exemplar of that which I name 'interpreta-
tion' in such a case" (ibid.).
The Nietzschean aphorism can be as short as a sentence set on its own. Alter-
nately, it can be a fragment of a longer sentence in a longer paragraph: "Assuming
as a given, that truth is a woman"(BGE P}, famously followed with an elaborate
reflection on philosophers, on dogma, and dogmatists. J4 And the Nietzschean apho-
rism can be very long indeed, as can be seen especially in the case of HH but also
elsewhere, particularly in Z, if we do not read this book as a veritable novel of apho-
risms but if we take it as a single aphorism, varied and tuned: Zarathustra as music.
If brevity is the prime characteristic of the aphorism, it is not the only characteristic
in Nietzsche's case.
The differential point above would suggest that the aphorism elaborated in GM
III: I resumes itself in its own recapitulation, an elaboration of which extends to the
author's own commentary on it in rhe third part of rhe book as a whole. We have
182 Babette E. Babich

to do with an aphorism within an aphorism (indeed, and, of course, in a book of

such aphorisms). This recapitulation is the effective point at the end of the apho-
rism, confirming the working power of Nietzsche's aphoristic style, where he poses
the question, "What is the meaning of ascetic ideals?" This question appears three
times in succession, two-thirds of the way into a book on the generation of those
same ideals: one doesn't get it? is it still unclear? (The question, of course, replays
an earlier question as we recall: GM I, especially 1:8 and 1:9.) The answer given is
not coincidentally adapted from the dancing master or conductor: Shall we take it
from the top! da capo! (GM Ill: 1, cf. BGE 56).
Beginning in this way with the question, "What is the meaning of ascetic ideals?"
the aphorism answers its own question by emphasizing both the problem of under-
standing and the need to begin a reflecrion. The task of reading, like writing, but
also thinking or loving, is the kind of thing that needs, as Nietzsche always repeated,
first to be learnt. In this sense, the aphoristic structure of GM III: 1 announces itself
as problematic, bearing out the need for commentary and although we cannot pur-
sue this question further here, the aphoristic structure per se calls for an adequate
hermeneutic. Bur the art of reading, the hermeneutic art, according to Nietzsche, is
"something that has been unlearned most thoroughly nowadays" (GM P:8).

ON READING THE APHORISM

The aphorism as self-contained, as self-referring, as something that can and should

be chewed over but also as something that can be carried beyond the text itself, has
to be read both in itself and against itself. As a word, aphorism has the roots, as
Liddell and Scott remind us, uqJ-iun:- from, off, away; 'oQil;w: to divide, set apart,
separate as a boundary. Hence and substantively, the essence of aphorism is almost
preternaturally phenomenological. Nor has this gone without remark. One author
observes that the word itself means "formal 'de-limination' and simultaneously sub-
stantively something 'manifestly removed from its usual horizon.' "15 In this way,
the aphorism presupposes or better said, and this is why Nietzsche favored it as a
stylistic form, it accomplishes, achieves, or effects an epoche or bracketing of the phe-
nomenon.
Nietzsche's aphorisms thus read themselves into the reader and what is intriguing
about his stylization of this form is that they do this in spite of the reader's prejudices
and more often than not because of these: playing with such readerly convictions and
turning them inside out. An example of this reader-involved efficacy is Nietzsche's
discussion of Jewish morality in the first part of the Genealogy (GM 1:7).
Reading the working of the aphorism in this way, we note that its tactical tempo
only increases in its intensiry-a plainly seductive appeal playing to the prejudices
of the anti-Semite. This play is at work from the start in On the Genealogy ofMorals
as Nietzsche orients his reflections on the genealogical provenance of morality to the
scientific ears and utilitarian sensibility of what he called the "English psychologists"
 The Genealogy ofMorals and Right Reading 183

(GM I: 1), while the very Darwinian oblivion of mechanical habit and sociocultural
reinforcement is exactly under fire. Here, in GM 1:7, the text is direcred (0, and
hence ir begins by, appealing (0 rhe mosr rypical prejudices of all-(Oo Chrisrian anti-
Semitism.
The Christian/anti-Semite is drawn into, seduced into the text, as the first section
of GM throughout its repeared emphasis on the meaning of words as a defense of a
"lordly" or "noble" Greco-Roman pasr, a charge held against Jewish amiquity. Thus
one reads that everything ever done against rhe hisrorical phanrasm or "ideal" of the
"noble" must fade into inconsequentiality compared with what "the Jews have done
against them" (GM 1:7). The doubling of the aphoristic srylizing of this rexr (I have
elsewhere called it rhe barb of Nietzsche's style referring not (0 Derrida's spurs but
Nietzsche's "fisher of men" language as he regards his texts as so many "fish hooks")
turns the reader's conviction against the reader himself or herself. The recoil is all
the more effective the more deeply anti-Semitic the reader, an effect intensified in
the course of reading. Indeed, as he or she continues (0 read, the anti-Semite will
have no choice but to be caught in the middle of the text.
IdentifYing rhe Jew as the one who first inverts the "aris(Ocratic value equation,"
overturning the noble self-sufficiency of srrength, confidence, and joy ("good =
noble = powerful = beautiful = happy = beloved of God" [GM 1:7]) using the
alchemy not of love bur of the most "abysmal hatred," Nierzsche rranscribes rhe
new, slavcly moral equation as ir now appears in the (now-dissonantly) Christian
litany of the indemnificarion of the disenfranchised, made good again, as we recog-
nize the well-known message of the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5, 1: 13). Nierz-
sche will later elaborate this new equation in terms of ressentiment. But first
Nierzsche sers norhing other than plain Christian values into the mouth of this very
same Jewish revaluation: "the wretched alone are the good, rhe poor, powerless,
lowly alone are the good; the suffering, deprived, sick, ugly alone are pious, alone
are blessed by God" (ibid.). The newly revalued equation is thus articulated as a re-
weighting of the original values of strength (rhe "lordly" or noble values of antiq-
uity) not for the nosralgic sake of a return (0 such prisrine values but (0 identifY and
to rrace the consequences of rhis same genesis: "One knows who appropriared the
legacy of rhis Jewish revaluation" (ibid.). Wirh this provocation, rhe reader is caughr
in his or her own assumprions.
The reversal of the aphorism already occurs in rhe double ellipsis included in
Nietzsche's own text. Nietzsche seduces the anti-Semitic reader into rhe rexr only (0
turn his or her reflecrions against rhe ulrimate consequences of his or her own con-
vicrions. It now transpires that the anti-Semire is himself or herself a Jew and rhus
everyrhing turns our ro be coordinately on the way (0 becoming "Judaized, Chris-
tianized"-and for good, socialist, and atheistic measure (that is to say: (0 make it
worse), Nierzsche includes an allusion (0 the "people" as well (GM 1:9). Wirh regard
(0 the title of Christian or Jew, Nietzsche asks "what do words matter" (ibid.), and

as he will later remind us in his Anti-Christian, the Christian is nothing more than
a Jew of a more carholic (broader) "confession" (A 44).'6
184 Babette E. Babich

For the sake of the reader who might be "incapable of seeing something that
required two thousand years to achieve victory" (GM 1:8), Nietzsche repeats rhe
redoubling emphasis in his next secrion wirh an exactly ovetwrought or agonized
reflecrion on the working of revenge and ressentiment in religion and moral values.
Describing such "a grand politics of revenge"-and recollecring as we shall detail
below, the spirirual danger of "grand politics" as he describes it in Human, All Too
Human-Nierzsche argues that Israel itself has had to "deny the active instrument
of its revenge before all the world as its morral enemy and nail it to the cross" (GM
1:8). This denial ensures that "the opponelHs ofIsrae!" swallow the bait, precisely as
they are defined in reactive terms by contrast with Israel. Nietzsche's text thus plays
to the reader's anri-Semirism (conscious or not), just as it convicts the reader on the
very same rerms.'?
The Nietzschean aphorism exceeds the stylistic rhetoric of an author who can
wrire against the prejudices of anti-Semitic conviction exposing the Semite within,
the self-loathing of prejudice against the other as it betrays us in ourselves. To read
Nierzsche's aphorisms in this way requires a doubled reading, an acromatic or discur-
sive reflection. Reading Nierzsche requires, as he expresses it, rhat the reader have
"ears" for his words.'x Nietzsche rhus insinuates a dialogical dimension into the text
by means of the aphorism as a saying (Spruche), and in order to begin to engage the
rext critically, the reader must advert to the resonances of this acoustic dimension.
To take a further example, to illustrate a more patent, conceprual resonance, con-
sider what might at first glance seem the incidental aphorism that relates the COIHest
between memory and pride. "I have done that,' says my memory. 'I cannot have
done that'-says my pride, and remains adamant. At last-memory yields" (BGE
68). The reflex here turns on the balance of pride and memory and, in particular,
on the conviction that the one belongs to a primary (and more objective) and the
other to a secondary (and more subjective) mental order. Nietzsche's reflection upon
the ultimate primacy of what had appeared to be the secondary faculty of pride,
the corrigible, merely subjective faculty, now supplanrs and corrects the supposedly
primary (objective) faculty of memory. Between memory and desire or pride (this is
rhe teasing point contra objectivity), fading memory defers to desire in recollection
itself. The truth to life of this reflection catches rhe confidence of objective self-
knowledge and both memory and pride are resolved into the soul's sentiments, each
on equal terms in the struggle of rhe self to tell itself.
It is worth noting that Nietzsche's use of the aphorism is not the same in his
earlier and later wrirings. Even where we read Nietzsche's reflections on the art of
rhe aphorism (reading and writing) in Human, All Too Human (HH 1:35, 163, etc.),
we are reading Nietzsche on the way, as it were, to what we tend to recognize as the
specifically Nietzschean aphorism. For such an early example, we may consider the
above cited "Grand Politics and their Costs" (HH 481). Weaving several threads
into his account of grand politics (thar is to say: war) Nietzsche finds that rhe great-
est cost of war is not material but rather the sacrifice of spiritual "capital" (Kopf
und Herz-Capita/e). The mode of expression in this early work is one of agonized
 The Genealogy ofMorals and Right Reading 185

repetition, expressing the unsung dangers of war for the body politic itself and on
the individual level. For Nietzsche, this is "the cost involved in the removal year in,
year out of an extraordinary number of its efficient and industrious men from their
proper professions and occupations in order that they might become soldiers" (HH
481). Turning his point concerning such wasted talent, he goes on to say that from
the moment a people begins to preoccupy itself with war (whether for defense
or conquest), "a great number of the most leading talents are sacrificed upon the
'Altar of the Fatherland' or national honor, where other spheres of action had
formerly been open to the tal ems now absorbed by the political" (ibid.). Thus the
true cost of war is the decadence of the genial spirit. He says this in yet another
complex reprise, drawing the key consequence henceforward invoked as the dangers
of "reading newspapers" as a daily occupation (ibid. GM III:26).1~ In addition to
the device of repetition, this aphorism is also articulated by what will become the
more dominant rhetorical device of dialectical engagemem with the reader's amici-
pations and subsequent recollections (projections/convictions). Both aspects of this
dialectical tension have to do with the working of the text on the reader's pathe. The
ultimate "cost" of war is thus what Nietzsche named decadence The literal sacrifice
or degradation of a society. This devastation is the inevitable and invisible "price"
of war: " ... the sum to[al of all these sacrifices and costs in individual energy and
work is so tremendous that the political emergence of a people almost necessarily
draws after it a spiritual impoverishment and an enfeeblement and a diminution
of the capacity for undertakings demanding great concentration and application"
(ibid.).
The spiritual impoverishment Nietzsche deplores here is the wastage of nihilism.
In complete accord with Plaro (the social philosopher Jacques Ranciere has explored
this in a different direction 20), Nietzsche indissolubly links politics and greed, and
he goes further in a Nachlaf note where he reflects on the widespread character
and tendencies of his age: "Here the ghostly finger of the spiritualists, there the
mathematical-magical conjurer, then the brain-wasting cult of music, there the re-
awakened vulgarities of the persecution of the Jews-all mark the universal training
in hatred" (KSA 9, 213).
Hence prior to this section, we recall, reading backward-as one must always read
Nietzsche's aphorisms in resonant counterpoint: backward and forward, reading
those texts that precede and those texts that follow a particular aphorism-that a
few sections earlier, writing against nationalism and on behalf of the "good Euro-
pean" (HH 475, cf. GM III:27) Nietzsche had identified the Jews as those "free-
thinkers, scholars, and physicians who held fast to the banner of enlightenment and
of spiritual independence while under the harshest personal pressure and defended
Europe against Asia" (HH 475). In this way, Nietzsche asserts that Judaism is the
very influence that renders "Europe's mission and history into a continuation of the
Greeks" (ibid.). The context of Nietzsche's emphasis here is reviewed in his earlier
reproach of Christianity in the aphorism entitled "The non-Greek element in Chris-
186 Babette E. Babich

tianity" which concludes by describing Christianity as "barbaric, Asiatic, ignoble,

non-Greek" (HH 114, cf. BT 12).
If Nietzsche began the Genealogy by setting Jewish values against noble values, he
concludes with nothing less than a focus on Christian values, going so far as to repeat
a favorite theme, his antipathy toward the New Testament itself (GM III:22) but
also to reprise the impatient sentiments he elsewhere expressed as signs of the Jewish-
ness of "familiarity with God" in thoroughly Christian terms (ibid.).
Nietzsche's at times convoluted expression in Human, All Too Human gives way
so some have argued to an increased elegance or mastery of style in the later work.
But this stylistic change does not transform Nietzsche's emphases. Hence, Nietzsche
repeats the same grave insight in Tivilight ofthe Idols: "Coming to power is a costly
business: power makes stupid .... Politics devours all seriousness for really intellec-
tual things, Deutschland, Deutschland iiber alles was, I fear, the end of German phi-
losophy." From uman, All Too Human to Twilight ofthe Idols, Nietzsche would seem
to have maintained the conviction that one cannot indulge a concern for politics,
especially global politics, without a corresponding intellectual sacrifice, in other
words: without losing one's soul.
The provocative quandary, damned if one does, damned if one does not, is the
philosophical engine of Nietzsche's aphorism. The conclusion, like the related prem-
ises invoked by association, is enthymematic: alluded to but not given and in fact
only alluded to in potentia: the resolution of an aphorism is not fixed and can always
change. The shifting reference in pan accounts for Nietzsche's apparent mutability
in meaning from reading to reading. And the same mutability seems in turn to jus-
tify multifarious and even racist, fascist, dangerously criminal readings. If we artend,
as we began, to Nietzsche's remonstrations, the problem of understanding Nietz-
sche's political sentiments as they manifestly persist must be located on the side of
our own readerly "convictions:" "adventavit asinuslpulcher et fortissimos (the ass
appears, beautiful and overweening strong)" (BGE 8 my uanslation; cf. "the great
stupidity which we are" BGE 231), not in the dissonance of Nietzsche's texts. But
a reflection on stupidity, however esoterically expressed with a reference to Ovid's
mysteries (as in BGE 8), does not resolve our problem. We are thus returned to the
question of Nietzsche's style as an effective or working style.
Nietzsche himself famously affirms what is now a commonly accepted assessment
of his writing style: "Before me it was not known what could be done with the
German language-what could be done with language in general" (EH "Books" 4)
Yet we cannot but ask, if Nietzsche could do so much with words, given his rhetori-
cal mastery, why then did he not secure his words against malicious appropriation?21
This ethical question corresponds to Nietzsche's own charge against Christian stylis-
tics, against the pastiche style and aura of the New Testament: "It was a piece of
subtle refinement that God learned Greek when he wanted to become a writer-and
that he did not learn it bener" (BGE 121). As the same Nietzsche was associated,
from the perspective of British politics, with the exemplification of German aggres-
sion in World War I and again in World War II (like Holderlin's writings, Nietz-
 The Genealogy ofMorals and Right Reading 187

sche's Zarathustra was published in soldiers' editions, for the "field"), perhaps we
might say that Nietzsche himself should have learnt his own rhetorical polishing of
his German language style much "better" than he did in the end.
Here, we can only concede that in spite of everything Nietzsche could with do
words, it remains true that his achievements in this domain are as limited socially
and politically, indeed exactly as limited as so many scholars have rightfully
observedY This is especially the case where "the art of reading" that Nietzsche
repeatedly enjoins upon us as his readers, has made less, not more, progress in the
interim.
In the end, seeking a point of redemptive transformation, it is perhaps worth
underscoring not Nietzsche's rhetorical prowess but his relative impotence instead.
Nietzsche's words failed to arrest world history (in advance), just as his longing failed
to bring back the Greece of the past (even in the form of a rebirth of the tragic arr
in the music of his age, whether Wagner or Bizet). As much as Nietzsche endeavored
to change the world in his writing (and, here more classicist than philologist, he did
this from the start), it is perhaps more relevant, and certainly more human, even
transcendently so, to recall that he came himself to recognize the limitations of his
efforrs and would express himself with increasingly impatient frustration (in letters
and postcards to friends) for the rest of his life. And thus I read the anti-writerly,
anti-readerly rhetoric of one of his last notes in which he declares, "I am having all
anti-Semites shot."

NOTES

I owe Chrisra Davis Acampora special thanks for her edirorial suggestions and comments. I
am also grareful ro Don Rurherford and rhe orher participanrs in the Hisrory of Philosophy
Reading Group at the University of California at San Diego for critical responses ro this essay
on March 17, 2006.

I. See Richard Schachr, ed., Nietzsche, Genealogy, Morality (Berkeley: University of Cali-
fornia Press, 1984); Brian Leirer, Nietzsche on Morality (New York, Routledge, 2002), Aaron
Ridley, Nietzsche's COllScience: Six C"haracter Studies from the Genealogy (Ithaca, NY: Cornell
Universiry Press, 1998), and so on. Apparenr exceptions seem ro be: Simon May, Nietzsche's
Ethics and his War on "Morality" (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2(02) and Werner Steg-
maier, Nietzsches "Genealogie der Moral'" (Darmsradr: Wissenschafrliches Buchgesellschafr,
1994).
2. See also Nietzsche's own commenrs distinguishing the kind of "aphoristic books" he
writes from treatises (which are, as Nietzsche notes here, for "asses and for readers of newspa-
pers" (KSA 11, 579).
3. In connection with Ree, see Robin Small's reflections on Nietzsche and the aphorism
(and beyond) in Small, Nietzsche and Ref: A Star FriendJhip (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2005), 57-65.
4. Note the subtitle of Pierre Hadot's Philosophy as a Way ofLife: Spiritual Exercises from
Socrates to Foucault, trans. Michael Chase (Oxford: Blackwell, 1995).
188 Babette E Babich

5. Hippocrates, Volume Ill, W. H. S. Jones, trans. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press

[Loeb]: 1995 [1923]). It is Seneca's elaboration of the first two points made in the first line
(cited by Seneca from the "most famed physician": "vitam brevem esse, longam arte") that has
ensured its survival. See Seneca, De brevitate vitae / Von der Kurze des Lebens, trans. Josef Feix
(Stuttgart: Reclam, 1977).
6. I find evidence of this effort {O imitate Nietzsche in the structure (and genesis) of
Heidegger's Beitriige. I discuss this (and its limitations) in chapter 14 of Babich, Words in
Blood, Like Flowers: Poetry and Philosophy, Music and Eros in H5/derlin, Nietzsche, Heidegger
(Albany: State University of New York Press, 2006).
7. Although one can use an aphorism as an epigraph, an epigraph need not be an apho-
rism but can be a poem or a motto, or a quote alluding {O another text, like the epigraph
found as an object example at the starr of the present chapter (quoting Nietzsche's reflections
on the Genealogy in his Ecce Homo), or like Nietzsche's reference to Thus Spoke Zarathustra
in the epigraph he placed at the starr of the third essay in On the Genealogy ofMorals.
8. See, for one example, Heinz Kruger's, Studien uber den Aphorismos als philosophischer
Form (Frankfurt: Nest Verlag, 1956). Kruger's book is articulated in opposition to Kurt Bes-
ser's more properly philological, Die Problematik der aphoristischer Form bei Lichtenberg, Sch-
lege/, Novalis, und Nietzsche (Berlin: Junker and Diinnhaupt, 1935). See for a more recent
and very comprehensive general discussion: Detlef Ono, Wendungen der Metapher. Zur Uber-
tragung in poetologischer, rhetorischer, und erkenntnistheoretischer Hinsicht bei Aristoteles und
Nietzsche (Munich: Fink Verlag, 1998). Recently, English language scholars have turned their
attention to the role of the aphorism in Nietzsche's thought. See Small's Nietzsche and Ree,
cited above, in addition to further references in the notes below.
9. For a discussion of these problems as they have haunted the analytic as well as the
literary tradition of philosophic scholarship, and the particular danger of mistaking an epi-
graph for an aphorism (never a good idea with a scholar of rhetoric such as Nietzsche was),
see John T. Wilcox, "What Aphorism Does Nietzsche Explicate in Genealogy of Morals
Essay III?" and Maudemarie Clark, "From the Nietzsche Archive: Concerning the Aphorism
Explicated in Genealogy Ill." Both published in the Journal ofthe HistOlJ of Philosophy 35/4
(I 997): 593-633. See also Wilcox, "That Exegesis of an Aphroism in 'Genealogy III':
Reflections on the Scholarship," Nietzsche-Studien 28 (I 998): 448-62. See also Paul Miklo-
witz's reply to Wilcox in Nietzsche-Studien 29 (1999): 267-69. The issue is not a settled affair
and Christoph Cox cites the epigraph as the aphorism in question at the start of his book,
Nietzsche: Naturalism and Interpretation (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), 15.
Still more reccntly, Jill Marsden likewise favors the epigraph from Zarathustra in her "Nietz-
sche and the Art of the Aphorism," in Keith Ansell Pearson, ed., A Companion to Nietzsche
(Oxford: Blackwell, 2006), 22-38, esp. 32-37. Marsden herself follows Kelly Oliver's read-
ing. See Oliver, Womanizing Nietzsche: Philosophy's Relation to the "Feminine" (London:
Routledge, 1995).
10. In her editor's notes to the 1998 translation (with Alan J. Swenson) of Nictzsche's On
the Genealogy of Morality, Clark observes that from "an examination of the primer's manu-
script, it is clear that when Nietzsche began writing it out, the third treatise begins with what
is now section 2." (Hackett, 1998), 198. Clark also adds a further reference to Christopher
Janaway's independent corroboration of this point at this same locus.
II. Despite this tour through so very many forms of the ascetic ideal (and {he thrice-
repeated title of the third essay What is the Meaning ofAscetic Ideals? tells us that this variety
 The Genealogy ofMorals and Right Reading 189

is crucial), in place of GM III:!, readers, as the above references attest, continue to identiJY the
epigraph to the third section as the aphorism Nietzsche had in mind: "Untroubled, mocking,
violent-thus will wisdom have us: she is a woman, she always loves only a warrior.-Thus
Spoke Zarathustra" (GM III, Epigraph). Wilcox and Clark certainly had their work lined up
for them, at least as Wilcox stated the problem and certainly as Clark resolved it by the expe-
dient of taking a visit to the Nietzsche archives for a look at the original manuscript. It is
important to note that neither Wilcox nor Clark disagree with the above identification of the
aphorism in question. The only difference in my reading is that I offer the above identifica-
tion in classically "continental" fashion, that is, by way of the traditionally hermeneutic expe-
dient of readcrly exegesis (and I submit that a hermeneutic, or "art of reading" is precisely
what Nietzsche expected).
12. Aristotle located the responsibility for being understood on the plain side of the author
and the lucidity of prose.
13. There are other. most notably Augustinian. loci for this image. But a fine instanciarion
of this texrual sensibility, precisely because of the comprehension of the full range of the
incarnate sensuality of the lerrer and the book, is Ivan 1Ilich, In the Vineyard of the 1ext: A
Commentary on Hugh's Didascalicon (Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1993), chapter
3. esp. 54ff.
14. This is the point of departure for the late Jacques Derrida's discussion of style. using
the (gallically stylistic) conceit of, "woman" in fperons: Les Styles de Nietzsche Spurs: Nietz-
sche's Styles. Barbara Johnson. trans. (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1979). I raise this ques-
tion from another perspecrive in terms of the Nietzsche's question of the problem of the artist
in Babich, "The Logic of Woman in Nietzsche: The Dogmatist's Story," New Political Science
36 (1996): 7-17.
15. KrUger, Studien uber den Aphorismos als philosophischer Form, 26.
16. It is worth noting that any Christian preacher or priest would say the same thing.
17. Apart from readerly anti-Semitism, I elsewhere follow rhe dynamic of this writing as
ir engages prejudicial convictions in reviewing rhe functioning of Nietzsche's critique of
ascetic ideals in terms not only of religion anterior to moraliry but science. Babich, Nietzsche's
Philosophy ofScience: Reflecting Science on the Ground ofArt and Life (Albany: State University
of New York Press, 1994), see chapter 4 and, in particular. chapter 5.
18. I discuss this point in terms ofNietzschc's original philological impetus for writing his
The Birth of Tragedy out ofthe Spirit ofMusic in Babich, "The Science of Words or Philology:
Music in The Birth of Tragedy and the Alchemy of Love in The Gay Science," Revista di estetica,
edited by Tiziana Andina 45:28 (2005): 47-78. See further, Manfred Riedel. Horen auf die
Sprache. Die akroamatische Dimension der Hermeneutik (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.
1989) and Holger Schmid, Kunst des Horens: Orte und Grenzen philosophische !Jpracheifahrung
(Cologne: Bohlau. 1999).
19. "But aside from these public hecatombs and at bottom much more horrible, there
occurs a spectacle played out continually in a hundred thousand simultaneous acts: every
efficient, industrious, intelligent, energetic man belonging to such a people lusting after politi-
cal laurels is dominated by this same lust and no longer belongs completely to his own domain
as once he did" (HH 481).
20. Jacques Rancitre, The Philosopher and His Poor. John Drury, Corinne Oster. and
Andrew Parker, trans. (Durham: Duke Universiry Press. 2003). See also, Pierre Bourdieu et
aI., The Weight o/the World: Social Suffiring in Contemporary Society, Priscilla Ferguson et aI.,
trans. (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999). See further KSA 9,213.
190 Babette E. Babich

21. Berd Lang raises exactly this question in his conrriburion to Jacob Golomb and Roben
S. Wistrich, eds., Nietzsche, Godfather of Fascism: On the Uses and Abuses of Philosophy
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002).
22. See, for an example, again, Golomb and Wistrich, eds., Nietzsche, Godfather ofFascism.
Bur see, too, the comriburions, including my editor's imroduction, "Habermas, Nietzsche,
and the Future of Critique: Irrationality, The Will to Power, and War," Nietzsche, Habermas,
and Critical Theory, edited by Babette E. Babich (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books [Human-
ity Books Imprim] 2004), 13-46.
12
"We Remain of Necessity Strangers
to Ourselves"
The Key Message of Nietzsche's Genealogy

Ken Cemes

INTRODUCTION 1

The central claim of this chapter is that 011 the Genealogy of Morals is primarily
aimed at gradually bringing us, Nietzsche's readers, to a potentially shattering real-
ization that in a deep and fundamental sense we do not know ourselves. 2 I argue
that Nietzsche's initial assertion in the preface of the Genealogy that his aim is to
expose the historical origins of our morality is intentionally misleading and that
Nietzsche employs uncanny displacements and subtcrfuges in order to disguise his
real targc£. This is exposed only in section 23 of the third essay where the reader is
faced with Nietzsche's central claim that we moderns are in fact the ultimate
embodiment of the ascetic ideal. Nietzsche argues that we have mistakenly taken
ourselves to have overcome this ideal in the move from a religious to a secular, scien-
tific worldview, when in fact that move only signifies the deepest and most sublime
expression of that ideal. This essay aims to expose the methods behind, and reasons
for, Nietzsche's dissimulation about his true aim.}

A STRATEGY OF MISDIRECTION

In the first section of his preface to the Genealogy Nietzsche tells his readers that we
are "strangers £0 ourselves." This beautiful and uncanny phrase is an echo of the

191
192 Ken Gemes

first line of the preface: "We are unknown (0 ourselves, we knowers: and for a good
reason." In his typical elliptical fashion, Nietzsche does not tell us what that good
reason is. Indeed, the whole theme of our being strangers to ourselves is quickly and
quietly dropped. In the second section of the preface Nietzsche brings up what is
ostensibly the focus of the Genealogy, the question of the origins of our morality,
"that is what this polemic is about" (GM P:2). Certainly the first essay, with its
main theme of the triumph of Judeo-Christian slave morality over the Greek/
Roman master morality, seems to bear out the claim that his polemic is about the
origins of morality. And, to take us further from the opening claim that we are
strangers to ourselves, Nietzsche explicitly emphasizes in the second essay thar show-
ing the origins of something tells us little, if anything, about irs current purpose and
value. 4
But if that is so, then, how can Nietzsche's aim be to show us thar we are strangers
to ourselves? How can the Genealogy be about who we are, when ir is telling us
mainly about our ancestors? To see the solution to the problem we must realize that
the Genealogy, like so many of Nietzsche's texts, divides into a manifest and a latent
content. Nietzsche cannot afford to be too explicit about that latent content because
it is challenging and terrifYing, striking at the center of our self-conception. Like a
clever psychoanalyst, he knows that a direct approach will merely awaken the
patient'slreader's defenses and provoke a reflex denial and a refusal to countenance
his message. Moreover, Nietzsche believes that mere intellectual knowledge can
often work against deeper forms of realization that arc necessary for genuine change.
Nietzsche, educated by Schopenhauer, regarded consciousness as being a rather shal-
low phenomenon, almost to the point of dismissing it as epiphenomenal (cf. GS 11,
333,354; BGE 32). Prefiguring Freud, he believed that for ideas to be truly effective
they must work on us at a level below consciousness. Thus, in the Genealogy, he
chooses to approach his aim obliquely. He starts at some distance from us-with
our ancestors-and even suggests that his examination of them does not have direct
and immediate consequences for us. But, in fact, Nietzsche is talking about us, first
indirectly and later directly. He is telling us deeply disturbing and momentous rruth
about ourselves, though we may not at first recognize that we are the subjects who
arc being damned in his polemic.
That such indirection is the method of the Genealogy is something Nietzsche
explicitly claims in Ecce Homo: "Every lime a beginning that is calculated to
mislead .... Gradually ... very disagreeable truths are heard grumbling in the dis-
tance" (EH "GM'). We are for Nietzsche strangers to ourselves for the very good
reason that to face who we arc is a challenge requiring momentous courage, a chal-
lenge that, properly undertaken, should precipitate a shattering struggle. But, as
Nietzsche warns us in the first section of the preface of the Genealogy, such chal-
lenges provoke strong resistance: "In such matters we are never really 'with it': we
just don't have our heart there-or even our ear." Though, he suggests that when
his true message is registered, "we will rub our ears afterwards and ask completely
 "We Remain ofNecessity Strangers to Ourselves" 193

amazed, completely disconcerted, 'What did we actually experience just now?' still
more: 'who are we actually?'" (Nietzsche's italics). The italics here are significant.
The emphasis on "afterwards" is an indication of Nietzsche's belief that only after
his message has slowly snuck through our defenses will we recognize what the Gene-
alogy is really about. The emphasis on "are" is an indication that the Genealogy is
ultimately about who we are and not, as it might first appear, about who our ances-
tors were. 5

TRUTH AND THE ASCETIC IDEAL

What, then, is the kernel of Nietzsche's message that might lead us to question who
we really are? Basically, the Genealogy teaches that our much prized morality of com-
passion, in particular, our evaluations of good and evil (essay 1), our concept of con-
science (essay II), and our commitment [0 truth (essay III) are all expressions of
impotence and sublimated hostility.
In order to get his readers to appreciate this message, Nietzsche engages his read-
ers' interest and affects by using history as a means for creating a distance between
his ostensible subject, the origins of morality, and his real subject, the sickness in
our current morality. It is in GM III:23 that we find ourselves for the first time more
directly addressed. Having exposed the psychohistorical roors of our sense of good
and evil, and sense of conscience, characterizing these as handymen to the life-deny-
ing ascetic ideal, Nietzsche there asks if there is not now a new counterideal in the
modern ideal of truth, objectivity, and science. 6 Here he is directly engaging his
readers who identifY themselves as adhering to this modern ideal, which they take
as being fundamentally opposed to the religiously motivated ascetic ideal.
Secular readers, inspired by Enlightenment ideals, have little resistance to recog-
nizing that the religious founders ofJudaeo-Christian morality were in fact inspired
by hatred and envy. They see themselves as being far removed from that religious
mentality. This provides the comforting "pathos of distance" that allows the first
and second essay to do their work on the reader. Bur in GM III:23 Nietzsche pro-
vides what he hopes will be a moment of self-recognition when he responds to his
question about the existence of a counterideal by claiming that the will to truth, the
will (0 objectivity, is nor the means by which we have escaped the religious world
and its associated ascetic ideal. Rather, it is, in fact, the last and most complete
expression of that ideal. This is the moment when we are meant to rub our ears:
How is it that we who have thrown off the crutches of superstition and religious
obscuranrism, who have commirred ourselves to embrace the truth at any cost, and
thus relinquished the comforting myth of a world to come, can be accused of partici-
pating in the ascetic ideal? As Nietzsche himself says, it is our love of truth that has
allowed us to realize the falsity behind the ascetic ideal, the hollowness of religious
claims (cf. GM Ill:27). Now he relies on our love of truth to force us (0 recognize
194 Ken Cernes

the (fue meaning of that love. Nietzsche, thinking primarily as a psychologist, is

looking at the latent meaning of our commitment to truth. That commitment, he
maintains, stems from the same motivation that fuelled commitment to religious
ascetic values, namely, fear of life and feelings of impotence.
The religious person attempts to remove himself from the torments of this world,
a world that largely resists his desires. He tells himself that what happens in this life
is ultimately unimportant; that what matters is what is in his soul, which will deter-
mine his real, eternal, life in the world to come. The modern scholar similarly
removes himself from life by telling himself that what is of ultimate value is not
acting in this world, not what he docs, but in understanding the world, in what he
knows. Both the religious ascetic and the ascetic scholar believe "the truth will set
you free." Nietzsche has realized that here to be free means to be free of the pull of
this world, the tumult of earthly passions and desires. Just as the ascetic ideal
demands suppression of the passions, so the scholar's emphasis on objectivity and
truth demands "the emotions cooled" (GM 1II:25). Where the religious take
revenge upon the world by denying that it is of ultimate importance, the scholar
revenges himself by saying that passive understanding is of greater value than "mere"
action. Furthermore, the scholar takes his possession of knowledge to somehow give
him a sort of magical possession of the world. Nietzsche seems [() countenance two
ways in which knowledge can function as a form of revenge against the world. On
the first account the valorization of passive knowledge over action is a way of with-
drawing from the active life that a healthy nature demands (cf. D 42 "Origin of the
vita comteplativa"). On the second account, through knowledge people attempt to
possess the world "as if knowledge of it sufficed [() make it their property" (D 285).

THE IDENTIFICATION OF PASSMTY IN SCHOLARS

IN NIETZSCHE'S EARLIER WORK

The scholarly mind values reasons and reasonable belief and is suspicious of passions
and unreasoned desire. But life, at least genuine life, ultimately, is a world of pas-
sions and desires. Thus, claims Nietzsche, (the pursuit of) science can act as a means
of withdrawal from the world: "Science as a means of self-anaesthetisation: are you
acquainted with that?" (GM III:24). Nietzsche had in earlier works already claimed
that such repressioll of passiolls, as exhibited in the scholar, is parr of a death drive.
In The Gay Science, in a passage that Nietzsche explicitly directs us to in GM 1II:28,
he characterizes the will not to be deceived as something that might be: "a principle
hostile to life and destructive-'Will to truth'-that can be a hidden will to death"
(GS 344). In the same place he tell us, "those who arc truthful in the audacious and
ultimate sense that is presupposed by the faith in science thus affirm another world
than the world of life, nature, and histoty." These thoughts Nietzsche first fully
thematized in his early work the Untimely Meditations. There, in the second essay,
 "We Remain ofNecessity Strangers to Ourselves" 195

On the Use and Disadvantages of History for Lift, he characterizes "the scholar, the
man of science" as one who "srands aside from life so as to know it unobstrucredly"
(HL 10). Focusing on the use of history, Nierzsche contrasts his demand thar we
use history for "life and acrion" with rhe scholar's use of history for rhe ends of "easy
withdrawal from life and action" (HL P). Nietzsche pictures "rhe historical virruoso
of the present day" as "a passive sounding board" whose tone and message "lulls us
and makes us rame spectators" (HL 6). It is the desire to stand aside from life rhar
links the scholar and the priest as practitioners of the ascetic ideal.
In HL Nietzsche uses metaphors of mirroring, castration, and impotence to cap-
ture the passivity of the scholar and, in particular, the historian. These metaphors
Nietzsche repeats throughout his corpus in order to emphasize the same point. In
HL he asks rhe rhetorical question: "[olr is ir selflessness when the historical man
lets himself be blown into an objecrive mirror?" (HL 8, my translation). In the same
essay Nietzsche asserts thar rhe scholar's ideal of pure objectivity would characrerize
"a race of eunuchs" (HL 5). In Beyond Good and Evil (207) Nietzsche again caprures
the element of passivity and otherworldliness behind the exorbirant overvaluation of
trurh and objecrivity by referring to "the objective person ... the ideal scholar" as
"a mirror: he is accustomed to submitting before whatever wants to be known, with-
out any orher pleasure rhan thar found in knowing and 'mirroring.'" Later, in the
same section, he refers to rhe scholar as a "mirror soul, eternally smoothing itself
out." In the very nexr secrion Nierzsche tell us thar, "'objectivity,' 'being scientific'
... is merely dressed up scepricism and paralysis of rhe will."
These themes are repeared in Thus Spoke Zarathustra in the sections "Of Immacu-
late Perception" and "Of Scholars." In the first of these sections Zararhustra charac-
terizes those who seek "pure knowledge" as hypocrites, on the grounds that while
they are men of earthly lusts they have "been persuaded to contempt of the earthly."
Again, Nietzsche has recourse to the metaphors of passive mirroring, when he
expresses the voice of those seekers of pure knowledge as follows: "For me the high-
est thing would be to gaze at life without desire .... I desire nothing of things,
except that I may lie down before them like a mirror with a hundred eyes." Nietz-
sche's repeated negative references to passive mirroring when characterizing the will
to rturh and objecrivity are a deliberate reference to, and in contrasr with, Schopen-
hauer who favourably spoke of the intellect "abolishing all possibility of sutTering"
(World as Will and Representation II:368) when it renounces all interest and becomes
"the clear mirror of the world" (World as Will and Representation II:380). It is pre-
sumably Nietzsche's early struggles with Schopenhauer rhat firsr alerted him to the
possibility that intellectual contemplation can funcrion as a means for anempting
escape from this painful world of becoming.?
Zarathusrra also repeats the metaphors of impotence and castration when those
who seek pure knowledge are told, "[rJruly you do not love the earth as creators,
begetters.... But now your emasculared leering wanrs to be called 'contemplarion'!"
(Z, ibid.) The meraphor of the scholar as mirror is used in the Genealogy. There, in
196 Ken Cones

describing modern historiography, which he characterises as being "to a high degree

ascetic" and "to a still higher degree nihilistic," Nietzsche says modern historiogra-
phy's "[nloblest claim is that it is a mirror" (GMIII:26). In the same section there
are multiple metaphors of castration and impotence. For instance, Nietzsche, with
a side reference to the famous historian Renan, characterizes certain "objective"
"armchair" "contemplatives" in terms of their "cowardly contemplativeness, the
lecherous eunuchry in the face of history, the making eyes at ascetic ideas, the
j ustice-Tartllffery of impotence!" (GM III :26).
The core of Nietzsche's objection to both the ascetic idea, in its first religious
incarnation and its last incarnation, in the objective scholar's will to truth, is that
they both are a symptom of, and caused by, an "aversion to life" (GM III:28). Nietz-
sche's Zarathustra says of scholars, "they want to be mere spectators" (Z:II, "Schol-
ars"). Both religious ascetic and ascetic scholar rake, and try to justifY, an essentially
passive stance toward the world. They arc passive because they are weak and scared,
but they dress their passivity up as a virtue and a choice.
It might be thought that there is a fundamental difference between the powerless-
ness of the original Jewish slaves and the situation faced by scholars and other mem-
bers of Nietzsche's audience. The lauer of course belong to a dominant, successful
society. While there are differences, the key point is that that success is now the
success of a herd animal who is still vehemently repressing many of his individual
desires pursuing an alleged common good."
One of the reasons Nietzsche so highly values the (pre-Socratic) Greeks is because,
while they understood that life is essentially, and inevitably, painful, they still had
the strength to affirm it and act decisively, even horribly-think of Medea's terrible
revenge against JasonY By contrast, the Christian and modern men, in particular
scholars, still are fundamentally obsessed with escaping the pain of this life: "the
absence o/suffering-this may count as the highest good" for them, hence their valo-
rization of passivity (GM III: 17).1" Since all doing inevitably involves (the risk of)
pain, they seek to avoid doing, hence their valorization of being over becoming. For
Nietzsche, the scholar's valuing truth, like the religious person's valuing the world
to come, is generally paired with a valorization of being over becoming. Even if the
scholar takes truth to be truth about the world of appearance this would not abro-
gate Nietzsche's point. Fundamentally, in Nietzsche's work, the being/becoming
dichotomy aligns with the passive/active dichotomy. This explains his rather monot-
onous emphasis on becoming over being throughout his corpus, which is only bro-
ken in GS 370. There he lets on that a valorization of becoming in certain conrexts
can actually be manifestation of a rejection of life, and a valorization of being can in
certain contexts be a manifestation of a healthy creative attitude. This shows that his
ultimate concern is with tt)stering creative activity rather than championing one side
or the other of a metaphysical being/becoming distinction.
Nietzsche repeatedly uses the metaphors of mirroring, castration, and impotence
 "We Remain ofNecessity Strangers to Ourselves" 197

to viscerally bring home the degree of passivity in the scholar. He is a philosopher

who, more than most, uses metaphor as a marker of significance. The repetition is
thus a clear marker of the importance Nietzsche anaches to this theme.

NIETZSCHE'S MIXED ATTITUDES TO

THE WILL TO TRUTH

Does Nietzsche unconditionally reject the will to truth? Clearly he sees the modern
will to truth as a manifestation of a passive arritude to life and presents himself as
the great advocate of life as an expansive Dionysian activity. Still, it would be sur-
prising if this great opponent of the unconditional should unconditionally reject the
will to truth. Perhaps then his objection is to the elevation of truth to an end in
itself. II There is something to this but it misses the real focus of Nietzsche's objec-
tion.
When Nietzsche objects to a thing, for example religion or the will to truth, it is
important to place that thing in its relevant context. The point here, one often made
by Nietzsche himself, is that something that is dangerous, unhealthy in a given con-
text lIlay well be beneficial in another (cf. BGE 30). Nietzsche is always a local rather
than a global thinker. He will not simply condemn, for instance, the will to truth,
bur rather will condemn it within a given context. 12 The point is what ends it serves
in a given context. In the context of Christianity and the modern scholarly spirit he
sees the will to rrurh as serving the purpose of slandering life. Bur this still leaves
room for him to recognize that in other contexts, or for given individuals within a
specific context, the will to truth can be a manifestation of a robust health. Thus, he
clearly does not regard Goethe's prodigious curiosity and will to truth as a negative
phenomenon. And surely in his own case his insiglu into human nature, though
bought at a terrible personal cost, is not something he sees as a negative manifesta-
tion of the will to truth. It is a repeated theme in Nietzsche's corpus that the stronger
a being is the more truth it can endure (cf. BGE 39; Tf "Maxims" 8; EH P:3).
It would be too facile to simply say that what separates Goethe and Nietzsche's
positive manifestation of the will to truth from the Christian's or the scholar's is ihat
they, unlike the later, do not regard truth as an end in itself. Would a scholar who
claims that truth is no ultimate end, say a postl1lodernist of today, be any less a
target of Nietzsche's polemic? And would a creative, Goethe-like, figure who did
indeed take truth [0 be the ultimate value be a fit subject for Nietzsche's arrack? The
will to uuth, even the will [0 truth taken as an ultimate end, is not the object of
Nietzsche's arrack. Rather it is the will to truth in its now prevalent context of the
Christiall's and scholar's passive and negative orientation [Oward life that Nietzsche
rejects. 13 To take the will to truth even in its most extreme case as the principle target
of Nietzsche's attack is [0 mistake a symptom f()r a cause.
198 Ken Cernes

To understand the nature of Nietzsche's complaint against the will to truth in the
context of its manifestation in modern men of science, and to contrast it with the
healthier will to truth exhibited by rare individuals such as Goethe and Nietzsche
himself, it is helpful to return to the second of his Untimely Meditations.
A key charge in the Untimely Meditations is that the scholar, the modern man of
science, falls "wretchedly apart into inner and outer, content and form" (HL 4). It
is lor this reason that "our modern culture is not a living thing" (ibid.). A-ccording
to Nietzsche, in the hands of the typical scholar knowledge is merely a personal,
internal affair that does not express itself in ourward action. The content of his
knowledge does not express itself in outward forms. "Inner" and "content" for
Nietzsche refers to man's internal world of thought; "outer" and "form" refer to the
external world of action. Modern man's unbridled exhortation of the will to truth
facilitates his emphasis on inner content to the exclusion of outer forms. Against this
splitting Nietzsche recommends that a "higher unity in the nature of the soul of a
people must again be created, that the breach between inner and outer must vanish"
(ibid.). This unity is exactly the characteristic that Nietzsche so often extols in
Goethe and claims to have finally arrived at himself. In them the will to truth does
not express itself as a stepping back from the world in order to enter an otherworldly
realm of ineffectual contemplation. Rather, it is an active part of their engagement
with the world. Nietzsche and Goethe possess active rather than passive knowledge.
Indeed Nietzsche's On the Use and Disadvantage o/History for Lifo, which is his most
sustained attack on knowledge as a means to inactivity, begins with the following
quotation from Goethe, which he tells us he fully concurs with: "In any case I hate
everything that merely instructs me without augmenting or directly invigorating my
activity" (HL P). The importance of the notion of unity for a genuine person is a
theme that we will return to shortly.
Of course, in GM and elsewhere, Nietzsche's primary example of the life-denier
is the Christian, not the scholar. For him Nietzsche reserves his strongest rhetoric:
"this entire fictional world has it roots in hatred of the natural (actuality!) .... But
that explains everything. Who alone has reason to lie himselfout of actuality? He who
suffers from it. But to suffer from it means to be an abortive reality" (A 15).
Yet we should recognize here a voice not unrelated to that with which Nietzsche
chastises the scholar in the passages quoted above. This talk of abortive reality is of
a piece with his rhetorical question in HL concerning the current age of "universal
education": "Are there still human beings, one then asks oneself, or perhaps only
thinking-, writing-, and speaking-machines" (HL 5). There are important differ-
ences in the way Nietzsche regards the scholar and the Christian. In the latter he
sees only torces inimical to life. In the former and his objective sprit he sees much
that is useful and for which we should be grateful (cf. BGE 207). After all, it is the
scholar, with his will to muh, who helps us see through the fabrications of religion.
Bur for Nietzsche, "[tlhe objective man is an instrument ... he is no goal, no con-
clusion and sunrise" (BGE 207). His essential passivity toward the world means that,
 "We Remain ofNecessity Strangers to Ourselves" 199

"[w}hatever still remains in him of a 'person' strikes him as accidental, often arbi-
trary, still more disturbing; to such an extent he has become a passageway and
reflection of strange forms and events even to himself" (ibid.). This enigmatic talk
of being a passageway to strange forms and events, of the arbitrary and the acciden-
tal, hints at some profound sense of alienation. But what exactly this involves is not
thematized in Beyond Good and Evil. To get a better understanding of what is at
stake here we do well to return to the Genealogy.

ACCIDENTAL, ARBITRARY MODERNS VS.

THE SOVEREIGN INDMDUAL

When Nietzsche says in the preface to GM that we are strangers to ourselves, that
we are unknown to ourselves, it is tempting to take this estrangement as merely a
matter of our lack of self-knowledge. But then we must ask the question why exactly
this should be taken as a criticism? Surely it cannot be that we are under some obli-
gation to know the full truth about ourselves; that kind of imperative looks suspi-
ciously like a manifestation of the very will to truth that is the object of Nietzsche's
critique in the third essay of the Genealogy. What is more, Nietzsche has often told
of the need for self-deception (cf. BGE 2 and 4). Indeed, Nietzsche tells us that
ignorance of one's deeper drives and motivations can often be a healthy phenome-
non (cf. EH "Clever" 9). This thought goes hand in hand with his general dismissal
of consciousness as a weak, irrelevant, even disruptive, force.
How can Nietzsche extol the virtues of self knowledge yet at other times praise
ignorance of the self? Again, part of the answer is [0 be found in the differem ends
knowledge and ignorance can serve in different contexts. In the case of Wagner and
himself Nietzsche sees ignorance as something that helps a deeper unifYing drive
finally reach its full active expression. '4 In the case of Christians and scholars, their
ignorance merely serves to facilitate their passive attitudes and their splintering into
weak fragmented personalities. This brings us to the deeper sense in which Nietzsche
takes us to be strangers to ourselves. As GM unfolds, beyond our mere ignorance, a
deeper estrangement is suggested, namely, that of having pans of ourselves that are
split-off. These parts are split-off, not simply in the sense that we have no conscious
access to them, but in the sense that we contain within us hidden affects and drives.
These are separate movers that are not part of any integrated whole. Taken to the
extreme, this notion of being strangers to ourselves actually threatens the notion of
a unified self. That is to say, we have strangers within ourselves, so that, in fact, our
self is no genuine self. We are nothing more than a jumble of different voices/drives
having no overall unity.'5 Not wishing to directly threaten his audience with this
frightening thought, Nietzsche brings this idea to his readers in various subrle ways
throughout the Genealogy.
In GM I, Nietzsche playfully torments his audience with variations on this theme
200 Ken Cernes

of being subverted from within. For instance, Nietzsche's claim that Christian
morality is nothing but the inheritor of a Jewish slave morality based on ressentiment
would for a contemporary German audience strongly him at the claim that they
need nor be worried about being "jewified" (verjudet) because, with their current
morality, they are already as Jewish as they could be.li> The worry of being "jewified"
was one that Germans of the 1880s were keenly aware of. Where a typical (liberal)
German audience of Nietzsche's time sees "The Jew" as a foreign body that some-
how needs to be cleansed and brought into the Christian-German world, Nietzsche
is telling his audience that they are themselves fundamentally contaminated with
Jewishness. 17 This is a direct threat to his German audiences' sense of identity. In
nineteenth-century Germany one of the common means for dealing with the prob-
lematic question of German identity was by establishing a contrast to those who
were clearly not Germans. Jews, in particular, were commonly denominated as the
paradigm of the un-German. Nietzsche's claim that the Germans are already "jewi-
fied" brings home to his reader in an uncanny way his theme that they are strangers
to themselves. It is presumably his sense of provocative playfulness that leads Nietz-
sche to even suggest that the Jewish elders actually gathered as a cabal and deliber-
ately repudiated Christ as a means of enticing their enemies to swallow the poison
of Christian slave values (cf. GM 1:8).
Having in the first essay tormented his audience with the thought that they are
already infected with a Jewish voice, one that they themselves would take to be thor-
oughly foreign, Nietzsche, in the second essay implicitly raises the question of
whether such a thoroughly mixed being can be capable of genuine agency. This he
does in a rather subtle way, by introducing a figure, the "sovereign individual" capa-
ble of genuine agency, and then implicitly contrasting this strong commanding fig-
ure with the weak will-o'-the-wisps of his day.
For Nietzsche, genuine agency, including the right to make promises, is the
expression of a being who is a unified whole. The second essay begins with the ques-
tion: "To breed an animal with the right to make promises-is this not the paradoxi-
cal task that nature has set itself in the case of man? is this not the real problem
regarding man?" (GM II: 1). The text might easily lead the unwary reader to think
this is a task already accomplished, leading the reader into a sense of complacent
satisfaction. The sense thal Nietzsche is talking of past events is heightened when,
having first raised this question of nature's task, he concentrates on the prehistory
of man, and man's first acquiring of deep memory-memory burnr in by punish-
ment. The task of acquiring memory is one that has been clearly accomplished; it is
something that his audience can proudly lay claim [0. Nietzsche, after raising his
question, immediately refers to the breeding of an animal with the right to make
promises as a problem that "has been solved to a large extent." This furthers the
sense that the task is largely behind us. However, when a few pages later Nietzsche
inrroduces "the end of this tremendous process" as rhe "sovereign individual," his
audience should at least have a suspicion glimmering of whether they themselves are
 "We Remain ofNecessity Strangers to Ourselves" 201

this proud, noble-sounding individual or the "feeble windbags" Nietzsche despises.

He describes the sovereign individual in hyperbolic tones clearly not applicable to
ordinary individuals. He describes him as one "who has his own protracted will and
the right to make promises and in him a proud consciousness, quivering in every
muscle, of what has at length been achieved and become flesh in him, a conscious-
ness of his own power and freedom ... [and who] is bound to reserve a kick for the
feeble windbags who promise without the right to do so" (eM II:2).
It is typical of Nietzsche's caginess rhar ir is not at first clear whether the sovereign
individual is a creature already achieved or one yer to come. The terms Nierzsche
uses to describe the sovereign individual-"proud," "quivering in every muscle,"
"aware of his superiority," "like only to himself," "bound to honour his peers"-
clearly hark back to the descriptions of the masters of the first essay. Since his audi-
ence is meant to identify themselves as the inheritors of slave morality, it is clear
that they cannot be identified with this sovereign individual, who, unlike them is
"autonomous and supermoral," a "lord of the free will." The implicit message to
his audience is that you are not sufficiently whole to have the righr to make prom-
ises; you have no free will, but are merely tossed aboU( willy-nilly by a jumble of
compering drives and, hence, you cannot stand surety for what you promise. You
can give no guarantee that the ascendant drive at the rime of your making a promise
will be effective when rhe time comes to honor that promise.

NIETZSCHE AND THE UNCANNY

In eM III: 10, Nietzsche again invokes the norion of free will in an unserrling way.
There he suggests a contrast between philosophers as rhey have occurred so far,
"world-negating, hostile towards life, nor believing in the senses," with a possible
successor who, presumably unlike his predecessors, has sufficient "will of the spirit,
fieedom of wilt' (eM III: 10). In this passage, like the earlier ones concerning the
sovereign individual and free will, Nietzsche leaves the reader in some doubt as to
wherher he is ralking about something already achieved or yer to be achieved. In
borh rhese cases Nietzsche creates a kind of uncanny effect on the reader. The
uncanny here is operating in Freud's sense of somerhing thar is disrurbingly borh
familiar and unfamiliar. '"
Ler us firsr consider rhe case of rhe sovereign individual and rhen rerum to rhat
of rhe philosopher.
The sovereign individual is, at first, seemingly familiar to his readers as modern
man, rhe possessor of memory and the righr to make promises. But Nietzsche's text,
by characterizing the sovereign individual in terms typically applied to the masrers
of the first essay, disrurbingly suggests a gulf berween the sovereign individual and
modern man, rhe inheritor of slave morality. The sense of the uncanny comes nor
simply through the confusion about who exacrly is the sovereign individual, but also
202 Ken Cernes

by a certain play on temporality. Is Nietzsche talking about who we are in the pres-
ent or is he talking about some past beings or some envisaged successor?
The same questions of identity and temporality produce an uncanny effect when
Nietzsche describes philosophers in GM III: I O. He begins with "the earliest philoso-
phers": "to begin with the philosophic spirit always had to use as a mask and cocoon
the previously established types of contemplative man ... a religious type." The refer-
ence to the earliest philosophers suggests some distance between modern philoso-
phers of Nietzsche's era and the subjects of his descriptions. This suggestion is
furthered when Nietzsche then says, "the ascetic priest provided until modern times
the repulsive caterpillar form in which alone the philosopher could live and creep
about" {emphasis mine}. Yet when Nietzsche then immediately asks the rhetorical
question "Has this really altered(' his reader is left with the uneasy feeling thar per-
haps the repulsive caterpillar form is not really a thing of the pas£.
These remporal shifts are important for creating an uncanny sense of dislocation
in the Genealogy. What is far away often turns our to be quite close; and what is
apparemly already with us turns out to be yer to come. A notable example of such
dislocation occurs in his characterization of the "counreridealists" in GM III:24.
These he accllses of unknowingly sharing the ascetic ideal they explicitly repudiate
since "they still have faith in truth." Interestingly, among these counteridealists he
includes "pale atheists, antichrists, immoralists, nihilists." These terms can be
applied to Nietzsche himself, and, moreover, he himself has done so in various
places. The rhetorical effect here is striking; Nietzsche, by his insinuating, conspira-
torial tone, suggests that he and his reader have now seen rhings rhar others have
completely missed, namely, the continued prevalence of rhe ascetic ideal. By implic-
idy accusing himself of still being involved with the ascetic ideal he suggesrs that
that accusation equally falls on his reader.
The air of the uncanny hangs over the question of who is the addressee of the
Genealogy. In rhe first line of rhe prdace Nietzsche addresses "we knowers." In GM
1Il:24, jusr before the passage quoted above where Nietzsche talks of anti-Chrisrians,
immoralists, and the like, he refers again to we knowers bur rhis rime puts quoration
marks around "knowers," implicitly calling inro question his and his addressees'
status as knowers. And later, in GM III:27, when raising the crucial question of the
meaning of the will to truth he talks of touching "on my problem, our problem, my
unknown friends {-for as yer I have no friends}." This leaves the reader in the
uncanny position of wondering if he can ar all consider himself one of Nietzsche's
friends, one of Nietzsche's intended readers.'Y
Uncanny effects mark Nietzsche's claims about the Jews and slaves in the firsr
essay. Jewish slaves would ar first seem a rather foreign people, especially for a
ninereenth-century German audience, a people who had recently emerged as surpris-
ing victors in the Franco-Prussian war. But as the Genealogy progresses rhe disrance
between the psychological makeup of the Jewish slaves and modern man seems to
progressively shrink so that the unfamiliar merges with the familiar, each taking on
 "We Remain ofNecessity Strangers to Ourselves" 203

the traits of the other. The Jewish slave turns our to have conquered the whole West-
ern world (not just France!), and modern European man turns our to have contin-
ued the Jewish slave's hostility to the real world.
Nietzsche has explicit recourse to the notion of the uncanny in GM when charac-
terizing nihilism as "the uncanniest of monsters" (GM III: 14). While that particular
passage merely heralds nihilism as a possibility, in his notebooks of the same period
he is much more explicit, "Nihilism stands before us: whence comes this most
uncanny of all guests?" (KSA 12:2 [l27.2J-my translation). His immediate amwer,
in keeping with the general tenor of the GM, is that it is the will to truth that,
having destroyed the metaphysics that underpinned our values, is slowly bringing
belated recognition that those values themselves now lack any coherent foundations.
Thus we are inevitably being led to a void of values. Bur why does he call nihilism
an uncanny guest and the uncanniest of monsters? Presumably because he realizes
that for his audience nihilism is, on first approach, rather distant and unfamiliar,
and yet in some deep, perhaps, as yet, unarticulated sense, profoundly close and
familiar. It is unfamiliar to his audience because, valuing truth, objectivity, science,
education, progress, and other Enlightenment ideals, they would regard themselves
as having firm, deeply held values. It is somehow familiar because they would have
an inchoate sense that the demand central to the Enlightenment ideal, the demand
that all assumptions must face the test of reason, is a test that consistently applied
would pur those values, indeed, all values, into question.
Nietzsche, like David Hume, realized that if we were to take seriously the Enlight-
enment ideal of making no assumptions and subjecting every belief, every value, to
the rest of pure reason, we would in fact be left with a total devastation of all beliefs
and values. It is JUSt this devastation that he predicts for Europe's future-it is for
Nietzsche the first step to a full appreciation of the death of God. A fundamental
aim of GM is to allow his audience a possible self-awareness that will inevitably
hasten such an appreciation. This is not to say that Nietzsche sees nihilism as a goal
in itself. However, what he does believe is that Europe must first go through nihilism
if it is to reach the possibilities of creating genuinely life-affirming values. 20 Thus at
the end of GM III:27, where he heralds Christianity's will to truth finally subjecting
itself to scrutiny, he predicts, "that great spectacle in a hundred acts that is reserved
for the next two centuries, the most terrible, most questionable, and perhaps most
hopeful of spectacles." The theme of thc uncanny and uncanny thcmes prolifcrate
throughout the text of the Genealogy. In no other tCXt of Nictzsche's are there any-
where ncar as many occurrences of the term "uncanny" (unheimlich) and its cog-
nates. Indeed Nietzsche himself emphasizes the importance of this notion for
appreciating his tcx[, In the first lines of the section in Ecce Homo dealing with the
Genealogy Nietzsche characterizes that work as follows: "Regarding expression,
intention, and the art of surprise, the three inquiries, which constitute this Geneal-
ogy, are perhaps uncannier than anything else writren so tar" (EH "GM").
The uncanny makes its first appearance in the Genealogy as early as section 5 of
the preface. There Nietzsche gives, what maybe now, in retrospect, can be seen as a
204 Ken Cernes

hint that his announced theme might not be his real theme. In section 4 of the
preface he tells us that in Human, All Too Human he had already approached the
subject that is, allegedly, central to eM, namely the question of the origins of moral-
ity. In section 5 he then tells us that even in that work he was really concerned with
the value of our morality, rather than "my own or anyone else's hypothesizing about
the origin of morality." In particular, he tells us that what he saw as "the great dan-
ger to humanity" was "the will turning against life, the last sickness gently and mel-
ancholically announcing itself: I understood the morality of compassion ... as the
most uncanny symptom of our now uncanny European culture."

THE UNCANNINESS OF NIETZSCHE'S

"HISTORICAL" NARRATIVES

The concept of the uncanny helps us explain the function of eM as a history that
is not really a history.
Consider various uncanny temporal displacements that Nietzsche uses: the
ancient Jewish slaves who reappear as modern Christians, even as modern truth-
loving atheists; the sovereign individual who appears first as something already
achieved, then as a possible man of the future; the modern philosopher who has
thrown off the mask of the religious type, but then is perhaps not so distant from
this caterpillar form. Such displacements of identity and temporality are evident
from the beginnings of the Genealogy. For instance, eM I leaves the reader in some
confusion about who exactly are the bearers of master morality referred to in the
text. In much of the text, especially the early sections, it seems Nietzsche has the
Greeks in mind. His first explicit mention of particular nobility is that of Greek
nobility in eM 1:5, and his characterization in eM I: 10 of the nobles as self-affirm-
ing is presented solely with reference to Greek nobility. eM I: 11, which stresses the
recklessness and life-affirming nature of the nobles, contains references to Pericles,
the Athenians, Hesiod, and Homer. Indeed, Romans only get sustained mention in
eM I: 16, the penultimate section of the first essay. By contrast, the Jewish slaves of
ressentiment, who are presumably more connected w the Romans than to the
Greeks, are given substantial mention as early as eM 1:7. The early juxtaposition
between Jewish slaves and Greek masters is confusing since it was the Romans who
conquered, and were eventually conquered by the Jews through their conversion to
Christianity. This is captured in Nietzsche's phrase, "Judea against Rome" (eM
III: 16); Jewish slave morality directly triumphed over Roman master morality, not
Greek master morality. This unheralded, confusing displacement of the reference of
'·nobles" from Greeks to Romans again creates an uncanny effect on the reader of
not having a firm grip of what Nietzsche's target is.
We earlier noted how Nietzsche baits his audience with the ridiculous suggestion
of an actual cabal-like ancient Jewish conspiracy. These and other facwrs-for
instance, the absence of all the scholarly apparatus typical of a historical work (refer-
 "We Remain ofNecessity Strangers to Ourselves" 205

ences, footnotes and the like), the sweeping nature of Nietzsche's various historical
narratives, their lack of historical specificity, and the fact that he subtitles his work
a polemic--create the unsettling feeling that Nietzsche is, despite his explicit rubric
of historical interest, not really telling us about the historical origins of our morality.
Furthermore, the idea of Nietzsche being devoted to getting the history right does
not sit well with the central themes of the third essay, with its disparagement of the
will to truth. Nor does it sit well with his animadversions about history and the
scholars' search for truth in his essay On the Use and Disadvantage of History for
Life. What he is interested in is certain psychological truths about who we are; he is
fundamentally interested in making available to us the true, and he hopes life shat-
tering, meaning of his initial passing comment that we are strangers to ourselves.
Nietzsche's genealogies llse fabulous, historical narratives to show the employ-
ment of different uses, meanings, and interrelationships of variolls concepts over
time. Crucially Nietzsche, following Hegel, believes that only by undersranding the
temporal layering of meanings can we really grasp the current import of our con-
cepts. The potted nature of his actual historical narratives and his various games of
temporal displacement serve to let us eventually see that his text is not what it first
appears, and claims, to be. It is not in fact a simple historical narrative, but rather a
narrative of psychological development and discovery, culminating for the reader in
GM III:23. There, after having been exposed to the disgusting nature of the ascetic
ideal, the reader is shatteringly brought to see that he himself is the embodiment of
that ideal, so that afterward he may "ask completely amazed, completely discon-
certed, 'What did we actually experience just now?' still more: 'who are we actu-
ally?'" Nietzsche aims at therapeutic rather than historical knowledge.
This is not (0 say that Nietzsche does not think that his historical narratives in
their broad outline contain a good deal of truth. But the truth he is aiming for is
fundamentally the truth about the psychological developments that led to our pres-
ent state. Nietzsche believes our current psychology is built on and out of the sedi-
ments of past psychological developments, and that only by understanding those
developments can we understand and perhaps eventually change ourselves.
The point of his historical narratives is ultimately to make us aware of certain
psychological types and their possible relations. In doing this he invents historical
narratives whose oversimplifications he could not help but be aware of. For instance,
the Genealogy's characterization of the Greeks as simple, "unsymbolical," "blond
beasts" contrasts remarkably with the much richer, more complicated stories he tells
about the Greeks in The Birth of Tragedy and other places. The point of this simpli-
fication is not to paint an accurate historical picture of the ancient Greeks but to use
them as a means of bringing to the fore a certain psychological type.
In Ecce Homo Nietzsche says "[tlhat a psychologist without equal speaks from my
writings is perhaps the first insight reached by a good reader" (EH "Books" 5). This
is one of Nietzsche's few self-assessments which I take to be absolutely correct. In
reading Nietzsche we should follow the implied advice of looking for psychological,
206 Ken Gemes

rather than philosophical or historical, insights. The fundamemal insight of the

Genealogy is that with the change from the religious to the secular worldview we
may have changed our beliefs about the nature of this world; we, unlike the religious,
accept this as the one and only world, but we have still fundamentally clung to the
same hostile attitude toward it. It is because we fail to engage, in a cognitive and
deeper sense, with the nature and the level of our resentment that we remain, so
profoundly, strangers to ourselves.
We should not simply keep the model of the psychologist in mind when trying
to unravel the what of Nietzsche's text but also in unravelling the how of it. By
uncannily invoking the pathos of distance, deliberately confusing the temporal scope
of his claims and the idemity of his targets, Nietzsche has found an ingenious, sub-
terranean method of getting his highly challenging and subversive message to slowly
sink into his readers, without immediately provoking the defenses a more direct
approach would surely arouse.

REFERENCES

Clark, M. Nietzsche on Truth and Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.
Gemes, K. "Post-Modernism's Use and Abuse of Nietzsche." Philosophy and Phenomenologi-
cal Research 62 (2001): 337-60.
Freud, S. The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud. Trans-
lated by J. Strachey. London: The Hogarth Press, 1955.
Leiter, B. Nietzsche on Morality. London: Routledge, 2002.
Marx, K. "On the Jewish Question." In Karl Marx: Early Texts. Ed. D. Mclellan. Oxford:
Blackwell, 1977.
Schopenhauer, A. The World as Will and Representation. 2 vols. Translated by E. F. J. Payne.
Indian Hills, CO: Falcon's Wing Press, 1958.
Wagner, R. "Judaism in Music" In Richard Wagner: Stories and l:.ssays. Ed. C. Osborne. Lon-
don: Peter Owen, 1973.

NOTES

This piece has benefited greatly from input from Dario Galasso, Sebastian Gardner, Dylan
Jaggard, Chris Janaway, Jonathon Lear, Brian Leiter, Simon May, John Richardson, Aaron
Ridley, Mathias Risse, and, especially, Pia Conti-Gemes.

I. Unless otherwise indicated, for citations of Nietzsche's works, I utilize Kaufmann and
Hollingdale's GM and WP; Hollingdale's A, D, HH, HI, TJ, and Z; Kaufmann's BGE, EH,
and GS; and Whitside's BT.
2. The question of exactly who is Nietzsche's inrended audience for the Genealogy is
extremely complex. In the text he sometimes refers to "we knowers" (GM 1': 1), sometimes to
"modern humans, that is, us" (GM 1I:7). If we take as our model, liberal, secular intellectuals
I do not think we will be far off the mark of his "knowers" and "modern humans." The
 "We Remain ofNecessity Strangers to Ourselves" 207

section "Nietzsche and the Uncanny" further considers the question of who are Nietzsche's
addressees in the Genealogy.
3. The idea that Nietzsche often intentionally misleads his readers in the Genealogy is
presented in Maudemarie Clark's excellent chapter on the Ascetic Ideal in Clark (J 990).
Clark also notes the uncanny namre of the Genealogy. This is a fundamental theme of the last
two sections of this chapter.
4. Nietzsche in GS 345 shows an awareness of the genetic fallacy of taking the origins of
something as indicating its current value. However D 95, entided "Historical refutation as
the definitive refutation," shows that he is keenly aware of the polemical value of, and not
averse to using, this argument form.
5. The question of how seriously Nietzsche takes the various historical narratives offered
in the Genealogy is dealt with in greater detail in the section "The Uncanniness of Nietzsche's
'Historical' Narratives."
6. Where Nietzsche talks of "Wissenschafi" I talk of "science." However, it is important
to recall that for the German speakers "Wissenschaft" does not simply refer to what we call
the namral sciences (Naturwissenschaften) such as physics, chemistry, and biology, but also to
the human sciences (Geisteswissmschaft) such as philology and philosophy. We do better to
think of the practitioners of Wissmschaft as scholars rather than scientists.
7. Chris Janaway alerted me to the connection with Schopenhauer.
8. This is not to say that Nietzsche was against all repression. Rather much like Freud,
he favored sublimation where the repressed desires are allowed to express themselves produc-
tively, albeit directed to new ends than those they originally sought. Cf. Gemes (2001).
9. This is a central theme in The Birth of Tragedy, tQr example, see BT7-9. In that work,
still under the influence ofSchopenhauer and Wagner, Nietzsche takes art, in particular trag-
edy, as providing the Greeks with the means to affirm life despite suffering. As this influence
waned art came to playa much less significant part in his account of the life-affirming spirit
of the Greeks. Thus in the first essay of the Genealogy, where the Greeks are clearly configured
as life affirming, there is no appearance of art as their means of affirmation.
10. In GM III: 13-22 the ostensible subject is the ascetic ideal as personified by the ascetic
priest. Here the ascetic priest is characterized as the sick physician to a sick herd. He attempts
to combat the "dominant feeling of listlessness ... first, by means that reduce the general
feeling of life (0 its lowest point. If possible no willing at all, not another wish" (GM III: 17).
However, these sections also contain many references that go well beyond priests, including
references ro anti-Semites, to Nietzsche's contemporary, the philosopher Eugen Dtihring, (0
modern European "Weltshmerz." These references already indicate that Nietzsche's polemic
here against those who advocate passivity as a means of combating and avoiding the pains of
life has a much wider target than just the priests. However, as argued above, it is only in
section 23 that the full scope of his target comes clearly into view.
II. Clark (1990), while developing the idea that the philosopher's love of truth can func-
tion to devalne human existence, takes Nietzsche's fundamental objection to the will to truth
as an objection to taking truth as an ultimate end; an objection to "faith in the absolute value
of truth" (Clark 1990, 189). Leiter also recognizes Nictzsche's claim that the very will to
truth can be a will [0 escape this life. However, he refers to this aspect of the asceticism of
science as "only a minor theme in Nietzsche's discussion" (Leiter 2002, 265). Leiter claims
the major objections Nietzsche has to the overcstimation of truth is that certain truths "can
be terrible, a threat to life" (ibid., 267) and that "it supposes falsely, that our knowledge could
208 Ken Cernes

be 'presuppositionless'" (ibid., 268). While there is merit in both these interpretations what
they fail to grasp is that Nietzsche fundamentally rakes the will to truth as a general symptom
of a life-denying mode of relating to the world that he thinks is shared by both religious and
modern secular lovers of trllth.
12. This is pan of the point of the somewhat digressive sections at CM II1:2-5. There
Nietzsche deals with the meaning of the ascetic ideal for artists only to conclude that for
anists ascetic ideals mean "nothing whatever! ... Or so many things it amounts to nothing
whatever."
13. While generally Nietzsche discusses the vita contemplativa in the context of its use as
a negative life-denying orientation (cf. D 42-43), CS 3 \0 shows that Nietzsche recognizes
that the vita contemplativa can in fact be a means to the highest form of creativity. This theme
also appears in Nietzsche's discussion of the meaning of the ascetic ideal for philosophers in
CMIlI:8-9.
14. In reference to Wagner, see HI 2; and in reference to Nietzsche see EH "Clever" 9.
15. The Nietzschcan theme that modern men are not genuine persons but mere jumbles
of drives is one explored extensively in Gemes (2001).
16. German readers of Nietzsche's day would have been familiar with the threat of "verju-
dung" from Wagner's notorious judaism ill Music (1973) and, possibly, Marx's equally
appalling, though less well known, Oil the jewish Questioll (1977).
17. This subversive theme is repeated in the Antichrist were Nietzsche says, "The Chris-
tian, that ultima ratio of the lie, is the Jew once more - even thrice more" (A 44).
18. In his essay 1he Uncanny, Freud characterizes the uncanny as, "something which is
secretly familiar which has undergone repression and then returned from it" (Standard Edi-
tion. vol. 7, 245).
19. This is of a piece with Nietzsche's repeated suggestion that he has no readers, that
some, presumably meaning himself, are born posthumously, implying that their proper read-
ers are yet to be (cf. A P).
20. Cf. WP 2 for his most succinct statement of the inevitability of nihilism.
13
Nihilism as Will to Nothingness*
Wolfgang Miilfer-Lauter

Man would rather will nothingness than not will.

-GMII:28

Nietzsche no doubt came across the term "nihilism," which he began using in the
1880s, in a series of contemporary writers. Due to its use by the Russian anarchists,
the term had acquired widespread popularity in the German-speaking region, too. I
The picture Nietzsche formed of those anarchists was mostly determined by his
reading of Dostoevsky's novels;2 but he also read, for example, publications of Ivan
Turgenev and Alexander Herzen (in Sorrento, by 1877 at the latest)3 and perhaps
excerpted Peter Kropotkin. 4 According to Charles Andler,S Nietzsche's usc of the
word "nihilism" resulred from his reading of Paul Bourget's Essais de psych%gie
contemporaine. 6
Bourget, it should be noted, speaks of nihilism mainly with the Russian anarchists
in mind. Yet he also relates this nihilism closely with other, in part very diverse,
kinds of phenomena of his time, all pointing to one basic evil: disgust with the
world. In his Baudelaire essay, Bourget seeks to discover the origin of this feeling.
He identifies it as the discrepancy between the needs of the modern age that accom-
pany the development of civilization and the inadequacies of existing reality. The
universal outbreak of world-nausea in the nineteenth century was, he believed,
caused by this outbreak. It manifested itself in different ways. Among the Slavs it

'Originally appeared in Nietzsche: His Philosophy of Contradictions and Contradictions of His

Philosophy, wrinen by Wolfgang Muller-Lauter and translated by David J. Parent (Chicago:
University of Illinois Press, 1999), 41-49. Reprinred with permission of the University of
Illinois Press.

209
210 Wolfgang Miiller-Lallter

was expressed as nihilism, among the Germanic nations as pessimism, and among
the Romanic nations in an unusual nervous irritability.? In all this, however, Bourget
finds the same "spirit of the negation of life, which darkens Western civilization
more and more each day."~
Nietzsche recognized a kindred spirit in Bourget. Like Bourget he was concerned
with diagnosing the "sickness" of the century and developing a "theory" of deca-
dence. The horizon within which this happened in Bourget could, of course, not
seem broad enough for him; the discrepancy between need and reality offered him
no satisfactory explanation of the spirit of the negation of life. What supposedly
comprised the background for that spirit, according to the "discrete psychologist"
Bourget,~ had to be accounted merely foreground by Nietzsche.
More distinctly than Bourget, Nietzsche sums up the various "symptoms of sick-
ness" under the name of nihilism. How far back he traces the pathological history
of the modern European was described in our comments on his philosophy of his-
tory. In retrospect it can be said that the binh of moral man marks the beginning
of Western nihilism.
Nietzsche, then, reaches funher back than others who spoke of nihilism before
him. And he no longer understands nihilism primarily as the result of reason's exag-
gerated self-glorification, as it appeared in critiques of the philosophy of German
Idealism by F. H. Jacobi, Franz von Baader, Christian H. Weisse, and Immanuel H.
Fichte--of which critiques Nietzsche probably had no knowledge. Nihilism, detect-
able even prior to all reflection and speculation, cannot be refuted by merely rational
arguments: "The real refutations are physiological" (Nachlajl XIV, 339).10 For if
reason wages war on decadence, it does nor thereby extract itself from decadence.
Reason can, at best, change the expression of decadence, as Nietzsche tries to show
by the example of Socrates (TI "Socrates" 10; cf. WP 435).
All consciousness is, as the last and latest phase of the development of the organic,
much too unfinished and weak (GS 11) to be of any avail against what it stems from.
"The growth of consciousness" often does appear to be a "danger," indeed a "dis-
ease" (GS 354)-namely, in a genealogy of self-consciousness attempted by Nietz-
sche-yet he does not carry to extremes what the discussion of nihilism had
discovered before him. He wants to seek the disease at its place of origin. The "weak,
delicate, and morbid effects of the spirit" are for him ultimately merely symptoms of
physiological processes (WP 899). In his view "the nihilistic movement is merely
the expression of physiological decadence" (WP 38).
What does Nietzsche mean by the "physiological," which he tries to "draw forth"
(D 542), not only from behind consciousness "as such" and its logical positings
(BGE 3), but also from behind the moral (D 542; cf. GM I: 17n) and aesthetic (GM
1II:9) valuations? Physiological processes are "releases of energy" (Nachlajl XIII,
263). But this means power struggles of will-quanta. Physiology, rightly understood,
is thus the theory of the will to power (BGE 13), just as is psychology, rightly under-
stood, which amalgamates with the former inro a "physio-psychology" (BGE 29).
Thus, we can here refer back to the discussions in chapter 1. II
 Nihilism as Will to Nothingness 211

Consciousness is, under such a physio-psychological aspect, still inadequately

characterized as a weak late phenomenon. It is the "instrument" of a "many-headed
and much divided master" (NachlafXIII, 257), a "means and tool by which not a
subject but a struggle wants to preserve itself" (NachlajXIII, 71; cf. 164f). Quanta of
will organize themselves into relatively independent units. Man is such an especially
complex organization, which invests a consciousness for its serviceY
Now the nature of this decadence, whose "logic" is nihilism (WP 43), can be
clarified. It is a particular mode of physiological "releases of energy." The wills to
power, previously held together in a unity, now strive to separate. Nietzsche
describes this centripetal tendency as the "disintegration [Di,gregationl of the
instincts" (TJ "Skirmishes" 35). The concept of Di,gregation is already familiar to
us. We have repeatedly come across the term and its problematic in the first two
chapters. '3 This problematic now needs closer analysis.
Our starring point will be Nietzsche's portrayal of literary decadence. The very
style of a work of art can reveal "that life no longer dwells in the whole. The word
becomes sovereign and leaps out of the sentence; the sentence reaches out and
obscures the meaning of the page; the page gains life at the expense of the whole-
the whole is no longer a whole." Something similar applies to all modes of manifes-
tation of decadence. "The anarchy of the atoms" and "Disgregation of the will" go
hand in hand in them. The leading will that previously organized the unity of the
whole loses its power. Subordinate forces press for independence. Nietzsche finds
these signs, for example, in the moral claim for freedom of the individual, as in its
expansion to political theory with the demand for "equal rights for all" (CW7).
Decadence, described as Disgregation, is not a state but a process. To be sure, in
it the dissolution of an organization is intended But once this actually is completed,
once a unity has disintegrated into a plurality without cohesion (which cohesion is
possible only as a hierarchical structure), then we can no longer speak of decadence.
This term can designate only the phases of the disintegration process of a whole,
insofar as unity still remains despite all dissolution tendencies.
Therefore the question must be asked: What still holds together that which is in
the process of disintegrating on the way to its actual disintegration? This is a specific
process and not simply the mechanical disassembling of components. Nietzsche
rules out a mechanical interpretation. Pressure and stress are "something unspeak-
ably late, derivative, unprimeval." They already presuppose something "that holds
together and is able to exert pressure and stress" (WP 622). This original thing is the
"aggregate herd-condition ofacoms"; in it "is precisely non-stress and yet power, not
only of counter-striving, resistance, but rather mainly of arrangement, placement,
attachment, transferring and coalescing force" (NachlajXII, 72f). Mechanics is,
however, oriented on the model of the persistent thing, which stems from logic
inflated inco metaphysics. Its concept of force remains an empty word as long as an
inner will is not ascribed to it (cf. WP 619).
The nihilistic disintegration process, coo, is characterized by cohesion, and this
cohesion too is established by an inner will. All cohesion presupposes the rule of one
212 Wolfgang Miiller-Lauter

"drive," which subjugates a multiplicity of drives and forces them under itself. If the
Disgregation of what was originally held together under such a rulership is to be
carried out, that is possible only if the dominant "drive" gives the corresponding
instruction. Otherwise the efficacy common to the subordinate drives to detach
themselves from the union of the whole would be incomprehensible. Perishing thus
takes the form of a "self-destruction, the instinctive selection of that which must
destroy" (WP 55). The ruling will in such a whole must therefore be a will to disinte-
gration, which strives for the end or nonexistence of the unity it had organized. It is
the will to the end (A 9) or the will to nothingness or for nothingness (WP 401,
cf. 55).
All drives subject to the will to nothingness promote disintegration. This com-
mon trait is, however, not uniform. Each drive has its "own law of development"
that is determined by the conflict immanent within the whole. Each promotes the
downfall in its particular way. The "rate of speed" of disintegration is different in
each of them. Indeed, like every drive, the ruling will to nothingness arouses drives
against itself among the drives ruled by it. If such a "counterdrive" is strong enough,
it will seize the rulership t(H itself. Its function is, however, strangely discordant
when it remains subject to the will to nothingness and nonetheless fights against it.
Nothing other than such discordant willing is expressed in the decadence phe-
nomenon of asceticism, which Nietzsche investigates in the third essay of On the
Genealogy of Morals. What concerns him there is the meaning of the ascetic ideal:
"what it indicates; what lies hidden behind it, beneath it, in it; of what it is the
provisional, indistinct expression, overlaid with question marks and misunderstand-
ing" (GM III:23). This meaning becomes evidenr when Nietzsche analyzes the type
of the ascetic priest: he finds on the ground of the ascetic ideal "a discord that wants
to be discordant" (GM III: 11).
Discord now emerges in full clarity in Nietzsche's arguments. On the one hand,
life denies itselfin ascetic practice. For asceticism serves only as a bridge to a com-
pletely different, indeed opposite kind of existence (GM III: 11). For it employs force
"to block up the wells of force" (GM Ill: 11). An aversion to life is dominant here
(GM IIl:28). On the other hand, the ascetic ideal is an "artifice for the preservation
of life" (GM III:13). For even if life is to be merely a bridge, that bridge must be
constructed and thus life must be maintained. The ascetic priest is, by the power of
his desire "to be different, to be in a different place," chained to this life. Thus "this
denier is among the greatest conserving and yes-creating forces of life" (GM Ill: 13).
The ascetic simultaneously denies and affirms life. Naturally, it is not a matter of
the simultaneity of a total No and a total Yes. His No and Yes are interwoven in a
way that keeps in check the absolure claim of either side. The Yes restricts the No:
in the ascetic ideal "the door is closed to any kind of suicidal nihilism" (GM III:28).
And the No restricts the Yes: degenerating life that needs protection and healing
(GM IIl:13) cannot be healed by ascetic practice (GM lII:lG). The ascetic priest as
a "nurse and physician" (GM III: 14) does not fight "the real sickness" (GM III: 17),
he merely tries in his way to alleviare the suffering itself. The means he uses to treat
 Nihilism as Will to Nothingness 213

the patients are: reducing the feeling of life [0 impede depressive affects from taking
their full [011 (eM III: 17), distraction from suffering by mechanical activity (eM
III: IS), careful dosages of petry pleasure (eM III: IS), orgies of feeling (eM III: 19).
The last means makes the patielHs even sicker afterward (eM III:20; cf. 21). And
even the prior ones merely alleviate the symp[Oms of the illness. Indeed, the ascetic
priest, as "he stills the pain of the wound ... at the same time infects the wound"
(eM Ill: 15). His practice, then, finally brings "fresh suffering with it, deeper, more
inward, more poisonous, more life-destructive suffering" (eM I1I:2S).
The possibilities and limits of a counterdrive dominated by the will to nothing-
ness thus become clearly discernible. The ascetic priest is sick himself (eM III: 15)
yet must on the mher hand still be healthy enough [0 be able [0 ward off immediate
disintegration. His will must be strong enough [0 organize the still resistant vital
instincts. In the struggle against depression, he strives for the formation of the herd
(eM III: IS). He fights "against anarchy and ever-threatening disintegration within
the herd" (eM III: 15). He seeks [0 vent ressentiment-this explosive material that
threatens to blow up the herd-in such a way that it changes direction. This is done
by shifting the cause of suffering into the sufferer himself (eM III: 15). The result
of all this, however, is merely that a chronic disease replaces a rapid death. The dom-
inant will to nothingness still wins out at the core of the drive that is directed against
it. 14 As long as it rules one must "go forward, which is to say step by step forther into
decadence. ... One can retard this development and, through retardation, dam and
gather up degeneration itself and make it more vehement and sudden: more one
cannot do" (TI "Skirmishes" 43). Asceticism leads to such impediments and distur-
bances. These, in turn, prepare the way for explosions of active nihilism, which will
be discussed below.
As for the root of the ascetic ideal, the will to nothingness must be examined in
terms of what originally constituted it. And since Nietzsche traces back not only this
ideal, but all manifestations and forms of decadence [0 it, his analysis is of decisive
significance for the problem of nihilism. According [0 the foregoing reRections,
nihilism can basically be nothing else but the will to nothingness, and in fact it is
always so characterized by Nietzsche (eM II:21, 24; eM III:14).
First, it must be asked: How can nothingness be willed at all? How must the will
be constituted so as to be directed toward nothingness? Again we can refer back to
remarks in chapter I. There is no mere will that would occur as something simple,
simply given, as a characteristic or as pure potency. In such a conception "the
'whither?'" has been "subtracted" (WP 692). The "willing whither" means "willing
an end," which includes willing "something" (WP 260).15 As such a willing, it can-
not not will. Therefore Nietzsche, in the context of his investigation of the ascetic
ideal, characterizes it as "the basic fact of the human will" that the will needs a goal:
"And it will rather will nothingness than not will" (eM III: 1). Can the will at all
intend nothingness? For even if we concede that nothingness could be "something"
in the sense of being intendable, we must observe that, for Nietzsche, [0 want
"something" means to want power.
214 Wolfgang Muller-Lauter

In srriving for norhingness, however, rhe will is carrying on irs own "self desrruc-
tion" (WP 55). Can ir, rhen, still be will to power? That is certainly Nietzsche's
convicrion. He does indeed write: "The will to nothingness has become masrer over
rhe will to life, more precisely over the 'ascending insrincrs'" (WP 40 1; cf. WP 685).
But the very formulation of rhis sentence ("has become master over") makes it clear
thar rhe will ro norhingness, in so doing, acrs as will (0 power. And in his character-
izarion of Chrisrianiry, Nietzsche expressly srates that in it "the will ro rhe end, the
nihilistic will ... wants power" (A 9). The will to power must thus again and again
be clearly distinguished from the will to life as understood by Schopenhauer. The
will ro life is "merely a special case" of the will ro power (WP 692). Even this "proc-
ess of decline" still stands "in the service of" the will to power (WP 675).
Even the will to nothingness is thus will ro power. Irs intemion thereby merely
becomes more incomprehensible. How can what wants power srrive for nothing-
ness? If Nietzsche were speaking of rhe will ro power as a simple meraphysical basic
principle that develops our of irs own self and intensifies intrinsically, the assertion
thar rhere is a power-will (0 nothingness would be absurd. Nietzsche, however, starts
wirh a mulripliciry of wills (0 power engaged in conflict wirh one anorher and form-
ing parries. In rhis struggle rhcre are vicrors and vanquished. A victorious and domi-
nam will is a srrong will; a defeared and subjugared will is a weak will. Neither
strcngrh nor weakness belong (0 rhe wills as a pro perry. They merely express rhc
ourcome of a srruggle in which rwo wills have bcen engaged againsr one anorher.
The victory of the srronger does not at first lead to the destruction but rather to rhe
subjugation of the weaker.]6 It establishes a ranking order in which the rwo depend
on each other; indeed, both are indispensable (0 one anorher (NachlafXIII, 170).
Vicrory and rank are, however, never final; rhe srruggle continues incessanrly. In a
reversal of rhe power relarions, rhe subjugated will can become the dominam one,
and the previously dominant will can be subjugated.
Of course, ro speak of a conflicr berween a srrong will and a weak will is a crude
simplification of what is in trurh a multiply gradared organizarion of will-quanra. It
musr always be remembercd thar "rhere is no will, and consequenrly neirher a strong
nor a weak will. The muitirude and Disgregation of impulses and the lack of any
systematic order among them resulr in a 'weak will'; their coordination under rhe
hegemony of a single predominant impulse results in a 'srrong will''' (WP 46). The
simplifYing way of speaking that Nierzsche employs again and again does not, how-
ever, impair his possibiliry ro expound on the problematic of decadence and ro make
clear an essenrial concrerizarion of an antithesis that determines his philosophical
thinking. The simplification, must, however, nor be carried so far (ha( the mulriplic-
ity is rraced back to one will to power. For then Nietzsche's basic idea is reversed.
We can do justice to this problem only if we see at leas( "rwo 'wills to power' in
conflict" (WP 401).'7
Nothingness is imended by an inirially dcfeated, weak will. This intemion must
be understood as a reaction to the strength of a vic(Orious and at firs( dominant will.
 Nihilism as Will to Nothingness 215

Thus the ressentiment-morality stems from a kind of denial of the noble moraliry
(A 24). Ahhough it may be "creative," it remains in its ground a reversal of values
that is bound to what it reverses. I"
The will ro nothingness is a counterwiIl. The weak do not deny for the sake of
denial as such. By their denial they want ro conquer the strong and rule over them.
For the stronger and weaker are the same in this: "They extend their power as far
as they can" (Nachlaj?XII, 273). For the purpose of domination, denial must act as
a condemnation. The weak condemn the will to power in the values of the strong.
But the condemnatory will is itself will ro power. Ir can absolutely not be anything
else, for basically all reality is will to power. Thus the only reality is condemned.
How can that happen? Only by the decadent will ro power inventing another reality
from which point of view the condemnation can be made. The fictional world must
appear with the claim to be the true world.
The possibility of lhis finion is given in man's biological need, in the stream of
becoming, to grasp the similar as the same and fixate what moves. What is suppos-
edly the same or constant can then be detached from becoming as something exist-
ing by itself. What is so detached, in truth "an apparent world," is constructed "out
of contradiction to the actual world" (TJ "World" 6). Man "invents a world so as
to be able ro slander and bespatter this world: in reality he reaches every time for
nothingness and construes nothingness as 'God,' as 'truth,' and in any case as judge
and condemner of this state of being" (WP 461). Thus, as Nietzsche sees it, in the
Christian concept of God "nothingness [is] deified, the will to nothingness sancti-
fied" (A 18).
In all this, the will ro nothingness is a will to power that hides itself as such. In
order ro rule, it demands that the will ro power that admits itself as such must abdi-
cate. It acts as the absolute opposite of life in order to work against life within it. In
realiry it does nor exit from life, for all opposites are immanent in life. We have
in truth no situation "outside life," from which we could oppose it. Therefore "a
condemnation of life by the living ... is after all no more than a symprom of a
certain kind of life" that is condemned ro perish. The condemnation of life is a
judgment made by condemned persons (TJ "Morality" 5).
That the condemning will is a will ro power may have become clear, but the
question arises: Can the fiction of a "true world," the self-orientation by something
nonexistent that this will performs, be equated with the will to self-destruction spo-
ken of above? In both things, Nietzsche sees the will to nothingness at work. But
whereas rhe latter instinctively seeks to destroy itself, rhe fiction established for the
purpose of condemnation serves the self-preservation and power-insrincts of the
weak.
That the will to nothingness-in the sense of the will ro self-destruct ion-has
taken rhe upper hand may be all the less clear since Nietzsche himself shows that in
"reality" the strong are weak and the weak are strong: "The strongest and most
fortunate are weak when opposed by organized herd instincts, by the rimidity of the
weak, by the vast majority" (WP 685). Against Darwinism, which he once called "a
216 Wo/fiang Miiller-Lauter

philosophy for butcher boys" (KSA 8:12[22]) compared with his own theory, he
writes that selection did not take place in favor of the strong; rather, it marshaled
up "the inevitable mastery of the mediocre, indeed even of the sub-mediocre types."
Nature "is cruel toward her children of fortune, she spares and protects and loves les
humbles" (WP 685; cf. TI "Skirmishes" 14). Therefore Nietzsche must ask himself
whether the "victory of the weak and mediocre" does not offer "perhaps a stronger
guarantee of life, of the species" (WP 401), than the rule of the strong, who in ruin-
ous struggles endanger not only themselves but also the very existence of the species
(WP864).
Everything suggests that this question must be an~wered in the affirmative. But
is this not a grotesque reversal of what Nietzsche wanted to expound? Does not
"lite" condemn those who affirm it unreservedly? Does it not justifY those who con-
demn it?
To counter such a supposed self-contradiction of Nietzsche's, we must refer back
to what became evident in his analysis of the ascetic ideal. It was shown there that
the weak remain weak even when they mobilize their still resistant vital forces against
decline; all they can do is prolong the agony. Now it must be added that even their
triumph over the strong, even their previous indispensableness for the preservation
of the species must not hide the fan that they bring about their own self-destruction
and hence the destruction of mankind. Their victory may be presented as a "slacken-
ing of tempo"; it may be "a self-defense against something even worse" (WP 401);
nonetheless, the worst must happen at last, if they stay in power. They have pre-
served the "species" by redirecting the human aggressive instincts from outside to
inside.l~ But the forces that formerly were exhausted in conflict are now dissipated.
Finally they must dry up completely.
Thus neither the strong type nor the weak type seem able [0 prevent the downfall
of mankind. But like the strength of the strong, according to Nietzsche, now the
weakness of the strong, [00, must in its necessity remain restricted to previous his-
tory, where chance prevailed." o Only a future "strong race," which will withdraw its
power from chance by planning and discipline, will no longer surrender that power
[0 the superior numbers of the weak. Such strong humans will stand in full agree-

ment with "life," which in its genuine form is nothing other than the rule of ascen-
dant wills [0 power over the descending wills to power.
As the will to the truly nonexistent "second world," which guides the weak, is a
disguised will to power in the only real world, it is also a disguised will to nothing-
ness, in the radial sense of the word. "With your good and evil," Nietzsche shouts
ro the weak, "you have forfeited life and weakened your wills; and your valuation
itself was the sign of the descending will that longs for death" (Nachla.fXII, p. 262).
The longing can swing into action. Then the weak destroy so as to be destroyed.
Self-destruction is the consequence of condemning life. 21 The process of wasting
away that leads to self-destruction is the his[Ory of nihilism. It brings to light more
and more what the resserttimertt-values really imply, at first without the knowledge
of their representatives.
 Nihilism as Will to Nothingness 217

NOTES
1. We cannot go into derails here on rhe history of this concepr. Some hints, however,
should be given. In France this history goes back to the French Revolution, where the word
nihiliste was used to designate an attitude of political or religious indifference. The philosoph-
ical use of the term is first found in F. H. Jacobi, who in his Sendschreibm an Fichte (1799)
labels his idealism as nihilism. From then on the term plays a role in various philosophical
and political disputes. Its application to the movement of French socialism in rhe nineteenth
century and ro the "len Hegelians" (who are rhe heirs ro the reproach of nihilism rhat had
first been leveled against the idealist philosophies of Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel) determined
the use of the word in the social and political struggles in Russia. From there ir radiated back
ro rhe central Europl!an language area, so blurring rhl! ongoing history of the tcrm that I.
Turgenev, in his Literatur- und Lebmserinnerungen (German edition of 1892,105) could stare
that he had invl!nted rhe word, an error that was repeated aner him until our time (e.g., by
G. Benn, Nach dem Nihilismus, 1932, GW I, 1959, I 56f, and by A. Srender-Perersen, Gesch-
ichte der russischen Literatur, II, 1957, 25 I). Turgenev, however, was not even the first ro use
rhe word in Russia; quite a few authors used ir there before him.
2. The spiritual relationship between Nietzsche and Dostoevsky has frequently been
brought out since the turn of the cenrury, especially in France, occasioned above all by the
translation of D. S. Mereshkovski's book on Tolsroy and Dostoevsky (1903). A. Suares, A.
Gide, and L. Shestov have taken up this theme. On this topic cf. H. F. Minssen: "Die franzo-
sische Kritik und Dostoevski." E. Benz discussed Dostoevsky's influence on Nietzsche in
Nietzsches Ideen zur Geschichte des Christentums, 83-93, with consideration of the works of
Minnssen and Ch. Andler. Benz published an expanded and pardy revised version of his book
under the tide Nietzsches Idem zur Geschichte des Christentums und der Kirche in the year
1956. He also cites works of Shestov and Tshizhevski on the Nietzsche- Dostoevsky problem
(92). This problem is quite as inadequately treated in both versions of his book as in the two
authors he cites. The extent of Dosroevsky's influence on Nietzsche had to remain unknown
in any case, as long as there was incomplete knowledge of Nietzsche's reading of Dostoevsky.
Only recently have G. Colli and M. Montinari, in Volume VIII/2 of rhe KGW (383-95),
published rhe excerpts that Nietzsche copied from the French translation of Dostoevsky's
novel Les PossMh. Only by taking into consideration Nietzsche's knowledge of The Demons
can one do justice to his understanding of Dostoevsky, and moreover Russian nihilism.
3. Cf. M. Montinari, Das Leben Friedrich Nietzsches in den Jahren 1875-1979 [sic].
Chronik, in KGWIV/4, 27. I additionally owe M. Monrinari important references to sources
inaccessible to me about Nietzsche's reading of these two Russian authors. Unfortunately rhey
do not provide informarion as to wherher Nietzsche read Turgenev's novels rathers and Sons
(I 862) and New Land (1872), in which that author uses the term "nihilism." But I consider
it highly probable.
4. F. Wtirzbach states this in vol. XIX of the Musarion-Ausgabe, 432. Cf. however O.
WeiR, in GA, XVI, 515f. [Ed. Note--The abbreviarion GA in this essay refers to Grojlokta-
vausgabe, edited by rhe Nicrzsche Archive, 19 vols. in three divisions (Leipzig, 1894-1912).
Citations dcsignared as Nachlajlrefer to rhis edition.}
5. Ch. Andler, Nietzsche, sa vie et sa pensee, 6 vols., 1920ff., I1I:4IS, 424.
6. The firsr volume appeared in 1883; the second, in IS85. H. Platz, "Nietzsche und
Bourget," 177-86, cannot confirm Ch. Andler's assumption that Nierzsche read nor only rhe
second, but also the first volume of Bourgcr's Essais (18 I). But there is no doubt about it.
218 Woljgang Muller-Lauter

Among other authors, Bertram (Nietzsche, 231) called attention [0 the fact that Nietzsche's
description of literary decadence is "a paraphrase of sentences" from Bourget's first volume.
Proof that Nietzsche read this volume is found in a still unpublished fragment in a notebook
from the summer of 1887, which information lowe to M. Montinari: "Style ofdecadence in
Wagner: the individual turn of phrase becomes sovereign, subordination and adjustment
become accidental" (Bourget, 25).
7. Essais I, 1887, 13ff. As an example of the "universal nausea before the inadequacies of
this world," Bourget names "the murderous rage of the St. Petersburg conspirators, Schopen-
hauer's books, the furious arsenies of the Commune, and the implacable misanthropy of the
naturalist novelists."
8. Ibid., 15.
9. Nietzsche writes thus about Bourget in EH, "Why I Am So Clever," 3.
10. Ed. Note-Nachlal in this essay refers [0 the material published in Groloktavausgabe
edition of Nietzsche's works; see note 4.
I I. Ed. Note-The reference is to the chapter tided "Apparent Contradictions and Real
Contradictions of the Will [0 Power."
12. Here we must forego a further investigation of Nietzsche's understanding of con-
sCIOusness.
13. Ed. Note-For the first chapter, see note II. The second chapter is titled "The Prob-
lem of Contradictions in Nietzsche's Philosophy of History."
14. As an example of how one can simplify the antitheticalness ofthe real, which Nietzsche
is trying to show, into the absurdity ofhis philosophical thinking, L. Klages's statements on the
"priestly will to power" can be cited: "If it were not the Christian in Nietzsche who with his
doctrine of the will to power is addressing confessors of the will to power, namely, Christians,
even his sparkling dialectics and incomparable an of description would hardly have sufficed
to hide the self-contradiction even where it emerges very openly from within to the outside.
The will to life is supposed to be life; life, the will to power. Now precisely the priest pro-
claims the most stubborn, relentless will to power that never fails even under the most difficult
conditions, ... becomes master over warriors, kings, over all mankind: then he would most
clearly be the mode of appearance of life that is most worthy of respect. But he supposedly
represents the power will of a sickness, indeed a power will of weakness and a will to nothing-
ness. Is one to believe that anyone except Nietzsche himself ... fails to notice the complete
vacuity of such turns of phrase" (Die psychologischen Errungenschaften Nietzsches, 196).
15. See chapter I, note 32. [Ed. Note-Muller-Lauter refers here [0 the discussion in
which he notes the "difference from a concept of will marked by the idea of entelechy,"
citing a note "aimed against Hegel's teleologically determined idea of history. In this context
[Nietzsche] writes: 'That my life has no purpose is clear from the accidental ness of my origin:
that I call set a purpose for myself is another matter. But a state is not a purpose; rather, only
we give it this purpose or that one' (NachlaIX, 275)."J
16. "First conquering the feeling of power, then mastering (organizing) it-it regulates
what has been overcome for its preservation and thus it preserves what has been overcome itself"
(NachlaIXII, 106).
17. The cited passage does not speak of one "will to power" engaged in a "struggle with
itself" and thereby doubled, as E. Biser, says, interpreting it as a "principle" (Gott ist tot,
169fT).
18. E. Fink finds in Nierzsche's writings after Zarathustra an ambiguity in the use of the
 Nihilism as Will to Nothingness 219

rerms lifo and will to power. Thus Nierzsche speaks of power "brilliamly. . in rhe sense
of oncological universaliry and then again in rhe sense of rhe omological model" (Nietzsches
Philosophie, 128). Fink accordingly distinguishes between rhe "transcendemal value-plan of
exisrence" and "a 'comemual,' 'material' inrerpreration of life" in Nierzsche. The transirion
from the one co the other is, for Fink, "perhaps rhe mosr dispurable poim in Nierzsche's
philosophy." This disputableness also crepr imo his dual undersranding of rhe will co power.
The will co power was, firsr, "the basic rendency in rhe movemenr of all finire being," express-
ing itself: for example, as much in the heroic-rragic valuation as in Christian morality. "So
undersrood, everything is will to power." Second, it was given a particular conrenr and mean-
ing, such as that of the heroic mode of thinking. Nietzsche did not succeed in overcoming
such ambiguity. The estimation according ro strength and weakness was nothing but a valua-
tion of Nietzsche's, which represemed only one possibility of lifo's valuating activity o/lifl, of
the "great player." Fink asks whether from the standpoint of the universal as the "ultimate
gambler" and "player," "all values are not of equal rank"? "Are they nor all equally forms in
which life tries its hand for a period of time?" (122). The onrological dimension of life or of
the will to power, prior ro anything ontic, is a construction of Fink's. Nietzsche not only does
not need the presupposition of such a universal; it colltradicts his thinking, as was shown
above. The ambiguity that Fink discovers in Nietzsche was inserted into the philosopher he
is interprering by Fink himself
19. But rhe species did nor preserve itself through them. In rrurh "rhere is no species"-in
the sense of such an active subject-"but solely sheerly diverse individual beings." There is
also no "nature," "which wams co 'preserve rhe species,''' bur rather only the faa rhat "many
similar beings wirh similar conditions of existence" more easily preserve themselves "than
abnormal beings" (Nachlaj?XII. 73).
20. See chapter 2, note 54. [Ed. Note-Muller-Lamer refers here ro Nachlaj? X, 402:
"Whoever does nO( grasp how brural and meaningless hisroty is will also nor understand rhe
urge to make histoty meaningful." And ro KSA 8:5[150], which treats, in part, rhe dforr ro
rarionalize hisrory as motivated by religion.
21. A logical consequence of Nierzsche's thinking is that even the act of suicide is the
expression of a power-will: in his self-extinction rhe suicidal person wants to triumph over
life.
III
CRITIQUING GENEALOGY
14
The Entwinement of Myth and
Enlightenment*
}iirgen Habermas

Twenty-five years after the conclusion of Dialectic of Enlightenment, Theodor

Adorno remained faithful to its philosophical impulse and never deviated from the
paradoxical structure of thinking as totalizing critique. The grandeur of this consis-
tency is shown by a comparison with Nietzsche, whose On the Genealogy ofMorals
had been the great model for a second level of reRection on the Enlightenment.
Nietzsche suppressed the paradoxical strucrure and explained the complete assimila-
tion of reason to power in modernity with a theory ofpower that was remythologized
our of arbitrary pieces and that, in place of the claim to truth, retains no more than
the rhetorical claim proper to an aesthetic fragment. Nietzsche showed how one
totalizes critique; but what comes our in the end is only that he finds the fusion of
validity and power scandalous because it impedes a glorified will to power that has
taken on the connotations of artistic productivity. The comparison with Nietzsche
makes manifest that no direction is inscribed in totalized critique as such. Nietzsche
is the one among the steadfast theoreticians of unmasking who radicalizes the
counter-Enlightenment. I
The stance of Max Horkheimer and Adorno toward Nietzsche is ambivalent. On
the one hand, they 2ttest of him that he was "one of the few after Hegel who recog-
nized the dialectic of enlightenment" (Dialectic of Enlightenment, 44).2 Narurally,
they accept the "merciless doctrine of the identity of domination and reason" (Dia-

* Excerpted from The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity, written by Jurgen Habermas and
translated by Frederick Lawrence (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1987), 120-30. Excerpt pub-
lished here with the p.:rmission of the amhor, MIT Press, and Polity Press.

223
224 }iirgen Habermas

lectic of Enlightenment, 119), which is to say, the approach toward a totalizing self-
overcoming of ideology critique. On the other hand, they cannot overlook the fact
that Hegel is also Nietzsche's great antipode. Nietzsche gives the critique of reason
such an affirmative twist that even determinate negation-which is to say, the very
procedure that Horkheimer and Adorno want to retain as the sole exercise, since
reason itself has become so shaky-loses its sting. Nietzsche's critique consumes the
critical impulse itself: "As a protest against civilization, the masters' moraliry con-
versely represents the oppressed. Hatred of atrophied instincts actually denounces
the true nature of the taskmasters-which comes to light only in their victims. But
as a Great Power or state religion, the masters' morality wholly subscribes to the
civilizing powers that be, the compact majoriry, resentment, and everything that it
formerly opposed. The realization of Nietzsche's assertions both refutes them and at
the same time reveals their truth, which-despite all his affirmation of life-was
inimical to the spirit of reality" (Dialectic of Enlightenment, 101).
This ambivalent attitude toward Nietzsche is instructive. It also suggests that Dia-
lectic ofEnlightenment owes more to Nietzsche than just the strategy of an ideology
critique turned against itself. Indeed, what is unexplained throughout is their certain
lack of concern in dealing with the (to put it in the form of a slogan) achievements
of Occidental rationalism. How can these two men of the Enlightenment (which
they both remain) be so unappreciative of the rational content of culrural modernity
that all they perceive everywhere is a binding of reason and domination, of power
and validity? Have they also let themselves be inspired by Nietzsche in drawing their
criteria for cultural criticism from a basic experience of aesthetic modernity that has
now been rendered independent?
The similarities in content are at first startling. 3 Point-for-point correspondences
with Nietzsche are found in the construction by which Horkheimer and Adorno
underpin their "primal history of subjectivity." As soon as humans were robbed of
their detached instincts, claims Nietzsche, they had to rely on their "consciousness,"
namely, on their apparatus for objectifYing and manipulating external nature: "They
were reduced to thinking, inferring, reckoning, co-ordinating cause and effect, these
unfortunate creatures" (GM II: 16).4 In the same stroke, however, the old instincts
had to be tamed, and feelings and desires, no longer finding a spontaneous outlet,
had to be repressed. In the course of this process of reversal of conative direction
and of internalization, the subjectivity of an inner nature was formed under the sign
of renunciation or of "bad conscience": "All insrincts that do not discharge them-
selves outwardly tum inward-this is what I call the internalization of man: thus it
was that man first developed what was later called his 'sou!.' The entire inner world,
originally as thin as if it were stretched between two membranes, expanded and
extended itself, acquired depth, breadth, and height, in the name of measure as out-
ward discharge was inhibited" (GM II: 16). Finally, the two elements of domination
over external and internal nature were bound togerher and fixed in the institutional-
ized dominion of human beings over other humans: "The curse of society and of
peace" is based in all institutions, because they coerce people into renunciation:
 The Entwinement ofMyth and Enlightenment 225

"Those fearful bulwarks with which the political organization protected itself against
the old instincts of freedom-punishments belong among these bulwarks-brought
about that all these instincts of wild, free, prowling man turned backward against
man himself' (GM II: 16).
Similarly, Nietzsche's critique of knowledge and morality anticipates an idea that
Horkheimer and Adorno develop in the form of the critique of instrumental reason:
Behind positivism's ideals of objectivity and claims to truth, behind universalistic
morality's ideals of asceticism and claims to rightness, lurk imperatives of self-
preservation and domination. A pragmatist epistemology and a moral psychology
unmask theoretical and practical reason as pure fictions in which power claims fur-
nish themselves an effective alibi-with the help of imagination and of the "drive
to metaphorize," tor which external stimuli provide only the occasion for projective
responses and for a web of interpretations behind which the text disappears alto-
gether.'
Nietzsche brings out the perspective from which he handles modernity in a way
different from that of Dialectic Enlightenment. And only this angle explains why
objectified nature and morality sink to correlative torms of appearance of the same
mythic force, be it of a perverted will to power or of instrumental reason.
This perspective was inaugurated with aesthetic modernity and that stubborn self-
disclosure (forced by avant-garde art) of a decentered subjectivity liberated from all
constraints of cognition and purposiveness and from all imperatives of labor and
utility. Nietzsche, not just a contemporary and kindred spirit of Mallarme;" he not
only imbibed the late Romantic spirit of Richard Wagner; he is the first to conceptu-
alize the attitude of aesthetic modernity before avant-garde consciousness assumed
objective shape in the literature, painting, and music of the twentieth century-and
could be elaborated by Adorno into an Aesthetic Theory. In the upgrading of the
transitory, in the celebration of the dynamic, in the glorification of the current and
the new, there is expressed an aesthetically motivated time-consciousness and a long-
ing for an unspoiled, inward presence. The anarchist intention of the Surrealists to
explode the continuum of the story of decline is already operative in Nietzsche. The
subversive force of aesthetic resistance that would later feed the reflections of Benja-
min and even of Peter Weiss, already arises from the experience in Nietzsche of
rebellion against everything normative. It is this same force that neutralizes both the
morally good and the practically useful, which expresses itself in the dialectic of
secret and scandal and in the pleasure derived from the horror of profanation. Nietz-
sche builds up Socrates and Christ, those advocates of belief in truth and the ascetic
ideal, as his great opponents; they are the ones who negate the aesthetic values!
Nietzsche trusts only in art, "in which precisely the lie is sanctified, the will to decep-
tion" (GM III:25), and in the terror of the beautiful, not to let themselves be impris-
oned by the fictive world of science and morality.
Nietzsche enthrones taste, "the Yes and No of the palate" (BGE 224), as the sole
organ of "knowledge" beyond truth and falsehood, beyond good and evil. He ele-
vates the judgment of taste of the an critic into the model for value judgment, for
226 Jiirgen Habermas

"evaluation." The legitimate meaning of critique is that of a value judgment that

establishes an order of rank, weighs things, and measures forces. And all interpreta-
tion is evaluation. "Yes" expresses a high appraisal; "No" a low one. The "high"
and the "low" indicate the dimension of yes/no positions in general.
It is interesting to see how coherently Nietzsche undermines the taking of "Yes"
and "No" positions on criticizable validity claims. First, he devalues the truth of
assertive statements and the rightness of normative ones, by reducing validity and
invalidity to positive and negative value judgments. He reduces "p is true" and "h is
right" (that is, the complex statements by which we claim validity for propositional
statemencs or for ought statements) to simple evaluative sratemencs by which we
express value appraisals, by which we state that we prefer the true to the false and
good over evil. Thus, Nietzsche reincerprets validity claims inco preferences and then
poses the question: "Suppose that we prefer truth (and justice): why not rather
uncruth (and injustice)?" (BGE 1). The responses to questions about the "value" of
rruth and justice are judgments of taste.
Of course, there could still be an architectonic lurking behind these fundamencal
value appraisals that, as in Schelling, anchors the unity of theoretical and practical
reason in the faculty of aesthetic judgmenc. Nietzsche can carty out his complete
assimilation of reason to power only by removing any cognitive status from value
judgments and by demonstrating that the yes/no positions of value appraisals no
longer express validity claims, but pure power claims.
Viewed in terms of language analysis, the next step in the argument therefore has
the aims of assimilating judgments of taste to imperatives, and value appraisals to
expressions of will. Nietzsche disputes Kant's analysis of judgments of taste in order
to ground the thesis that evaluations are necessarily subjective and cannot be linked
with a claim to intersubjective validity (GM HI:6). The illusion of disinterested plea-
sure and of the impersonal character and universality of aesthetic judgment arises
only from the perspective of the spectator; but from the perspective of the producing
anist we realize that value appraisals are induced by innovative value positings. The
aesthetics of production unfolds the experience of the genial artist who creates values:
From his perspective, value appraisals are dictated by his "value-positing eye" (GM
I: 10). Value-positing productivity prescribes the law for value appraisal. What is
expressed in the validity claimed by the judgment of taste is only "the excitement of
the will by the beautiful." One will responds to another; one force takes hold of
another.
This is the route by which Nietzsche arrives at the concept of the will to power
from the yes/no positions of value appraisals, after he has cleansed them of all cogni-
tive claims. The beautiful is "the stimulant of the will to power." The aesthetic core
of the will to power is the capacity of a sensibility that lets itself be affected in the
greatest possible multiplicity of modes.?
However, if thinking can no longer operate in the element of truth, or of validity
claims in general," contradiction and criticism lose their meaning. To contradict, to
negate, now has only the sense of" wanting to be different." Nietzsche cannot really
 The Entwinement ofMyth and Enlightenment 227

be satisfied with this in his critique of culture. The laner is not supposed to be
merely a form of agitation, but to demonstrate why it is false or incorrect or bad to
recognize the sovereignty of the ideals of science and universalistic morality, which
are inimical to life. But once all predicates concerning validity arc devalued, once it
is power and not validity claims that is expressed in value appraisals-by what crite-
rion shall critique still be able 1O propose discrimination? It must at least be able to
discriminate between a power that deserves 1O be esteemed and one that deserves to
be devalued.
A theory ofpower that distinguishes between "active" and merely "reactive" forces
is supposed to offer a way our of this aporia. But Nietzsche cannot admit of the
theory of power as a theory that can be true or false. He himself moves about,
according co his own analysis, in a world of illusion, in which lighter shadows can
be distinguished from darker ones, but not reason from unreason. This is, as it were,
a world fallen back into myth, in which powers influence one another and no ele-
ment remains that could transcend the bat ric of the powers. Perhaps it is typical of
the ahistorical mode of perception proper to aesthetic modernity that particular
epochs lose their own profile in favor of a heroic affinity of the present with the
most remote and the most primitive: The decadent strives to relate itself in a leap to
the barbaric, the wild, and the primitive. In any case, Nietzsche's renewal of the
framework of the myth of origins is suited to this mentality: Authentic culture has
been in decline already for a long time; the curse of remoteness from origins lays
upon the present; and so Nietzsche conceives of the gathering of a still dawning
culture in anti utopian terms-as a comeback and a return.
This framework docs not have a merely metaphorical status; it has the systematic
role of making room for the paradoxical business of a critique disburdened of the
morrgages of enlightened thought. That is to say, totalized ideology critique for
Nietzsche turns inro what he calls "genealogical critique." Once the critical sense of
saying "No" is suspended and the procedure of negation is rendered impotent,
Nietzsche goes back to the very dimension of the myth of origins that permits a
distinction that affects all other dimension: What is older is earlier in the generational
chain and nearer to the origin. The more primordial is considered the more worthy
of honor, the preferable, the more unspoiled, the purer: It is deemed better. Deriva-
tion and descent serve as criteria of rank, in both the social and the logical senses.
In this manner, Nietzsche bases his critique of morality on genealogy. He traces
the moral appraisal of value, which assigns a person or a mode of action a place
within a rank ordering based on criteria of validity, back to the descent and hence
to the social rank of the one making the moral judgment: "The signpost to the right
road was for me the question: what was the real etymological significance of the
designations for 'good' coined in the various languages? I found they allied back to
the same conceptual transformation-that everywhere 'noble,' 'aristocratic' in the
social [standlischl sense, is the basic concept from which 'good' in the sense of 'with
aristocratic soul,' 'noble,' 'with the soul of a higher order,' 'with a privileged soul'
228 furgen Habermas

necessarily developed: a development which always runs parallel to that other in

which 'common,' 'plebeian,' 'low' are finally transformed into the concept 'bad'"
(GM I:4). So the genealogical localization of powers takes on a critical sense: Those
forces with an earlier, more noble descent are the active, creative ones, whereas a
perverted will to power is expressed in the forces of later, lower, and reactive
descentY
Wirh this, Nietzsche has in hand the conceptual means by which he can denounce
the prevalence of the belief in reason and of the ascetic ideal, of science and morality,
as a merely factual victory (though of course decisive for the fate of modernity) of
lower and reactionary forces. As is well known, they are supposed (0 have arisen
from rhe resentment of the weaker and "the protective and healing instinct of a
degenerating life" (GM III: 13).10
We have pursued totalizing critique applied to itself in two variants. Horkheimer
and Adorno find themselves in the same embarrassment as Nietzsche: If they do nO(
want to renounce the effect of a final unmasking and still want to continue with
critique, they will have (0 leave at least one rational criterion intact for their explana-
tion of the corruption of all rational criteria. In the face of this paradox, self-referential
critique loses its orientation. It has two options.
Nietzsche seeks refuge in a theory of power, which is consistent, since the fusion
of reason and power revealed by critique abandons the world to the irreconcilable
struggle between powers, as if it were the mythic world. It is fining that Nietzsche,
mediated by Gilles Dcleuzc, has become influential in strucruralist France as a theo-
retician of power. Foucault, too, in his later work, replaces the model of domination
based on repression (developed in the tradition of enlightenment by Marx and
Freud) by a plurality of power strategies. These power strategies intersect one
another, succeed one anO(hcr; they are distinguished according to the type of their
discourse formation and the degree of their intensity; but they cannot be judged
under the aspect of their validity, as was the case with consciously working through
conflicts in contrast (0 unconsciously doing so."
The doctrine of active and merely reactive forces also fails to provide a way out
of the embarrassment of a critique that anacks the presuppositions of its own valid-
ity. At best, it paves the way for breaking our of the horizon of modernity. It is
without basis as a theory, if the categorial distinction between power claims and
truth claims is the ground upon which any theoretical approach has to be enacted.
The effect of unmasking is also transformed as a result: It is not the lightning flash
of insight into some confusion threatening identity that causes shock, the way under-
standing the point of a joke causes liberating laughter; what produces shock is
affirmative de-differentiation, an affirmative overthrow of the very categories that
can make an act of mistaking, of forgetting, or of misspeaking into a category mis-
take threatening to identity-or art into illusion. This regressive turn still places the
forces of emancipation at the service of counterenlightenment.
Horkheimer and Adorno adopt another option by stirring up, holding open, and
no longer wanting (0 overcome theoretically the performative contradiction inherent
 The Entwinement ofMyth and Enlightenment 229

in an ideology critique that outstrips itself. Any a[(empt (0 develop a theory a( this
level of reflection would have (0 slide off into the groundless; (hey (here fore eschew
theory and practice de(erminate negation on an ad hoc basis, thus standing firm
against that fusion of reason and power that plugs all crevices: "Determinate nega-
tion rejects the defective ideas of the absolute, the idols, differently than does rigor-
ism, which confronts them with (he idea they cannot match up (0. Dialectic, on the
contrary, interprets every image as wri(ing. It shows how (he admission of its falsity
is co be read in the lines of its features-a contession that deprives i( of its power
and appropria(es it for truth. Thus language becomes more (han just a sign system.
Wi(h the notion of de(ermina(e negativity, Hegel revealed an dement that distin-
guishes the Enlightenment from the positivist degeneracy (0 which he attributes it"
(Dialectic ofEnlightenment, 24). A practiced spirit of contradiction is all that remains
of the "spirit of ... unrelenting theory." And this practice is like an incanta(ion
seeking "to turn ... (0 its end" the negative spirit of relentless progress (Dialectic of
Enlightenment, 42).
Anyone who abides in a paradox on the very spot once occupied by philosophy
with its ultimate groundings is not juS( taking up an uncomfortable position, one
can only hold that place if one makes it at least minimally plausible that there is no
way Ollt. Even the retreat from an aporetic situation has to be barred, for otherwise
there is a way-the way back. But I believe this is precisely the case.
The comparison with Nietzsche is instructive inasmuch as it draws our attention
to the aesthetic horizon of experience that guides and motivates the gaze of contem-
porary diagnosis. I have shown how Nietzsche detaches that moment of reason,
which comes into its own in the logic proper to the aesthetic-expressive sphere of
value, and especially in avant-garde art and art criticism, trom its connection with
theoretical and practical reason; and how he stylizes aesthetic judgment, on the
model of a "value appraisal" exiled to irrationality, into a capacity for discrimination
beyond good and evil, truth and falsehood. In this way, Nietzsche gains criteria for
a critique of culture that unmasks science and morality as being in similar ways ideo-
logical expressions of a perverted will (0 power, just as Dialectic of Enlightenment
denounces these structures as embodiments of instrumental reason.
In one respect, ideology critique had in fact continued the undialectical enlighten-
ment proper to onrological thinking. It remained caught up in the purist notion that
the devil needing exorcism was hiding in the internal relationships between genesis
and validity, so that theory, purified of all empirical connotations, could operate in
its own element. Totalized critique did not discharge this legacy. The intention of a
"final unmasking," which was supposed to draw away with one fell swoop the veil
covering the confusion between power and reason, reveals a purist intent-similar
to the intent of ontology to separate being and illusion categorically (that is, with
one stroke). However, just as in a communication community (he researcher, the
context of discovery, and the context of justification are so entwined with one
another tha( (hey have to be separa(ed procedurally, by a mediating kind of think-
ing-which is to say, continuously-the same holds for the two spheres of being
230 fargen Habennas

and illusion. In argumenration, critique is constantly entwined with theory, enlight-

enmenr with grounding, even though discourse participants always have to suppose
that only the unforced force of the better argumenr comes into play under the
unavoidable communication presuppositions of argumentative discourse. But they
know, or they can know, that even this idealization is only necessary because convic-
tions are formed and confirmed in a medium that is not "pure" and not removed
from the world of appearances in the sryle of Platonic "pure" and not removed from
the world of appearances in the style of Platonic Ideas. Only a discourse that admits
this might break the spell of mythic thinking without incurring a loss of the light
radiating from the semantic potentials also preserved in myth.

NOTES

I. Like his "new-conservative" successors, he [00 behaves like an "anti-sociologisr." Cf.

H. Baier, "Die Gesellschaft--ein langcr Schatten des [Oten Gottes," in Nietzsche-Stlidien 10/
11 (1982): 6ff.
2. Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno, Dialektik der Alifkliirung (Amsterdam: Quer-
ido, 1947). English translation Dialectic of Enlightenment [rrans. by John Cumming] (New
York: Herder and Herder, 1972).
3. See also Perer Piirz, "Nierzsche and Critical Theory," in Telos 50 (Wimer 1981-1982):
103-14.
4. Ed. Note: Translations of Nietzsche arc Walter Kaufmann's and R. J. Hollingdale's.
5. J. Habermas, "Nachwort" ro F. Nierzsche, Erkenntllistheoretische Schriften (Frankfurt:
Suhrkamp, 1%8), 237ft
6. Pointed out by Gilles Dcleuze, Nietzsche and Philosophy (New York: Columbia Univer-
siry Press, 1983), 32ff.
7. The mediating funcrion of the judgmem of taste in the reduction of yes/no positions
on criticizable validity claims to the "Yes" and "No" in rdation [0 imperative expressions of
will can also be seen in the manner in which Nierzsche, along with the concept of propositional
truth, revises the concept of world built into our grammar: "Indeed, whar forces us at all [0
suppose rhat there is an essenrial opposirion of '£rue' and 'false'? Is it not sufficient [0 assume
degrees of apparentness and, as it were, lighter and darker shadows and shades of appear-
ance-different 'values' [0 use the language of painters? Why couldn'r the world that concerns
liS be a fiction? And if somebody asks: 'but [0 a fiction there surely belongs an author?'-

couldn't one answer simply: why? Doesn'r rhis 'belongs' perhaps belong to the fiction, [Oo?
By now is one not permitted [0 be a bir ironic abour rhe subjecr no less than abour the
predicate and object? Shouldn't the philosopher be permirrcd [0 rise above faith in grammar?"
(BGE34)
8. Ddeuze, Nietzsche and Philosophy, 103ff.
9. Ddeuze, Nietzsche and Philosophy, 112.
10. Here I am imerested in the structure of the argument. Once he has destroyed the
foundations of the critique of ideology by a self-referential use of this critique, Nietzsche saves
his own position as an unmasking critic only by recourse to a figure of thought associated
with the myth of origins. The ideological content of On the Genealogy ofMorals and Nietzsche
batrle against modern ideas in general-in which the more cultivated among the despisers of
 The Entwinement ofMyth and Enlightenment 231

democracy, now as ever, show a conspicuous interest-is another matter altogether. See R.
Maurer, "Nietzsche und die Kritische Theorie," and G. Rohrmoser, "Nietzschcs Kritik der
Moral," Nietzsche-Studien 10/11 (1982): 34ff and 328ff.
11. H. Fink-Eitel, "Michel Foucaults Analyrik der Macht," in F. A. Kittler, ed., Austrei-
bung des Geistes aIlS den Geisteswissenschaften (Paderborn: Schoningh, 1980), 38ff; Axel Hon-
neth and Hans Joas, Soziales Handeln und menschliche Natur (Frankfurt: Campus Verlag,
1980),123tI
 15
Translating, Repeating, Naming
Foucault, Derrida, and the Genealogy of Morals*

Gary Shapiro
,1

Two cautions or warnings (at least) must be heeded in the attempt to do justice to
Nietzsche's project of a genealogy of morals in the text that bears that name. While
the Genealogy is often regarded as the most straightforward and continuous ofNietz-
sche's books, he tells us in Ecce Homo that its three essays are "perhaps uncannier
than anything else written so far in regard to expression, intention, and the an of
surprise" (EH "GM").' If we imagine ourselves successful in penetrating to these
unsettling secrets and saying what Nietzsche's text means, once and for all, we
should have to read again its lapidary although parenthetical injunction that "only
that which has no history can be defined." When Nietzsche published the Genealogy
in 1887, the main uses of the term arguably had to do with ascertaining family
lineages [0 determine rights to titles, honors, and inheritances, as in the venerable
Almanach of Gotha. Bur Foucault characterizes his History ofSexuality as a genealogy
of the modern self, and Derrida describes a large part of his intellectual project as
"repeating [he ~enealogy ~f morals"; Ni)tzsche's practice and example are invoked
in both cases. ~ IJ .1" ' t J
How might we proceed to assess the significance of Nietzsche's "genealogy" in
relation both to its mundane cousins and to such thinkers? I propose a panial, criti-
cal, and bifocal effort in that direction, consisting in a study of a few paradigmatic
readings of Nietzschean genealogy. I begin with Jiirgen Habermas, who assimilates

* Excerpted by the author from its original publication in Nietzsche as Postmodemist: Essays Pro
alld Con, edited by Clayton Koelb (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press), 39-55.
Reprinted with permission of SUNY Press.

233
234 Gary Shapiro

Nietzsche's project to the aristocratic attempt to demonstrate the superiority of the

most ancient and archaic. According to Habermas, Nietzsche's rejection of all ratio-
nal and critical criteria for assessing values leaves him no other option:

What is older is earlier in the generational chain and nearer to the origin, the more pri-
mordial is considered the more worthy of honor, the preferable, the more unspoiled.
the purer: It is deemed better. Derivation and descmt serve as the criteria of rank. in
both the social and the logical senses.
In this manner, Nietzsche bases his critique of morality on genealogy. He traces the
moral appraisal of value, which assigns a person or a mode of action a place within a
rank ordering based on criteria of validity, back to the descent and hence to the social
rank of the one making the moral judgment.'

This may be the genealogical scheme of values of the Almanach of Gotha, bur it is
nor Nietzsche's. Despite his bursts of admiration for the "blond beasts" of early
cultures, Nietzsche's narrative never returns us to a point at which one single, pure
form of morality obtains. Contrary both to rheological ethics and to the hypotheses
of the English utilitarian historians of morality, the Genealogy insists that there is no
single origin but only opposition and diversity no matter how far back we go. There
are, always already, at least two languages of morality, the aristocratic language of
"good and bad" and the slavish language of "good and eviL" Where a Platonist
would focus on the fact that "good" appears in both discourses and would search
for its common meaning, Nietzsche notes thar it is only the word shared by the two
languages. One says "good" and happily designates its satisfaction with itself; the
orher reactively designates those who speak in such a way as "evil" and who define
themselves as the opposites of the evil ones. Even within the aristocratic group,
Nietzsche observes, there are again at least two varieties of the moral code "good
and bad" which can be distinguished as the knightly and the priestly. Not myth, as
Habermas would have it, but something much more like the structuralist analysis of
myth is at work here.
While Habermas supposes that the rejection of the progressive and teleological
enlightenment conception of history must entail a nostalgic valorization of the
archaic, Michel Foucault's reading of Nietzsche and his own development of the
genealogical project are vigorously committed to avoiding the temptations of borh
nostalgia and progress. Genealogy is the articulation of differences, of affiliations
that never reduce to a system or totality and of the transformations of power/knowl-
edge in their unplanned and unpredictable concatenations. Foucault's later writings,
especially Discipline and Punish and The History of Sexuality, acknowledge their
indebtedness to Nietzsche with respect to these themes. Foucault sees his own dis-
tinctive contribution as the extension of the genealogical approach to the constitu-
tion of the human sciences and their associated disciplines and practices. In (facing
out the "capillary" forms of power, Foucaulr exhibits that rasre for the documenrary,
gray page of the legal text which, as Nietzsche indicates in his preface to the Geneal-
ogy, is the laborious side of the outrageous attempt to raise the question of the value
 Translating, Repeating, Naming 235

of morality. These works might be called translations of the Genealogy into the
worlds of the prison and surveillance, psychiatry and biopower. These translations
of the Nietzschean genealogy are grounded in his essay of 1971, "Nietzsche, Geneal-
ogy, History," which is both textual commentary on the Genealogy, and a thematiza-
tion of the principles that govern Foucault's later studies.
Foucault distinguishes two words, Ursprung and Herkunfi, which play important
roles in Nietzsche's text. 3 To be concerned with Ursprung, or origin, is to be a philo-
sophical historian who would trace morality-or any other subject matter-back to
an original principle that can be clarified and recuperated. The genealogist will,
however, be concerned with the complex web of ancestry and affiliations that are
called Herkunft, those alliances that form part of actual family trees, with all their
gaps, incestuous transgressions, and odd combinations. Here, Foucault tells us, the
genealogist comes into his own: "Where the soul pretends unification or the self
fabricates a coherent identity, the genealogist sets out [0 study the beginning-
numberless beginnings whose faim traces and hints of color are readily seen by an
historical eye" (NGH, 145).
Two possible points of view, two research programs, two types of inquirers are
designated by these two words and concepts. If Nietzsche were misconstrued as one
with a nostalgia for origins and an obsession with first principles, then his praise of
"the blond beast" and the "artistic violence" of "noble races" would support some-
thing like the mysticism of racial purity for which some Nazis claimed his authority.
Foucault tells us that Nietzsche's preface rules out such a reading: "One of the most
significant texts with respect to the use of all these terms and to the variations in the
use of Unprung is the preface to the Genealogy. At the beginning of the text, its
objective is defined as an examination of the origin of moral preconceptions and the
term used is Herkunft. Then, Nietzsche proceeds by retracing his personal involve-
ment with this question" (NGH, 141). The point of that narrative, Foucault says, is
to establish that even Nietzsche's analyses of morality ten years earlier (in Daybreak)
operated within the orbit of Herkunftshypothesen rather than the quest for origins.
Now isn't it a bit odd that Foucault determines the nature of this Nietzschean
text by whar he takes to be its transparent beginning? What that beginning
announces, so it seems, are the fundamental concepts of the genealogist and, even,
the birth of the genealogist, his vocation toward a certain kind of scientific work.
What will not be in question in Foucault's reading of the Genealogy is the identity
and voice of the genealogist. This search for a clear line, for a master speaker in
Nietzsche's text, is suspect: first, because it apparently exempts this text from the
very same genealogical, or differentiating, imperative that it finds in the text; and,
second, because it does not completely read or translate everything that is [0 be
found in the preface. In fact, Foucault starts not at the beginning of Nietzsche's
beginning but with the second numbered paragraph of the "Preface." At the very
beginning of the preface, that is, in its first lines, Nietzsche writes: "We are unknown
[0 ourselves, we men of knowledge-and with good reason. We have never sought

ourselves-how could it happen that we should ever find ourselves?" (GM P: 1).
236 Gary Shapiro

Might this not serve as a warning that the voice of the text is not to be identified
simply as that of the genealogist who understands his business? Perhaps it is a warn-
ing that no single voice animates the Genealogy and that this text must itselfbe read
dialogically, as what Foucault calls in another context a "concerted carnival" (NGH,
161). For shortly after the apparent confession of ignorance comes the bold sweep
of the narrative to which Foucault directs our attention, the narrative in which
Nietzsche explains the steps leading to his vocation. Yet these claims of dedication
and discovery acquire an Oedipal tone in this context, suggesting a certain pride and
self-assurance. This is a tragic voice. And it is not the only voice of the text, which
alternates among a series of historical and fictional voices-those of the Oedipal
scientist, the tragic dramatist, the buffoon of world history, the wirnesses (real and
imaginary) whom Nietzsche summons to testifY about the manufacture of ideals-
and doubtless there are others.
We might have begun reading the Genealogy at its subtitle, "Eine Streitschrift" (a
polemical text). This agon or polemos is directed nO[ only toward others, like the
philosophical historian, who are on the outside of the text; we should also read the
battle, the dialogue, the prosopopoeia, and exchange that goes on within the text
itself. There are stylistic affinities between this text and some ofOostoyevsky's, espe-
cially the latter's Notes from Underground, which Nietzsche read just before writing
the Genealogy. These affinities go beyond thematic concerns with such oppositions
as the man of ressentiment and the normal man or the claim that consciousness is an
illness (a productive, pregnant illness will be Nietzsche's restatement of the latter).
We could note what Mikhail Bakhtin has called the dialogical character of the Oos-
toyevskean tex£.4 The Notes enacts an exchange between the narrator and his others,
the "normal" men. Oostoyevsky's normal man speaks for the progress of science
and the utopia of the "crystal palace"; in Nietzsche's Genealogy the voice who intro-
duces the narrative claims to be a scientist of sorts, but his scientific authority is
called into question by the articulation of the polemic.
At one point Foucault recognizes a certain plurality in Nietzsche's text, noting
that Nietzsche's challenge to origins is confined "to those occasions when he is truly
a genealogist" (NGH, 142), bur does not explain what the other occasions are. From
this genealogist qua genealogist, Foucault draws a number of principles of reading.
Two of these principles could be usefully employed in reading the Genealogy itself as
a pluralized text:

I. To follow the complex course of descent is to maintain passing events in their proper
dispersion (NGH, 146). [Then why not also the dispersion of voices in rhe text?]
2. The body is the inscribed surface of events (traced by language and dissolved by
ideas), the locus of a dissociated self (adopting the illusion of substantial unity), and
a volume in perpetual disintegration. Genealogy, as an analysis of descem is thus
situated within the arriculation of the body and history. Its task is to expose a body
totally imprinted by history and the process of history's destruction of the body"
(NGH,148).
 Translating, Repeating, Naming 237

Does not the metaphorics of inscription, volume, and imprinting call for an applica-
tion of this principle to the body of the text and, in particular to the inscribed textual
body, the Genealogy, which would be the source of this principle? Foucault tends to
localize this side of the text, confining it to the subject matter (assuming that such
a subject matter can be isolated), rather than listening to its multiplication of voices.
The upshot of the pluralization of voices in the Genealogy is the calling into question
of a number of postures of inquiry, including that of the dedicated genealogist who
is, insofar as he would practice a normal science of genealob'Y, not very different
from the philosophical historian whom Foucault criticizes.
Consider for example the second volume of The History of Sexuality, which con-
cerns the formation of a sexual ethos in fourth-century Greece, one that would be
responsive to the apparent contradiction between contemporary sexual practices and
the prevailing norms of responsible citizenship. How can the love of boys nor lead
to the habituation of a generation of prospective citizens to patterns of submission
incompatible with their designated social roles? In the light of this question, Fou-
cault undertakes a genealogy of the conception of the responsible subject that, as he
sees it, is formed through discourses and practices that propose solutions to this
dilemma. These formations of power and knowledge he distinguished as: (1) dietet-
ics (prudential advice concerning the use and abuse of pleasure); (2) economics (the
principles of the household); (3) erotics (the wise conduct of love affairs); (4) and
"true love" (the philosophical transvaluation of the love affair into the mutual pur-
suit of truth).
The crucial evidence for Foucault's analysis of this last discursive form comes
from Plato, especially from the Symposium and Phaedrus. What is surprising about
Foucault's reading of these Platonic texts is the degree to which he Rarrens them out
inro a form that seems drastically to understate their internal plurality and complex-
ity. Foucault simply opposes the false speeches on love to the [fLle speeches (Dioti-
ma's in the Symposium, Socrates' second in the Phaedrus). Foucault constanriy, and
more than accidentally, uses various forms of the locutions "Plato says" or "Plato
thinks."5 Plato discovers that the truth of love is the love of the truth, even though
Plato never speaks in his own voice in the dialogues. Foucault ignores the fact that
Diotima's speech is distanCl:d from Plato by several degrees: it is reported by Socra-
tes, and the dialogue as a whole is relayed to us through a series of less than com-
pletely reliable witnesses. Similarly, in the Phaedrus, Socrates' speech is part of a
very complex thematics of love and discourse, which raises questions about the self-
sufficiency of the literary form in which it is embedded. This assimilation of the
Platonic dialogues to the relatively linear development of a new ethics of love is at
least as one-dimensional as the reading that sees them as nothing but preliminary
versions of modern discussions of the universal and the particular.
Nietzsche, despite his anti-Platonic animus, had a more genuinely genealogical
view of the matter when he distinguished between the Socratic and plebeian theme
and its Platonic, aristocratic reworking and sublimation, or when he remarked that
the Platonic dialogue was the vessel by which art survived the shipwreck of ancient
238 Gmy Shapiro

culture (BT 14). This reading of Plato is continuous with Foucault's reading of
Nietzsche in the founding essay on genealogy. For example, in mapping Greek dis-
courses on love and sex into the four categories-in ascending order-of dietetics,
economics, erotics, and true love, Foucault seems to be under the sway of the "Pla-
tonic ladder" of the Symposium or perhaps of the divided line of the Republic. When
the uncanny dimension of the text of the Genealogy is neglected, genealogy itself
tends to degenerate into a mere method that circumscribes its subject matter all
too neatly. After remarking on the uncanniness of the Genealogy, Nietzsche added,
"Dionysus is, as is known, also the god of darkness." Could it be that Dionysus lies
in wait for the normal genealogist at the heart of the labyrinth into which he has
strayed?
Earlier, Foucault and Derrida had an exchange concerning analogous issues in the
reading and translation of Descartes. The questions hinge on knowing how many
voices are speaking in Descartes's First Meditation." The crux is the reading of the
passage in which Descartes, or one of the voices of the Meditations, briefly entertains
the possibility of doubting that he is sitting by the nre, only to elicit the reply that
those with such doubts-who imagine that their heads are pumpkins or that they
arc made of glass-are mad and that he would be equally mad if he took them as a
precedent for understanding his own case. For Foucault's representation of Des-
cartes as juridically excluding the possibility of madness from the rational course of
his meditations, it is important that there be one commanding voice that can be
read as emblematic of the "great internment" of the mad in the seventeenth century.
For Derrida, in contrast, it is crucial that we see a series of objections and replies
within the text itself, so that the Meditations, far from excluding any possibility of
madness, push this possibiliry to a hyperbolical extreme through the hypothesis that
we are always dreaming or deceived by an evil demon. So the philosopher's voice
would be always already juxtaposed to the voices of unreason, and his project would
be one that proceeds whether or not he is mad.?
There are resonances of this celebrated dispute concerning the reading of Des-
cartes in the different readings or repetitions that Foucault and Derrida offer of the
Genealogy. Unlike Foucault, Derrida does not explicitly devote an essay to the text.
Instead he describes at least part of what he is doing in OfGrammatology as "repeat-
ing the genealogy of morals."" This self-description occurs at the end of the section
"The Writing Lesson," which interrogates Claude Levi-Strauss's attempt to distin-
guish naturally good cultures without writing and exploitative Western societies that
make use of writing. This reference is rather oblique, for Derrida inscribes on his
page not the tirle The Genealogy ofMorak', in italics, but simply the phrase "geneal-
ogy of morals." Yet there are reasons for taking even such an indirect reference seri-
ously, for the reading of Levi-Strauss has to do with the proper name and its
possibilities of erasure or effacement. Why should Derrida repeat the genealogy (or
Genealogy) in his analysis of Levi-Strauss? In many ways Levi-Strauss is a contempo-
rary version of the normal scientist who appears in Nietzsche's Genealogy as infected
by ressentiment, in whom the reaction against the other has turned into a dislike of
 Translating, Repeating, Naming 239

himself. As a spokesman for science, Levi-Strauss is a universalist, a democrat suspi-

cious of the ethnocentrism of the West.
"The critique of ethnocentrism," Derrida writes, "has most often the sole func-
tion of constituting the other as a model of original and natural goodness, of accus-
ing and humiliating oneself, of exhibiting its being-unacceptable in an anti-
ethnocentric mirror." Levi-Strauss is one of those knowers, who are unknown to
themselves. He repeats the gesture of the English moralists insofar as he believes in
an original, natural morality that has been forgotten or effaced but which is capable
of retrieval or at least reconstruction through memory. Here the place of historical
memory is taken by the experiment of the anthropologist who, by introducing writ-
ing to a people previously innocent of it, is able to observe what he takes to be its
characteristic sudden infusion of violence and hierarchy into a pacific, face-to-face
society. Levi-Strauss tells this story in the chapter of Tristes Tropiques called "The
Writing Lesson." Here the guilty anthropologist explains how the leader of the
Nambikwara pretended to have learned the European's art of writing in order to
manipulate others with the promise of rewards and the mysterious aura of an eso-
teric code. Derrida's genealogical reading of this Rousseauian confession focuses on
the question of language; like the English historians of morality, Levi-Strauss has
taken it to be much simpler and more homogeneous than it actually is.
The English moralists, Nietzsche says, want to know what good is; like Plato,
they suppose that it must have a single meaning. While Plato sought that meaning
through transcendental memory, the English seek it through historical reconstruc-
tion of original experiences of utility. Yet there is no single language or discourse of
the good that could support either project. There are at least two languages of mor-
als, olle that differentiates good from bad, another that differentiates good from evil.
In the good/bad discourse, the speaker first, and affirmatively, designates himself as
good. Only as an afterthought, does he call the others the bad. In the good/evil
discourse the starring point is the characterization of the other (the master, the
strong, or the noble) as evil, because he is envied, because he is violem or negligent
in his dealings with us, the speakers of that language. "Good" is in each case part of
a system of differences; not translatable from one moral language to the other while
preserving its sense. It partakes of what Derrida calls the "proper name effect both
demanding and resisting translation. Naming oneself and the other involve initial
acts of violence and separation, which are not well served by either Platonic or utili-
tarian translations, for these assume incorrectly that there is only one voice, or one
discourse, to translate.
Levi-Strauss thinks of the Nambikwara, the people without writing, as good in a
Rousseauian sense of primal innocence. So they must have a single language sponta-
neously and constantly animated by the inrimacy of their daily life; their innocence
can be read off from the fact that they have no writing, for writing would introduce
a hierarchy of scribes and leaders, a differentiation that would disrupt an idyllic con-
dition. In Levi-Strauss's own narrative we find the evidence of the Nambikwara's
own writing, double coding, violence, and hierarchy that the narrator would like to
240 Gary Shapiro

depict as specifically Western. There we learn that the Nambikwara language is spo-
ken differently by men and women, who view each orher as distinct species. The
Nambikwara have secret proper names, disguised in most circumstances by substi-
tutes. Revealing the proper name to inappropriate others or at inappropriate times
sets off a long chain of reprisals. Similarly, Nietzsche had noticed that the spokesmen
for an ethics of love often provide evidence of the desire for revenge (citing Tertul-
lian and Aquinas on the pleasures of the blessed in the torments visited upon sin-
ners). He observed the periodic recurrence of epidemics of revenge and scapegoating
among our supposedly innocent ancestors. Levi-Strauss would have us believe that
violence arises among the Nambikwara only through rhe agency of the scientist who
teaches writing or transgresses the law of the tribe by provoking young girls to reveal
the secret names of comrades and parents.
Science will not hesitate to invoke the categorial apparatus of its own culture in
order to protect the purity of the other culture that it studies. Yet Levi-Strauss must
account for their practice of "drawing lines." Levi-Strauss translates: "They called
the act of writing iekariakedjutu, namely 'drawing lines,' which had an aesthetic
interest for them" (cited in DC, 124). Bur what is aesthetic interest? Nietzsche
sketches a genealob'Y of aesthetics that demonstrates its complicity with the culture
of the eighteenth century, exemplified by the Kamian rripartition of knowing, will-
ing, and an aesthetic experience devoid of knowledge and will (see CM 1II). "Aes-
thetics" is a recent invention, a concept built on the exclusion of desire, laughter,
rhe festive, and the groresque. Derrida asks, conerning Levi-Strauss's translation and
aestheticization of "drawing lines": "Is not ethnocentrism always betrayed by the
haste with which it is satisfied by certain translations or certain domestic equiva-
lenrs?" (DC, 123). Does not the existence of a double system of names, and a system
of marking, indicate that language is, even here, always already multiple and so char-
acterized by the possibility of transgression, aggression, and violence that the guilty
anthropologist would like to keep at a distance from these people? This first repeti-
tion discovers plurality and violence where an idealistic nostalgia had found only
peace and unity.
Levi-Strauss also reveals that the Nambikwara became adept at producing explan-
atory diagrams of such cultural matters as their kinship relations that were extremely
useful to the party of anthropologists. Should we think of them, like Meno's slave
boy, as being brought to discover a primal writing in the soul? Or as having been
infected by the violence of the West? Or might we find Derrida to be the more
insightful anthropologist here when he observes that "the birth of writing (in the
colloquial sense) was nearly everywhere and most ofren linked to genealogical anxi-
ery" (DC, 124)? This last suggesrion, like Nietzsche's cririque of the Kanrian-
Schopenhauerian aesthetics of pure conremplarion, indicates the ties berween art
and life. From the time of the Homeric catalogues of heroes to the nineteenth-cen-
tury novel of marriage, property, inheritance and the discovery of unexpected blood
relationships, writing-in the colloquial sense-has maintained its link to genealogi-
cal anxiety.
 Translating, Repeating, Naming 241

Dcrrida also repeats the Genealogy in its critique or self-critique of science. Sci-
ence, when pushed to its limit, reflects upon itself and recognizes its indebtedness
to the morality of ressentiment; the scientist's dedication to the truth and his willing-
ness to sacrifice himself for the truth are structurally identical with the asectic nega-
tion of one's self and·one's present life for the sake of God. The scientist's final truth
is one that he will never see, and its pursuit here and now requires the virtues of
faith, hope, and charity: faith in the possibility that the truth will be attained, despite
our present state of ignorance and error; hope that progress toward the truth will
continue; charity as the willingness ro abandon whatever is one's own, one's own
favored hypothesis for example, for the sake of truth as an ultimate goal. "We know-
ers" are unknown to ourselves insofar as we fail to see these genealogical affiliations
of our activity with that sacrifice of self. But when science becomes historical and
genealogical it will discover these affiliations in a moment of tragic reversal and rec-
ognition. Science will become uncanny and undecidable: "The will to truth requires
a critique-let us thus define our own task-the value of truth must for once be
experimentally called into question" (GM III:24).
OJ Grammatology repeats or translates the Genealogy, then, by reconsidering the
project of several putative sciences that are shown to be impossible. Insofar as
anthropology operates with a distinction between nature and culture, or between
Rousseauian innocence and civilized evil, it founders on the impossibility of these
distinctions themselves; in the act of deploying such distinctions, it provides the
impetus to question and deconstruct them. OJGrammatology is also concerned with
the impossible science of grammatology. Since writing, thought seriously and essen-
tially, is that which escapes presence, totalization, and the ideal of science that is
indebted to these conceprs, rhere can be no science of grammarology. Bur the experi-
ment of artempring [0 construct a grammatology will disclose the questionability of
any science of language that would segregate or compartmenralize writing as well as
the problematic project of scientificity itself.
Derrida asks a Nietzschean question of Levi-Strauss: "If it is true, as I in fact
believe, that writing cannot be thought of outside rhe horizon of imersubjective vio-
lence, is there anything, even science, that radically escapes it?" (OG, 127). To sup-
pose otherwise is to place one's trust in "the presumed difference between language
and power." At the end of Levi-Strauss's most philosophical work, La pensee sauvage,
there is a clear demonstration of the naivete involved in such trust that is reminiscent
of the positivist metanarratives of science that Nietzsche artacks through his Geneal-
ogy. In the rhetorically magnificent but ultimately un persuasive coda to Levi-
Strauss's book, the claim is made that we are now witnessing the convergence of
contemporary science and the timeless patterns of savage or untamed mythical
thinking. According to Levi-Strauss, information theory can offer a universal
account of both the codes and messages of "primirive" peoples ar one end of the
spectrum, based as they are on the hoiisric, macroscopic, and sensible qualities of
the perceived environment, with the general, instrumentalized study of the produc-
tion and reception of biological and physical "messages" at the other end that reveal
242 Gm) Shapiro

themselves only with the help of the abstracting methods of the hypothetico-
deductive sciences. With such a convergence, we hear: "The emire process of human
knowledge assumes the character of a closed system. And we therefore remain faith-
ful to the inspiration of the savage mind when we recognize that, by an encoumer
it alone could have foreseen, the scientific spirit in its most modern form will have
comributed to legitimize the principles of savage thought and to re-establish it in its
rightful place."" This is utopian positivism becallse it takes the prevailing models in
the sciences to be ultimately valid and because it supposes that we are on the verge
of a total integration of variolls fields of knowledge, a "totalization" at least as extrav-
agant as that practical, historical Sartrean totalization, which Levi-Strauss criticizes
in the same chapter. While rejecting Sartre's appeal to social and political history as
modern myth, Levi-Strauss reverts to the scientistic version of this myth, uncon-
sciously reviving the teleologies of Comte and Spencer. Nietzsche's genealogy of
such science aims at showing that it must founder as soon as its concepts and meth-
ods of inquiry are turned back upon itself, and it discovers its own genealogy in a
morality that its inquiries have rendered suspicious. Derrida, a few years before Fou-
cault's programmatic essay on Nietzschean genealogy, makes a similar point in sug-
gesting that the human sciences cannot innocently presume the distinction between
power and knowledge that fuels the structuralist eschatology.
At the end of the Genealogy's first essay, Nietzsche calls for a series of prize essays
by philologists, historians, and philosophers on the question: "What light does lin-
guistics and especially the study of etymology, throw on the history of the evolution
of the moral concepts?" (GM I: 17). One answer is supplied by Nietzsche's first essay
itself, with its analysis of the gut/schlecht moral system and the gut/bose moral system
in terms of the social and ethnic differences of the ancient world; Foucault's genea-
logical study of the constitution of the discourses of psychiatry, punishment, and
sexuality can be read as extensions of this linguistic genealogy. But the third essay
pushes the question further, asking what consequences such investigations have for
the sciences that pursue (hem. Can they remain above the battle or must they, as
Nietzsche says, "submit to the law that they themselves have proposed" and, like all
great things, "bring about their own destruction through an act of self-overcoming"
(GM III:27)? Derrida's repetition of the Genealogy is a repetition of the third essay
and of its uncanny ramifications for the inquiry itself. Here we might pause and read
Nietzsche's question about linguistics and etymology once more. Why this apparem
repetition of "history" and "evolution"? Must we not remember, especially if we are
giving the close attention to language that Nietzsche demands and which is the
theme of that question, that "history" is a double-barreled word, alternately desig-
luting either the subject matter studied or the activity of studying it?
In OfGrammatology, we are constantly reminded that the de, the preposition, in
its tide, indicates a question rather than imroducing a subject matter. It is not a
"toward" in the Kamian sense of a "Prolegomena to Any Future Grammatology
That Will Come Forward as a Science." How should we translate the zur in Zur
 Translating, Repeating, Naming 243

Genealogie der Moral? There has been some c011lroversy among Nietzsche's transla-
tors about how this zur might be rendered in English. Is it "On" in the sense of
"concerning" or "about" or is it "toward"? "Toward" has been employed by those
who favor a tentative reading of Nietzsche's text as a contribution toward something
still in the making. But can one go toward that which can never be reached? Or
should the tide !ftA\i be ~ parodically? "O..:tsbetter in preserving an ambiguity
with regard to the question of whether a genealogy of morals is possible, that is,
whether we ought to take seriously the scientific rhetoric with which Nietzsche,
especially in his first essay, attempts to situate his work in relation to historical and
philological science. Similarly, there is, in Derrida's repetition of the genealogy while
effacing its tide, both a linguistic prudence and respect that hesitates to violate this
undecidablility and a mimesis of that act of the concealment of the proper name,
which has been identified as the characteristic act of writing. So there is a motivated
absence of the very name Nietzsche in this pan of the Grammatology that repeats
the genealogy. Derrida asks how Levi-Strauss, while acknowledging Marx and Freud
as his masters, can write the idyllic scenario recording his nocturnal observation of
the Nambikwara as a nonviolent people of unsurpassed tenderness and intimacy. He
can do so only because Rousseau has been substituted for Nietzsche in Levi-Strauss's
trinity of names (Marx, Rousseau, and Freud rather than Marx, Nietzsche, and
Freud).
Here we touch on the question of the genealogy of the text, a philological ques-
tion inseparable from the genealogy of morals. Genealogy seeks out the unsuspected
ramifications of proper names, whether present or absent. At the beginning of Derri-
da's reading of Levi-Strauss, he suggests that "the metaphor that would describe the
genealogy of a text correctly is still forbidden" (OG, 10 1). One might be tempted
to say, for example, that "a text is nothing but a system of roots," but to do so would
be to contradict both the concept of system and the pattern of the roots. To read
Levi-Strauss genealogically is to see the resonances of Rousseau. What we learn from
genealogy is the inevitability of one's heritage, or Herkunft, and the impossibility of
attempting to make an absolute beginning, or Ursprullg. Levi-Strauss assumes (as in
his use of Rousseau), that one can determine and circumscribe precisely what use
one will make of one's intellectual roots, ignoring the complexities of their subterra-
nean system. Nietzsche warns that "we are unknown to ourselves" and attempts to
situate the many voices of his text in relation to their roots in (for example) science,
tragedy, history, and the novel. Derrida's effort to "repeat" the genealogy of morals
arises within this context. It is not a question of whether he is consciously or fully
aware of the Nietzschean roots, still less of his being in command of the entire array
of a manifold Herkunft. For Derrida, it is a matter of the rigor and modesty of a
confessed repetition and mimesis, one that makes no claims of origin-ality-that is,
it makes no claim to restore the presence of an origin-and so helps us to think
beyond the constant temptations of hope and nostalgia.
244 Cary Shapiro

NOTES

1. Making slight emendations, I have relied upon Kaufmann's translations of EH and BT;
and Kaufmann and Hollingdale's translation of CM.
2. Jilrgen Habermas, The Discourse of Modernity, (fans. Frederick Lawrence (Cambridge,
MA: MIT Press, 1987), 125-26. [Ed. Note-An excerpt of Habcrmas's essay is included in
this volume.]
3. Michel Foucault, "Nietzsche, Genealogy, History," (hereafter cited in the text as NCH)
in Language, Counter-Memory, Practice, trans. Donald F. Bouchard and Sherry Simon (Ithaca,
NY: Cornell University Press, 1977), 140-42.
4. See Mikhail Bakhtin, Problems of Dostoyevsky's Poetics, ed. and trans. Caryl Emerson
(Minneapolis: Universiry of Minnesota Press, 1984).
5. See Foucault, The Use of Pleasure, trans. Robert Hurley (New York: Pantheon Books,
1985), 236, 238, 239.
6. See Michel Foucault, Folie et deraison: Histoire de fa folie (Paris: Pion, 1961). Jacques
Derrida, "Cogiro and the Hisrory of Madness," in Writing and Difference, trans. Alan Bass
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978),31-63; Michel Foucault, "My Body, This
Paper, This Fire," trans. Geotf Bennington, Oxford Literary Review 4: 1 (1979): 9-28.
7. See Descartes: Philosophical Writings, trans. and ed. Elizabeth Anscombe and Peter
Thomas Geach (London: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1954), esp. 61-65. Anglo-analytic phi-
losophers may wall( ro take note of the fact that the translation of the Meditations by G. E. M.
Anscombe and Peter Geach coincides in a general way with Derrida's reading of the tex£.
Anscombe and Geach pluralize the text's voices by placing the objections concerning madness
and dreaming in quotation marks. Perhaps Anscombe and Geach were aided in translating as
they did by the example of the play of voices and question-and-answer style in Wirtgenstein's
Philosophical Investigations.
8. Jacques Derrida, OfCrammatology, trans. Gayatri Spivak (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hop-
kins University Press, 1976), 114 (cited hereafter in the text as OC followed by the page
number).
9. Claude Levi-Strauss, The Savage Mind (Chicago: Universiry of Chicago Press, 1966),
269.
16
Nietzsche, Deleuze, and the Genealogical
Critique of Psychoanalysis
Between Church and State*

Alan D. Schrift

What charity and delicate precision those Frenchmen possess! Even the most
acme-eared of the Greeks must have approved of this art, and one thing they
would even have admired and adored, the French wittiness of expression.
-Nietzsche, The Wanderer and His Shadow 214

Reading a text is never a scholarly exercise in search of what is signified, still less
a highly textual exercise in search of a signifier. Rather, it is a productive use of
the literary machine, a montage of desiring machines, a schizoid exercise that
extracts from the text its literary force.
-Ddeuze and Guanari, Anti-Oedipus

When encoumering Gilles Deleuze's writings, I cannot help thinking back (0 the
signs that flash warnings ro Harry in Hesse's Steppenwolf "Magic Theater,"
"Entrance Not for Everyone," "For Madmen Only," "Price of Admittance Your
Mind."1 Emering Deleuze's texts is for many people a frightening, indeed, even an
overwhelming experience. Yet if we follow the rrajec(Ory of Dcleuze's thought on
Nietzsche, we see it moving from a more or less traditional philosophical exegesis ill

*Editcd and revised by the amhor from its original publication in International Studies in
Philosophy 24:2 (Summer 1992): 41-52. Reprinted with the permission of the publisher.

245
246 Alan D. Schrift

his 1962 text Nietzsche and Philosophy to a self-conscious utilization of Nietzsche

fDr purposes other than an explication de texte. Appreciation for this development
can make Deleuze's work much more accessible, particularly for the Anglophonic
audience that is only now beginning to widely embrace his writings. In what follows,
I will comment only briefly about his early text, t(Kusing my artention instead on
his later work in an attempt to show how certain Deleuzian and Nietzschean ideas
intersect and work with one another. Ultimately, I will argue, the critique of Anti-
Oedipus can be sketched in terms of the ways it follows an analytic pattern elaborated
nearly a century earlier by Nietzsche in On the Genealogy of Morals, the text that
Deleuze and Guattari called "the great book of modern ethnology."3
Deleuze's Nietzsche and Philosophy is an excellent study that played a large role in
generating the interest in Nietzsche's thought in France that we see during the sixties
and seventies. 4 In this text, Deleuze directs himself against what he regards as a mis-
guided attempt to strike a compromise between the Hegelian dialectic and Nietz-
sche's genealogy. Where Hegel's thinking is always guided by the movement toward
some unifYing synthesis, Nietzsche, in contrast, is seen to affirm multiplicity and
rejoice in diversity.5 Deleuze comes ro view the entirety of Nietzsche's corpus as a
polemical response ro the Hegelian dialectic: "To the famous positivity of the nega-
tive Nietzsche opposes his own discovery: the negativity of the positive."" Focusing
on the qualitative difference in Nietzsche between active and reactive forces, Deleuze
argues that the Ubermensch's mastery is derived from her or his ability to actively
negate the slave's reactive forces, even though the latter may often be quantitatively
greater. In other words, whereas the slave moves from the negative premise ("you
are other and evil") to the positive judgment ("therefore I am good"), the master
works from the positive differentiation of self ("I am good") to the negative corollary
("you are other and bad"). There is, according [0 Deleuze, a qualitative difference
at the origin of force, and it is the genealogist's task to attend [0 this differential and
genetic element of force that Nietzsche calls "will to power."7 Thus, whereas in the
Hegelian dialectic of master and slave, the reactive negation of the other has as its
consequence the positive affirmation of self, Nietzsche reverses this situation: the
master's active positing of self is accompanied by and resulrs in a negation of the
slave's reactive force.
Showing the impropriety of reading Nietzsche as a neo-Hegelian dialectician and
offering the first French alternative to Heidegger's interpretation of Nietzsche, the
text Nietzsche and Philosophy occupies an important place in the development of
post-structural French thoughr. x While one can learn a great deal by reading this
text, I find Deleuze's later texts, written in collaboration with the radical psychoana-
lyst Felix Guattari, more interesting, albeit more difficult, insofar as they seem to
operate outside of the discursive praC[ices of traditional philosophy. That is to say,
these later texts move beyond those organizing rules that govern what can and can-
not be said within philosophy insofar as they acknowledge the political and libidinal
dimensions inscribed in every philosophical gesture.
 Nietzsche, Deleuze, and the Genealogical Critique ofPsychoanalysis 247

In the remark that would become the closing entry in the nonbook published as
The Will to Power, Nietzsche announced that the solution to the riddle of his Diony-
sian world was "This world is will to power-and nothing besides! And you your-
selves are also will to power-and nothing besides!" (KSA 11 :38[12]). He thereby
issued a challenge to all future dualisms: it would no longer be possible for under-
standing to proceed according to a model that operated in terms of a simple binary
logic. 9 Opting for a polyvalent monism, Nietzsche's announcement frustrates all
subsequent dualistic attempts to divide and hierarchize the world neatly into dichot-
omous groups: good or evil, minds or bodies, tcuths or errors, us or them. The world
is much more complicated than such dualistic thinking acknowledges, and Nietz-
sche's announcement that all is will to power suggests the radically contextual,
optional, and contingent nature of even those most "obvious" determinations and
distinctions that are legitimated by appeal to a rigidly hierarchized metanarrative of
binary opposition. Ir has been one of the tasks of the twentieth century to respond
to the anti-dualistic challenge announced by Nietzsche's will to power, and it is in
this context that we should understand Deleuze and Guattari's attempt to show the
complicity between binary opposites that stands at the heart of their "magic formula
... PLURALISM = MONISM."IO
This semiotically condensed formula marks our one of the points of contact
between the projects of Nietzsche and Deleuze. Ir applies as well to the project of
Michel Foucault, whose work at many points intersects the work of Deleuze. II
When Nietzsche claimed that everything is will to power, he drew our attention
away from substances, subjects, and things and focused that attention instead on the
relations between these substantives. These relations, according to Nietzsche, were
relations of forces: forces of attraction and repulsion, domination and subordination,
imposition and reception, and so on. If there is a metaphysics in Nietzsche, and I
am not at all sure that there is or that it is particularly helpful to view Nietzsche in
these terms (as Heidegger did), then this metaphysics will be a dynamic, "process"
metaphysics and not a substance-metaphysics, a metaphysics of becomings and not
of beings. These processes, these becomings, will be processes of forces: becomings-
stronger or becomings-weaker, enhancement or impoverishment. There is, for
Nietzsche, no escaping these becomings other than death. The goal he advocates,
therefore, is not to seek Being but to strive for the balance-sheet of one's life to
include more becomings-stronger than -weaker, more overcomings than goings-
under.
When we look to the work of Deleuze and Foucault, we can see them making
double use of Nietzsche's will to power. Both Deleuze and Foucault engage in proj-
ects that reformulate traditional binary disjunctions between given alternatives in
terms of a pluralistic continuum in which choices are always local and relative rather
than global and absolute. Whether it be a continuum of desiring production or
power-knowledge, the model they appeal to, explicitly or implicitly, takes the form
of Nietzsche's "monism" of the will [0 powc:r, a monism not in Heidegger's sense
248 Alall D. Schrift

of will (0 power as Nietzsche's foundational answer (0 the metaphysical question of

the Being of beings, but in Deleuze's sense of will [0 power as the differential of
forces. This is ro say, where Heidegger understood will to power in terms of a logic
of Being, an onto-logic, Deleuze situates will (0 power within a differential logic of
affirmation and negation that facilitates the interpretation and evaluation of active
and reactive forces. 12 Will (0 power thus operates at the genealogical and not the
on(Ological level, at the level of the qualitative and quantitative differences between
forces and the different values bestowed upon those forces rather than at the level of
Being and beings. 13 In going beyond good and evil, beyond uuth and error, to the
claim that all is will (0 power, Nietzsche attempted to think relationality without
substances, relations without relata, difference without exclusion. And in so doing,
his thought serves as a model for both Foucault's analyses of power relations in the
absence of a subject and Deleuze's desiring assemblages conceived in terms of a logic
of events.
In addition (0 using Nietzsche's formal structure as a model, Deleuze and Fou-
cault each seize upon what we might call the "content" of Nietzsche's will to power,
and [Ogether they offer expanded accoulHs of the two component poles: will and
power. While French thought in general has been working for the past thirty years
under the aegis of the three so-called "masters of suspicion" Nietzsche, Freud, and
Marx, we can understand Dcleuze and Foucault privileging Nietzsche over Marx
and Freud on precisely this point. Marx operates primarily with the register of power
and Freud operates primarily within the register of desire. Yet each appears blind to
the overlapping of these two registers, and when they do relate them, one is clearly
subordinate to the other. Nietzsche's will to power, on the other hand, makes impos-
sible any privileging of one over the other, and his thinking functions in terms of an
inclusive conjunction of desire and power. That is (0 say, for Nietzsche, "will to
power" is redundant insofar as will wills power and power manifests itself only
through will. In privileging Nietzsche over Marx or Freud, both Foucault and
Deleuze recognize the complicity between the poles of will and power and, as a
consequence, they can each focus on one of the poles without diminishing the
importance of the other pole or excluding it altogether from their analyses. Thus
Foucault engaged in a highly sophisticated analysis of power that, following Nietz-
sche's example, focused not on the subjects of power but on power relations, the
rclations of force that operate within social practices and social systems. And within
this analysis, will and desire play an integral role in directing the relations of power.
Where Nietzsche saw a continuum of will to power and sought (0 incite a becoming-
stronger of will to power to rival the progressive becoming-weaker he associated with
modernity, Foucault sees power relations operating along a continuum of repression
and production and he sought to encourage a becoming-productive of power to rival
the increasingly repressive power of the pas(Oral.
In a similar fashion, Dcleuze, both in his own studies and especially in his work
with Guauari, has focused on the willing of power-desire. He, too, refrains from
 Nietzsche, Deleuze, and the Genealogical Critique of Psychoanalysis 249

subjectifJing desire while recognizing the intimate and multiple couplings of desire
and power. 14 In Nietzsche and Philosophy, Deleuze first linked the notion of desire
with will to power, and the insight that desirli: is productive develops our of his
reflection on will to power in terms of the productivity of both active and reactive
forces. In Anti-Oedipus, he and Guanari introduce the desiring machine as a machi-
nic, functionalist translation of Nietzschean will to power. A desiring machine is a
functional assemblage of a desiring will and the object desired. Deleuze's goal, I
think, is to place desire into a functionalist vocabulary, a machinic index, so as to
avoid the personification/subjectivation of desire in a substantive will, ego, uncon-
scious, or self. In so doing, he can avoid the paradox Nietzsche sometimes faced
when speaking of will to power without a subject doing the willing or implying that
will to power was both the producing "agent" and the "object" produced. To speak
of desire as part of an assemblage, to refuse to reifJ or personifY desire at the subject
pole, recognizes that desire and the object desired arise together. Deleuze rejects the
account of desire as lack shared by Freud, Lacan, Same, and many others. 15 That is
to say, desire docs not arise in response to the perceived lack of the object desired,
nor is desire a state produced in the subject by the lack of the object. Instead, desire
is, as it were, a part of the infrastructure:'" it is constitutive of the objects desired as
well as the social field in which they appear. l ? Desire, in other words, again like
Nietzsche's will to power, is productive. And as Nietzsche sought to keep will to
power multiple so that it might appear in multiple forms, at once producer and
product, a monism and a pluralism, so too Deleuze wants desire to be multiple,
polyvocal. ls Nietzsche encouraged the maximization of strong, healthy will to power
while acknowledging the necessity, the inevitability of weak, decadent will to power.
Deleuze advocates that desire be productive while recognizing that desire will some-
times be destructive and will at times have to be repressed while at other times it
will seek and produce its own repression. Analyzing this phenomenon of desire seek-
ing its own repression is one of the goals of Delellze and Gllanari's schizoanalysis,
and we should not fail [0 notice the structural similarity berween desire desiring its
own repression and Nietzsche's discovery in On the Genealogy ofMorals that the will
would rather will nothingness than not will.
To speak very generally, we can say that as Deleuze appropriates Nietzsche's
thought, will to power is transformed into a desiring-machine: Nietzsche's biologism
becomes Deleuze's machinism; Nietzsche's "everything is will to power" becomes
Deleuze's "everything is desire"; Nietzsche's affirmation of healthy will to power
becomes Deleuze's affirmation of desiring-production. In the remaining few pages,
I would like to suggest some ways Dcleuze and Guattari model their critique of
psychoanalysis on Nietzsche's genealogical critique of Christian morality. The
details of Deleuze and Guattari's critique of psychoanalytic theory and practice and
the relations between psychoanalysis and capitalism are far too complex to be
addressed in a short essay. There is a certain method to the madness of their account,
however, and it is clear that the aurhor of the Ami-Christ has influenced the develop-
ment of rhe argument by the authors of the Anti-Oedipus.
250 Alan D. Schrift

I will begin by providing a selective paraphrase of cerrain moments in the second

essay of the Genealogy, where Nietzsche turns to the origins of guilt and bad con-
science. These origins lie in the economic relation of creditor and debtor. The moral
concept "guilt," conceived as a debt that is essentially unredeemable, has its origin
in the economic, legal notion of debt as essentially repayable. We see this in the
origin of punishment, which as retribution emerges from the inability to repay the
debt. Schuld, which translates both debt and guilt, is part of the mange logic of
compensation that seeks to establish equivalences between creditors and debtors:
because everything has its price and all things can be paid for, the debtors, having
made a promise to repay, would otTer a substitute payment of something they pos-
sessed: their body, their spouse, their freedom, even their life. Here Nietzsche locates
the primitive intertwining of guilt and suffering: suftering will balance debts to the
extent that the creditors get pleasure from making the debtor suffer. There is, for
Nietzsche, a basic joy in the exercising of mastuy, and, by making others suffer, the
credi(Ors thus participate in the pleasures of the masters.
When he turns to modern cultures, Niel '" he observes that punishment now
appears no longer as the result of the humall ,lcsire tor pleasure and mastery but
instead as the consequence of God's judgment. ,\shamed of his instincts ttlr cruelty,
modern man has to invent free will to justify \ldfering: punishment now appears as
deserved because one could have done orherwise. The "moral" function of punish-
metH is thus to awaken the feeling of guilt, and it is supposed (0 function as an
instrument to creare bad conscience. To this account, Nietzsche offers his own "orig-
inal" account of the origin of bad conscience: bad conscience is a serious illness
contracted when human beings first entered into a community. It is, says Nietzsche,
analogous to, or perhaps a repetition of, the Eneful event that confronted sea animals
when they were compelled (0 become land animals: in each case, all previous
instin~ts were suddenly devalued and suspended. Anticipating the Freudian model
of rension-reduction, Nietzsche claims that the inability (0 discharge their instincts
leads these instincts to be turned inward. This "internalization [Verinnerlichung] of
man" (GM Il:16) says Nietzsche, is the origin of "bad conscience" as the instinct
for hostility, cruelty, joy in prosecuting and attacking, the desire for change and
destruction all are inhibited from being discharged and are instead turned against
the possessor of these instincts. Bad conscience, that uncanniest of illnesses, Nietz-
sche concludes, is man's suffering of himself.
In an analytic move that clearly inspires Deleuze and Guattari's materialist psychi-
atry, Nietzsche links this psychological account of bad conscience to the origin of
the state as he offers an accoutH of the establishment of society from out of the "state
of nature," which echoes the tale told by Hobbes much more than the myth told by
Locke or Rousseau. Bad conscience does not originate gradually or volutHarily, but
all at once. This change is initiated by an act of violence: the institution of the state.
The state is a violent, tyrannical, oppressive machine, created by those unconscious,
involuntary artists and beasts of prey-the conquerors and masters who impose
 Nietzsche, Deleuze, and the Genealogical Critique ofPsychoanalysis 251

form on nomadic, formless masses. Lacking bad conscience themselves, it originates

through these masters making latent in others the instinct for freedom (the "will to
power"), which, when repressed and incarcerated, can only be turned against itself.
In other words, while masters and anists are able to vent their will to power on
others, the weak can only vent their will to power on themselves.
Bad conscience, Nietzsche tells us, is an illness as pregnancy is an illness (GM
II:19), and he concludes the Second Essay by exposing this illness's progeny to be
Christian morality and the Church. As society evolved, the creditor/debtor relation
took the form of a relation berween the present generation and its ancestors: we pay
back our ancestors by obeying their customs. Our debt to our ancestors increases to
the extent that the power of the community increases. Ultimately, our ancestors are
transfigured into gods and, in successive generations, this unpaid debt to our ances-
tors is inherited with interest. As the power of the community increases, the divinity
of the ancestors also increases. With Christianity, Nietzsche sees what he calls a
"stroke of genius" in the eventual moralization of debt/guilt and duty, as the Chris-
tian God, "the maximum god attained so far," is accompanied by maximum indebt-
edness. Christianity's srroke of genius was to have God sacrifice himself for the guilt
of humanity. By sacrificing himself for the debtor, the creditor both removed the
debt and made the debt eternal and ultimately unredeemable. The origin of the
Christian God is this mad will to guilt and punishment, this will to a punishment
incapable of becoming equal to the guilt. This new guilt betore God results in the
complete deification of God as holy judge and hangman, at once man's infinite
antithesis and the ultimate instrument of his self-torture (GM II:22).
Nietzsche's On the Genealogy ofMorals shows the ways in which the ascetic priests,
in the form of the founders of Christianity and the ideologues of science, have con-
structed an interpretation of the modern world in which they are made to appear
essential (cf. A 26). Deleuze and Guattari argue that the psychoanalyst is the "most
recent figure of the priest"'~ and throughout Anti-Oedipus their analyses of the prac-
tices of psychoanalysis parallel the practices of Christianity as analyzed by Nietzsche.
Like the early priests, psychoanalysts have reinterpreted the world in a way that
makes themselves indispensable. The whole psychoanalytic edifice is constructed on
the basis of the Oedipal drama, and the primary task of psychoanalysis is to success-
fully Oedipalize its public. Nietzsche showed how much of Christianity's practice
requires convincing its adherents of their guilt and sin in order to make tenable its
claim of redemptive power. Deleuze and Guattari rake a similar approach, develop-
ing at length the ways in which the psychological liberation promised by psychoanal-
ysis requires first that it imprison libidinal economy within the confines of the
family. To Nietzsche's "internalization of man," they add man's Oedipalization:
Oedipus repeats the split movement of Nietzschean bad conscience that at once pro-
jected onto the other while turning back against oneself, as the unsatisfied desire to
eliminate and replace the father is accompanied by guilt for having such desire. They
view psychoanalytic interpretive practices as no less reductive than the interpreta-
252 Alan D. Schrift

tions of Nietzsche's ascetic priests. Just as Nietz~c I. pric,(s reduce all events to a
moment within the logic of divine reward and pUll: ilmeIH, Deleuze and Guattari's
psychoanalysts reduce all desire to a form of famil ial I ixation. Like Nietzsche's ascetic
priests, psychoanalysts have created for themselves a mask of health that has the
power to tyrannize the healthy by poisoning their conscience. Where Nietzsche
notes the irony of the Christian God sacrificing himself for humanity out of love,
Deleuze and Guanari ironically chronicle the various expressions of the psychoana-
lysts' concern for their Oedipally crippled patiems. The ultimate outcomes of these
ironic twists also parallel one another: where Christianity's self-sacrificing God
makes infinite its adherents guilt and debt, psychoanalysis creates its own infinite
debt in the form of inexhaustible transference and interminable analysis. 20
What is, I think, the most interesring transformation of Nietzsche's analysis is the
way Deleuze and Guattari adapt Nietzsche's link between the rise of Christianity
and the rise of the state to their discussion of libidinal and political economy. They
want to introduce desire into the social field at all levels, and this prompts their
critique of psychoanalysis. Freud could only view libidinal social investments as sub-
liminal, and he interprets all social relations as desexualized representations of
unconscious desire. Likewise, when sexual relations do appear in the social field, they
arc interpreted by Freud as symbolic representations of the Oedipal family. Deleuze
and Guanari want to liberate desire from its enslavement within the theater of repre-
sentation, and they reject the reductive familialism that sees the family everywhere
while it obscures all relations of wealth, class, gender, race, status-in other words,
all social relations outside the family. Because social production is libidinal and
libidinal production is social, they claim it is a mistake ro desexualize the social field.

The truth is that sexuality is everywhere: in the way that a bureaucrat fondles his
records, a judge administers justice, a businessman causes money to circulate; in the way
the bourgeoisie fucks the proletariat; and so on. And there is no need to resort to meta-
phors, any more than for the libido to go by way of metamorphoses. Hider got the
fascists sexually aroused. Flags, nations, armies, banks get a lot of people aroused. 21

Revising both Marx and Freud, Deleuze and Guanari conclude that insofar as desire
is constitutive of the social field, "social production is desiring-production under
determinate conditions. "22
Deleuze and Guattari "replace the theatrical or familial model of the unconscious
with a more political model: the factory instead of the theater."23 The question of
desire is one not of dramatic familial representation but of material production,
which is to say, a political question. This is the point at which they replace psycho-
analysis with schiwanalysis or, as they put it, this makes clear the need [() "schiwan-
alyze the psychoanalyst."24 Psychoanalysis has failed to recognize that the successful
Oedipalization of its public depends upon the phenomenon discussed earlier of
desire desiring its own repression. For Deleuze and Guattari, the discovery of this
 Nietzsche, Deleuze, and the Genealogical Critique ofPsychoanalysis 253

phenomenon is associated first and foremost with Wilhelm Reich,25 who refused
to explain fascism in terms of the false consciousness of the masses. Instead, Reich
formulated an explanation that takes the desires of the masses into account: "they
wanted fascism" and it is this perverse manifestation of desire that must be
explained. For Reich, the explanation comes in terms of the pleasures of exercising
authority that are vicariously experienced by the "little man's" identification with
the "Fuhrer."z!> Deleuze and Guattari's account of this desire, along with their fasci-
nation with the relation of the officer to the machine in Kafka's "Penal Colony"
and their analyses of psychoanalysis, leads them to Nietzsche's Genealogy ofMorals.
Here, in Nietzsche's account of the will to nothingness as preferable to not willing
and in bad conscience choosing to make itself suffer rather than relinquish the plea-
sure in making suffer, they locate their answer to Reich's question of the link
between psychic repression and social repression in the libidinal economy of fascism.
Where Reich saw desire activated through a passive idemification of the masses with
their fascist master(s), Nietzsche saw the ascetic desire to make itself suffer as per-
verse but fundamentally active and ultimately positive--through this perverse desire,
as he notes, "the wit! itself was saved' (GM III:28).
From their observations of Reich and Nietzsche, Deleuze and Guattari draw the
following conclusion: desire is productive, it must be productive, and it will be pro-
ductive. If a social field does not allow for desire to be productive in nonrepressive
forms, then it will produce in whatever forms are available to it, even those that it
recognizes to be socially or psychically repressive. Like Nietzsche's will to power,
Deleuze and Guattari claim, desire must be analyzed locally, relative to the social
field in which it operates. There can be no global, universal, or totalizing judgment
concerning desire. As Nietzsche's GM III analyzed the concrete practices of the
ascetic priests in terms of the enhancement and impoverishment of will to power,
Deleuze and Guattari conrinue to question political and psychoanalytic practices
in terms of productive and repressive libidinal capacities. Investigating the shared
genealogy of church and state in terms of the diverse manifestations of desire and
power, Deleuze and Guattari show themselves to be among the philosophers of the
future to whom Nietzsche addressed his writings, philosophers who, appropriating
Nietzsche's description of an earlier generation of French philosophers with whom
he identified, create" real ideas . .. ideas of the kind that produce ideas" (WS 214).

NOTES

An earlier version of sections from this paper were presented in October 1988, at Northwest-
ern University at the annual meeting of the Society for Phenomenology and Existential Phi-
losophy, and a subsequent version was presented to the Department of Comparative
Literarure, University of Washington, Seattle. Most of the written text of this paper, pub-
lished as "Between Church and State: Nietzsche, Deleuze, and the Critique of Psychoanaly-
sis," in International Studies in Philosophy 24, no. 2 (Summer 1992): 41-52, was revised as
254 Alan D. Schrift

s
part of the chapter on Delcuze in my Nietzsche French Legacy: A Genealogy ofPoststructural-
ism (New York: Roudedgc, 1995).

1. For translations of Nietzsche's works, 1 use Kaufmann and Hollingdale's GM and WP;
and Hollingdale's W-S".
2. Gilles Ddeuze, Nietzsche and Philosophy, trans. Hugh Tomlinson (New York: Colum-
bia University Press, 1983). One of the few critics to discuss this work in the context of
French poststructuralism is Vincent P. Pecora, in "Deleuzc's Nietzsche and Post-Structural-
ism," Sub-Stance 48 (1986): 34-50. Although largely critical of Deleuze's reading of Nietz-
sche, Pecora is, I think, correct in indicating the formative role played by Deleuze's
replacement of" 'Ie travail de fa dialectique' by the play of 'diffirence'" in the emergence of
poststructuralism (36),
3. Gilles Dcleuze and Felix Guattari, Anti-Oedipus, translated by Robert Hurley, Mark
Seem, and Helen R. Lane (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1983), 190.
4. This can be seen in the rwo surveys of recent French philosophy to be translated into
English from the French; see Vincent Descombes, Modern French Philosophy, trans. L. Scott-
Fox and J. M. Harding (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980), esp. 187-90, and
Luc Ferty and Alain Rcnaur, French Philosophy ofthe Sixties: An Essay on Antihumanism, trans.
Maty Schnackenberg Can ani (Amherst: University of Massachusens Press, 1990),68-71. For
a further discussion of Nietzsche's French reception, see my Nietzsche's French Legacy.
5. See Deleuze, Nietzsche and Philosophy, 197.
6. Nietzsche and Philosophy, 180.
7. Nietzsche and Philosophy, 50.
8. The importance of Nietzsche in Ddeuze's thought and poststructuralist French philos-
ophy is one of the leading themes of Ronald Bogue's fine introductoty text Deleuze and Guat-
tari (London: Roudedge, 1989); see, in particular, his concluding comments, 156-63.
9. I have addressed Nietzsche's critique ofbinaty, oppositional thinking in much greater
detail elsewhere, particularly in relation (0 Derrida and deconstruction. See "Genealogy andl
as Deconstruction: Nietzsche, Derrida, and Foucault on Philosophy as Critique" in Postmod-
ernism and Continental Philosophy, edited by Hugh J. Silverman and Donn Welton (Albany:
State University ofNcw York Press, 1988), 193-213, "The becoming-posunodcrn of philos-
ophy," in After the Future: Postmodern Times and Places, edited by Gary Shapiro (Albany:
State University of New York Press, 1990),99-113; and the chapter on Derrida in Nietzsche's
French Legacy.
10. Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, translated by Brian Massumi
(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987), 20.
II. I wish to bring in Foucault at this point because I think it helps (0 understand the
complex relations berween the careers of Foucault and Deleuze in terms of their mutual alli-
ances with Nietzsche.
12. See Deleuze, Nietzsche and Philosophy, 49-55.
13. Cf. Deleuze, Nietzsche and Philosophy, 220: "Heidegger gives an interpretation of
Nietzschean philosophy closer to his own thought than to Nietzsche's . . . . Nietzsche is
opposed (0 evety conception of affirmation which would find its foundation in !king, and its
dercrmination in the being of man." I address ami criricize Heidcgger's imerpn'faTioll of will
(0 power in some detail elsewhere; see my Nietzsche and the Question of InterpJ, ' . ' / (New

York: Routledge, 1990), 53-73.

14. See, for example, Gilles Ddeuze and Felix Guattari's Kafka: Toward a I , oi" Litera-
 Nietzsche, Deleuze, and the Genealogical Critique ofPsychoanalysis 255

ture, translated by Dana Polan (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1986), 56.
Although I have linked Foucault with power and Deleuze with desire, I do not intend these
linkages to be in any way exclusive. In fact, as further evidence of the rhizomatic connections
betwecn the careers of Deleuze and Foucault, we can here note that Foucault in 1972 credited
Deleuze for being the first to thematize the question of power: "If the reading of your books
(from Nietzsche to what I anticipate in Capitalism and !>Chizqphrenia) has been essential for
me, it is because they seem to go very far in exploring this problem: under the ancient theme
of meaning, of the signifier and the signified, etc., you have developed the question of power,
of the inequality of powers and their struggles." ("Intellectuals and Power: A Conversation
between Michel Foucault and Gilles Deleuze," translated by Donald F. Bouchard and Sherry
Simon in Michel Foucault, Language, Counter-Memory, Practice, edited by Donald F. Bouch-
ard [ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1977], 213-14.)
15. This tradition goes back at least as far as Plato, who argues in the Symposium (200a-d)
that one who desires something is necessarily in want of that thing. I discuss the Deleuzian
cririque of "dcsire as lack" in more detail elsewhere: see my "Spinoza, Nietzsche, Oeleuze: An
other discourse of desire" in Hugh Silverman, ed., Philosophy and the Discourse ofDesire (New
York: Routledge, Chapman and Hall, 2000), 173-85.
16. See the discussion of this point in Deleuze and Guanari, Anti-Oedipus, 348.
17, We might put this point another way and, using Benveniste's distinction, say that
desire occupies both the place of the subject of the utterance (sujet denonciation) and the
subject of the sratement (sujet denonce').
18. C£ Delcuze and Guattari, Kafka, 57.
19. Anti-Oedipus, 108-12, 269, 332-33. See also A Thousand PlateallS, 154.
20. C£ Anti-Oedipus, 64-65.
21. Anti-OedipllS, 293. (Translation altered slightly.)
22. Anti-Oedipus, 343.
23. Gilles Deleuze, Interview in Litre 49, 2nd cd. (1980), 99. See also Anti-Oedipus, 55.
24. Anti-Oedipus, 365.
25. See Wilhelm Reich, The M,lSS Psychology ofFascism, trans. Vincent R. Carfagno (Lon-
don: SouvcnirtPress, ) 970).
26. C£ Rei~h, 63ff.
IV
ON POLITICS AND
COMMUNITY
17
Nietzsche's Genealogy
Of Beauty and Community*

Salim Kemal

Nietzsche's genealogy explains value as an order of preferences constructed from

some position in an underlying strucmre of power and domination. Rather than
examine what "humanity" might mean in the actors' understanding of "individual
goodness," for example, or how actors justilY it as a principle of action, he explains
how values such as humility and goodness become meaningful by showing that they
"enact" the positions that actors have in conflictuai power relations.
Consonantly with this account, Nietzsche talks of knowledge claims as interpreta-
tions,' of the style and creativity of values,2 and of philosophers becoming "poets of
our life" (GS 299). By this genealogical construal, all values, including the interpre-
tations we valorize as knowledge, are only our own construction (e.g., WP 795,
1048, 816, and GS 299)3 from a particular viewpoint, and cannot claim universal
validity. And just as we cannot identilY objects as works of art unless we acknowl-
edge that they have been constructed, similarly for Nietzsche we may not hide all
traces of the construction of values and still recognize them as values. Moreover, just
as works embody or allow interpretations, whose sources and basis we can display,
similarly we can analyze our knowledge and values genealogically to explain their
basis in the particular perspectives and powers they serve. 4
This account of genealogy also applies to aesthetic value, and in this chapter I
shall first present some results of the genealogy of beauty. These lead to a distinctive
conception of community that genealob'Y sustains, which we shall consider in the
chapter's last section.

'Originally published in Journal ofthe British Society for Phenomenology 21:3 (October 1990):
234-49. Rcprinred with [he permission of [he journal editor.

259
260 ~alim Kemal

THE GENEALOGY OF BEAUTY

Nict'l\che's construal of value as construct or art is double edged: by changing our

COlKc\'lion of cognitive and moral values, he also questions our conception of
b<:.1I111', The more thoroughly he develops criteria for grasping morality or knowl-
ed~c ./) tlrt, identifying the perspectives from which they originate, the more dearly
we Uil ,lIlalyze aesthetic values as art. Just as we see moral or cognitive order as inter-
prel.lih'llS and as modes ofl)Ccoming rather than being,~ similarly we can examine
aesthc'l L v,llue to identify its origin6 in the needs it serves. That is, Nietzsche can
now" l'nvisage the at'Sthetic probkm [itself1 from the point of view of the artist (the
creator)" and his or her production of value rather than of the spectator who responds
to experiences of beauty (GM III:6; italics added).
This analysis results in a number of theses about value. First, aesthetic values are
not mimetic of any being or reality beyond our present world, from whose stand·
point we judge our own human existence as an "appearance."7 For Nietzsche, there
is no other reality that we will escape to from our "mere" appearances,8 and when
aesthetic value is effective, it "signifies [our present] reality once more, only selected,
strengthened, corrected" (TI "Reason" 6).~
If values concern only our present reality, then we cannot justify them by showing
how well they reRect or give us access to some other world-usually of fully rational
beings and universal trurhs. In terms of "being" and "becoming" (see note S), we
do not refer our values to a state of perfect being to justify them by displaying their
universality. Rather, Nietzsche emphasizes our constructive activity, our constant
"becoming" in our particular human conditions.
Second, to articulate that human conception, Nierzsche focuses on the capacity
of works for the fullest kind of oppositional forces because these embody construc-
tion and becoming. lo Our feeling for life, the delight we feel in works, resides in
"communicar[ingl something of the artists' victorious energy" (WP 802) over mate-
rials where the given form never completely masks traces of its construction. Third,
to affirm a non metaphysical account he explains our construction of aesthetic value
and order through notions of "seeing," "taste," and "style."11
Taste is the activity of organizing elements (GS 290). Because they have taste,
agents have an economy in which they can give significance and order to different
elements. To have taste of a particular kind, to construct an economy of a particular
kind, is to have a particular style. Style constitutes the actors. 12 Actors without style
lack taste and so have no sense of economy. As they do not possess a sense of order,
they have no aims and so no means, and pursue the most pressing present impulses.
Yet satisfaction of these impulses does not bring amelioration because there is no
limit or order to their desires. Only style brings satisfaction, allowing the actors'
behavior to be free rather than random or wild. And for Nietzsche "one thing is
needful: that a human l1Cing should attain satisfaction with himself, whether it be
by means of this or that poetry or art; only then is a human being tolerable to
behold" (GS 290).
 Nietzsches Genealogy 261

Nietzsche's emphasis on construction, his rejection of the need for values to be

universalizable, and his use of "individual satisfaction" as a criterion for value, all
these make possible only a local order. We cannot point to some teleology of styles
or some "real" order or substance of which these styles must be a part in order to
gain validity.13 But he also maintains that the absence of a teleology does not deprive
us of preferences. He writes that the "grand style originates when the beautiful car-
ries off victory over the monstrous" (WS 96).14 Some works are preferred over others
because they cut deeper, in the sense of exposing even the most monstrous elements
and implications of a perspective, and empower us as agents to deal with that per-
spective. These works implicate subjects with a greater capacity for action,15 and let
us see through to the tensions and power at the basis of each work. 16 Only through
engagement with this tension can we keep the antimetaphysical, becoming, and
interpretive part of our feeling for life from calcit}ring into being. Yet our preferences
always occur from a perspective, so that no hierarchy is permanent or expands
beyond its point of view.
Here we genealogically analyze works as particulars and do not seek rules we can
prescribe for analyzing values generally. Genealob'Y discerns the particular construc-
tion, style, economy, and so on lying at its origin, and displays its critical power in
reordering given aesthetic values to make clear how they arise from their basis. That
is, the activity of genealogy shows itself in constituting as its object the construction
implicated in what actors may wrongly think of as self-sufficient aesthetic values.
This genealogical diagnosis may produce only an interpretation, but still genealogy
constitutes as its object that interpretation of the value and its origins. In doing so
genealogy exhibits itself in that object or provides us with an insight about the par-
ticular but yields nothing that we can generalize. Irs success lies in constituting its
particular values without providing rules we can extend from diagnosing one object
wanother.
In other words, genealogy is not a method. If it were, we would expect that a
practiced genealogist could issue instructions w a novice, setting our what needs to
be done to carry out a genealogical analysis. Bur the practiced genealogist cannot
expect to issue any instructions more specific than "look for the origins of aesthetic
values" that might constitute a set of methodological principles. This is because ana-
lysts may make good their claim that aesthetic values are a result of construction
from a particular viewpoint only by exhibiting the construct at work in any value.
Yet that construction does not occur in the same way in every case, and for the
practiced genealogists to show the novice how w proceed, they would have to
exhibit how that construction occurs in every case. That is, they would have to carry
out a genealogical analysis in that case, knowing also that their analysis may not
serve other values. And such repeated analysis does not help the novice learn any
methodological rules of genealogy. When the novice does learn from the particular
example, we may suggest, he gains models for his own analysis of particulars. But he
does not gain any methodological principles that will instruct him in generally ana-
lyzing genealogically, for the genealogical reunderstanding of value is what the
262 Salim Kemal

instructions would have to consist in-this genealogy is what must be done. By dis-
playing how a value is constructed, genealogy shows that the values are only an inter-
pretation, as it shows itself only in the interpretations it provides, these must depend
on the object-the aesthetic value and construction-being considered. Therefore,
from the genealogy of one object we cannot expect to derive general conclusions
applicable to another: at best, the first provides a model for another genealogist; it
does not yield the rules for a method.
Further, genealogy depends on a particular viewpoint and is itself an interpreta-
tion. Genealogists analyze the advent of a value by displaying its origin in a particu-
lar style and taste. And the particular analysis they construct itself has an origin.
That is, not only arc genealogists aware of the consrruction of value and the inter-
pretative nature of value claims, but their own constitution of objects reveals the
analyst's standpoint. Accordingly genealogy is always tied to its object from its pres-
ent particular viewpoint, for which the constitution of the relation of origin and
value in the object is arraigned.
We can illustrate this by considering another part of Nietzsche's genealogy of aes-
thetic values. When Nietzsche sees aesthetic value as a constructed tension, he
implies that this value encompasses more than beauty alone, for ugly objects too can
embody "the artist's victorious energy" (ibid. [sic]). This is part of a wider claim,
whereby any attempt to make beauty the sole aesthetic value signifies something
about the valuer. Having denied values any etiolated and purely rational foundation,
Nietzsche treats them as criteria for their own origins, and argues that we show what
conception of subject and life we favor when we choose values. Accordingly, aes-
thetic value is considered from the point of view of how it satisfies a need and so
gains value to the extent that it is appropriate to a particular type of human being.
In The Birth of Tragedy Nietzsche developed this notion by linking Apollo with
the "apotheosis of the principium individuationis" (BT 4). Individuals construct
beauty and, by imposing form, also form themselves as agents for that beautiful illu-
sion that redeems chaos. "And so, side by side with the aesthetic necessity for beauty,
there occur the demands "know thyself" and "nothing in excess'" (BT 4; italics
added). Similarly, he writes, "tbe beautiful exists just as little as does the good, or the
true. In every case it is a question of the conditions of the preservation of a certain
type of man."
In accepting a value, then, we also commit ourselves to an appropriate conception
of man and life. In other words, our human, physiological life "itself evaluates
through us when we establish values" (TI "Morality" 5). In effect, we enact values,
revealing our commitment to a particular kind of life and subject. For example, a
system of values that opposes humanity to a God-given goodliness and value is com-
mitred to a "declining, debilitated, weary, condemned life" (ibid.) because it is occa-
sioned when we lose touch with our human physiological existence and can no
longer act for ourselves, accepting in full how far we arc from grace and divinity.
That spiritualized morality, so (0 speak, enacts a particular conception of humanity.
hs specific imperatives are oriented by an implicit assumption that humanity is infe-
 Nietzsches Genealogy 263

rior (0 the extent that it lacks the attrihutes of divinity. By contrast, a human moral-
ity would enact a value that conceives of us as actors capable of living with our
monal existence. 17
Similarly, aesthetic values enact this commitment to action or its opposite. Where
delight, pl(;asure, or happiness comes from an increase in power, from reminding us
of the "artist's vic(Orious energy," they result in beauty. "In the beautiful, man sets
himself as the standard for perfection" (Tf "Skirmishes" 19) by acknowledging the
origin of this aesth(;tic value in our present human reality. Here, "perfection" is con-
gruent with the physiological accouJU Nictzsche thinks appropriate to our humanity.
"A species cannot do otherwise than affirm itself alone in this manncr [through thc
bcautiful]. Its deepeJt instinct, that of self-prcscntation and self-aggrandizement, is
still visiblc in such sublimated forms" (ibid.). Beauty excmplifies our construction
and ordering of the world; it is not a mancr of contcmplation and undcrstanding
but of constructing and participation.
This scnse of beauty as an engagement with events and values may be explained
further by contrasting it with ugliness, to show how both aesthetic values depend
on our activity (BT "Self·Criticism" 2).1" Here what art does is not be beautiful, as
if it were enough to have art for the sake of art. Rather, ugliness signals decline while
beauty signals health, and both these claims are conclusions we arrive at as a result
of tracing aesthetic values as a construct or an. Beauty and ugliness signal how suc-
cessfully we act upon the world and the commitments we enact. Where we exhibit
a commitmenr to creating and developing meanings, there we gain beauty and hap-
piness (A 1). Accordingly, beautiful art is a stimulus to life because the subject who
grasps beauty must be active in promoting life. A subject who fails to grasp beauty,
or who is given (0 ugliness, shows he lacks that stimulus. Thus, "every token of
exhaustion, of heaviness, of age, of weariness, every kind of freedom, whether con-
vulsive or paralytic, above all the smell, color, and shape of dissolution, of decompo-
sition, though it be attenuated to the point of being no more than a symbol-all
this calls forth the same reaction, the value judg(;ment "ugly" (ibid.).
Nietzsche makcs this claim more forcefully later in Twilight ofthe Idols, when he
criticizes art pour I'art. The questions to raise about art concern not its "moralizing
tendency" but rathcr "What does art do? does it not praise? does it not glorifY? does
it not select? does it not highlight? By doing all this it strengthens or weakens certain
valuations" (Tf "Skirmishes" 24). And it does this necessarily, as a "prcrequisite for
the artist bcing an artist at all" because the values hc crcates also enact the subject's
relation to thc world.

GENEALOGY AND REDEMPTION

At the basis of Nietzsche's analysis of moral and other values is a conception of

creativity that redeems interpretation (GM 1II:24). For philosophers of the new agc,
nourishcd by genealoh'Y, "their 'knowing' is creating, their creating is a I(;gislation,
264 Salim Kemal

their will to truth is-will to power" (BGE 211; cf. BGE 203, 212, 213, etc.). Instead
of a universal viewpoinr from which to judge actions, for genealogy there are actors
who generate appraisals; instead of a single uniform history, there are interpretations
generated from diverse viewpoinrs; and instead of following rules, the genealogist
creates values.
In his writings Nietzsche seems to think of creativity as an activity that involves
producing original works rather than merely following rules; where the works have
only the status of interpretations precisely because they are created, and so do not
claim any metaphysical validity; where the results of the activity do not serve as rules
for others but are at best instances where those others may be their own genealogists.
Although there is no occasion where Nietzsche explicidy states and defends this con-
ception of creativity, it seems intrinsic to the nature and function of genealogy. To
make clearer this sense, we may develop Nietzsche's account of genealogy as redemp-
tion.
The stress on creativity is already apparenr in Nietzsche's explanation of particu-
larity. Genealogy is tied to the particular because it does not operate by following
given rules but by producing order. In other words, we cannot expect to follow
prescriptive rules in genealogy because to do so is less than creative. Where we have
rules and know when they apply, the actor needs only to act as the rules dictate,
and no issue of creativity arises. While it is possible to follow rules imaginatively or
unimaginatively, to show initiative or to be hidebound, these are matters of exerciz-
ing judgmenr, in which we discern the appropriate rule for a given situation. What-
ever flexibility is present in this judging is also present in the activity of genealogy;
but the latter involves much more because it constirutes or creates the relation of
power to value as an object. Indeed, in a sense genealogy is our awareness of the fact
that we create moral value and rules: only when we forget this creating do rules
become things that stand over us, as instructions of what to do in a given situation.
In valuing objects, Nietzsche suggests, we can ask: Is the artist's "basic instinct
directed towards art, or is it not rather directed towards the meaning of art, which
is life?" (ibid.). Artists who rurn to art in the hope of discovering rules for their own
behavior thwart their own ability to act for themselves. Even to tollow a rule subjects
must act; but in following a given rule they abnegate the ability to make themselves
and have their own style. By following rules actors become no more than the obverse
of artists who arc unruly and wild-both exhibit a weakness of will and a lack of
style because they lack the capaciry to construct order. The one kind merely follows
given rules and so does not make itself but is made by those rules, while the other
acts randomly and so fails to construct rules. By contrast, Nietzsche suggests that
the great artists make their own choices, constitute their own rules and values, pro-
viding the tension and order that cur deeper from a perspective.
Like artists genealogists arc creative because they produce rules. Further, the val-
ues they produce are also an occasion for other genealogists to generate their own
order. There is no room for mere appreciators in this schema, unless we mean that
agents create their own interpretations when they appreciate works. In this sense,
 Nietzsche! Genealogy 265

the genealogical conception of beauty as art both accepts that beauty has a value and
meaning and also recognizes that the meaning is not final and that order and values
are local. Meanings are open to construal and reconstrual, and our relation to works
is one of constructing them in our interpretations or reconstructing them in other
works and values we construct. Depending on the engagements with the feeling for
life that they enact and sustain, they will be beautiful or ugly, powerful or weak; and
depending on the order they give elements they will have grand or weak styles. In
eHect, a genealogical art constantly reminds that we are only human, that our values
only wrongly take on a pious and permanent standing, and that our relation to
objects is one of construction rather than communication.
Nietzsche develops this possibility of reconstruing meanings by associating art
with God and laughter. If the former represents one impulse to meaning, the latter
denies meaning any serious weight. And Nietzsche suggests that such laughter is
perhaps "where we shall discover the realm of our invention, that realm in which
we, too, can be original, say, as parodists of world history." That is, "perhaps if
nothing else today has any future, our laughter may yet have a future" (BGE 223
and Z:IV, quoted at the end of BT"5elf-Criticism"), because it recognizes the tem-
porality of meaning and being-it empowers us to recognize that permanence and
universality are gained only at the price of suppressing our human activity in pro-
ducing meanings and values from a particular perspective. Like genealogy, like phi-
losophy, art's "mockery of man, or the artist's mockery of himself" are crucial to
keeping open the future (GS 379) because their orientation derides our pretension
that we have created immutable truth and "real" meanings.
This mockery, as we saw, the "aesthetic" quality of novels, plays, or poems,
resides in the manner in which they engage with and enact values. That is, Nietz-
sche's account also portends a new "aesthetic" relation in which agents participate
and construct rather than simply contemplate and understand. Because of the differ-
ent viewpoints that must be accounted for in this relationship between subjects and
work, attention also shifts fwm the text itself as a purely aesthetic object to the
conversation between subjects around the text as they construct meanings-to the
concern for viewpoints and life that makes us human. Like knowledge and morality,
aesthetic value elaborates on our heal til and physiology, our constructing order
before an open future we do not fear.

GENEALOGY AND SOLIPSISM

However, genealogy's concern with the particular seems to lead to solipsism and
incoherence. Genealogists produce values only from and tor their own viewpoint, in
this context, where genealogy is a creative act undetermined by rules, any product
that serves it as a given rule also robs it of creativity. Even an earlier product of the
genealogist could begin to serve as a rule. 50 it seems that genealogy is threatened
with solipsism or incoherence because its creative acts can only serve as instances
266 Soli m Kertltll

that other genealogists go beyond in their own creative acts. Only those unable to
create will turn to the genealogist's product and treat it as a rule tor themselves.
Only then, it seems, will the product be attended to and redeemed from oblivion,
but now it is an interpretation that has been left behind.
But to argue in this way is to misconstrue Nietzsche's stress on creating or willing.
According to his arguments, to create is to produce objects in the absence of rules-
especially those gained from some universal viewpoint-knowing that the objects
produced have the status of interpretations. Genealogists cannot make such objects
serve as rules by which they could legislate over other actors and their actions, as if
the rules satisfied some universal standpoint. First, this is because, for the genealo-
gist, as interpretations the objects have no more reality than other interpretations.
Instead, second, interpretations serve as examples or as particular instances display-
ing what can be done from one point of view. Others may adopt that viewpoint
and, by grasping that example, give scope and practice to their own desire to create.
But to create they have to produce their own interpretations from their own view-
point, at most using the examples as models rather than as repositories of rules to
be followed.
Rather than yield rules for others to follow, the products of genealogy sustain the
creative activity of others in that others can understand the product only by
approaching it as an interpretation constructed out of a viewpoint and embodying
a place in relations of power. Only another genealogist, aware of its nature and ori-
gin, can engage with the object, not by following it but by reconstructing it so as to
develop his or her own creation of values. Nietzsche emphasizes the particular and
its viewpoint not because he is a relativist but because he wants to maintain both
the possibility of creation and knowledge that the object we already have is only a
creation from some standpoint. Further, if the genealogists are to create, then they
must act: their appraisals show themselves in the objects they produce, and in the
absence of the latter we would fail to recognize the actor as an agent.
Thus, inrerpretations display the creating will. For Nietzsche, that will is inescap-
able. As he says at the end of On the Genealogy of Morals, "Man would rather will
nothingness than 1I0t will" (GM IIl:28). So long as we strive (0 bring order by gener-
ating universal rules and moral values, and suppress the fact of their construction
out of their origins, we will find every value inadequate and be forced into nihilism.
Only when we live in full cognizance of the creation of values do we escape the force
of nihilism; and then we redeem ourselves by creating value.
Further, even those who propose a universal viewpoint must accept the stand-
point of this creative will, for although they do not often articulate its presence, and
while they pretend it does not lie in the active power at the basis of the "universal"
values they imitate, nevertheless without the creative will even their poor promising
would remain ineffective and unfulfilled.
Moreover, by recasting the story in terms of our active construction of values,
Nietzsche also raises an issue of the kind of community that is subtended by geneal-
ogy, including the genealogy of beauty. We can no longer use the standards of a will
 Nietzsche s Genealogy 267

to truth. Instead we must draw out the implications of the kind of relentless creation
of values that Nietzsche has suggested, showing it as a successful form of practice for
genealogists. In effect, we must raise the issue of solipsism again, this time as a mat-
ter of action rather than knowledge. If we must think of objects and values as con-
structs and of individuals' thinking of objects as interpretations they construct from
their own viewpoints, there seems little room for community or for shared interpre-
tations and responses. And to grasp more fully the consequences our denial of solip-
sism has for genealogy, we must consider the relation between subjects that becomes
possible-we must examine the politics of this kind of production.

THE POLITICS OF PRODUCTION

To characterize the community of genealogy Nietzsche proposes an equality of cre-

ators for whose future actions no present universalizable imperative can be binding.
Genealogy makes clear that every imperative has a standpoint, and Nietzsche does
not expect his present preferences to circumscribe the future that agents shall pro-
duce. Both these issues about the character of community and its normative force
are deeply political. Together with his stress on the subject, these commitments are
part of a more rational and free political order Nietzsche wants to promote. 19 And
we can examine some of the problems associated with Nietzsche's account by exam-
ining very briefly some "typical" issues and objections. These center on two matters:
first, that genealogy cannot be politically conservative; second, that it uses a distinc-
tive and coherent political vocabulary to constitute its community of actors.
Nietzsche's politics is the politics of subjects who are agents. We saw him claim
that value, including beauty, is always only a means for preserving a particular kind
of subject. Genealogy does not question the basis of value in power by rejecting all
conceptions of the subject; rather it reveals the conception at work in order to allow
us to substitute another understanding of the subject as active agent. In other words,
genealogy recognizes that "'the subject' is ... a created entity, a 'thing' like all
others," and thinks of interpretations and works of art embodying these interpreta-
tions as the affect of a will to power (WP 556). We misconstrue the "subject" as
"something given," for it is "something added and invented and projected behind
what there is" (WP 481). Indeed, talk of subjects is at best the result of power.
Nietzsche maintains that "it is the powerful who make rhe names of things into
law, and among the powerful it is the greatest artists in abstraction who created the
categories" (WP 513). His suggestion is that we construct the subject in our cons-
trual, and some construals generate a subject who is open to development while
other forms only calcify the power to act. The genealogy of beauty, then, lays bare
the relations of power by which a work constructs its subject, thus opening a false
"being" into a "becoming." Conscious now of how we invert cause into effect and
can misunderstand the nature of art when we see it as the result of a subject's act iv-
268 Salim Kanal

ity, the genealogy of beauty vivisecrs the power relations berween subjects congealed
in any work of an.
If genealogy works in this way, then it cannot be conservative. If we understand
conservatism as rhe desire to preserve the results of our natural judgment (see, for
example, Hume and Burke), then genealogy will corrode conservatism's basis in nat-
ural judgment. By analyzing values to show their origin in some underlying forms
of domination or power, genealogy refuses to countenance any value's claim to being
well founded in the kind of human essence that circumscribes natural judgment. 2u
In other words, first, genealogy plays a critical role by maintaining both the follow-
ing: where conservatives insist that natural judgment or our natural sense of beauty
provides a standard for values, so that what satisfies nature is good and what is bad
is unnamral, genealogy questions the origin and namre of this conception of nature.
It proposes that this conception itself enacts values; and by displaying the origins of
the values involved in that conception, it dissolves their justification.
Second, for example where Hume introduces an experimental method of reason-
ing into value to discover what causes give rise to values as eHect,21 or where Burke
points out that aesthetic and social values result form countless adjustments [00
complex to understand or control, and so seeks [0 justify the claim that they should
not be tampered with,22 there Nietzsche maintains that by providing a genetic
account of values these philosophers may have shown the sources of value and may
even identify the values being enacted but, in doing so, they also open up, without
answering, issues of justifying those enacred values.23 As Hume and Burke do nor
have the resources for raising issues of rhe origin of values in enacted forms of life,
power, and domination, they cannot even begin [0 examine the political implica-
tions of their own positions and genetic justification.
Indeed, Nietzsche's genealogical approach shows that their genetic explanations
are inadequate because they do not consider their own bases. Thus, so far as conser-
vatism is a politics of human judgment or namre rhat seeks to preserve what is
"best" about a "natural" order, genealogy is progressive because it identifies the lat-
ter as a value-laden assumption and, pointing out its basis in power, dissolves its
justification. No conservative claims to legitimacy will escape this kind of question-
ing, and any progressive theory that depends on similar accounts of human nature
will also fail. 24
Similarly, a politics based on subjects reasoning out the morality of their actions
and projects, which they justify by bringing their actions under rational and univer-
salizable rules, will not receive succor from genealogy. The latter finds such impera-
tives inadequately grounded; because they are not self-conscious of their own basis
in power and domination, they are ineffective in action. These values depend on an
implausible conception of man as a rational being and, in talk of aesthetic judg-
ments, reduce value [() an etiolated sphere separate from any engagement with real-
ity. They suppose that all beautiful things share some common feature, regardless of
the historical or political position of works, their construction, and reception, and
maintain that we can cur through these latter contingencies to appreciate the work
 Nietzsche! Genealogy 269

for itself, in its universal language, addressed to a universal subject, who underlies
all the "contingent" historical and political forms of individual existence. Beauty
thus becomes a matter of subjects' distinctive responses to only particular features
of an object; and the construction of beauty, the notion of a subject that beauty
subtends, the relation of power and domination implicated in this conception of
beauty, all become lost to analysis. In this context, genealogy is progressive first by
virtue of reminding us that values have a basis in power and second in dissolving
that value by presenting its sources-by showing the incomplete notion of the sub-
ject that this conception of values implies.
A radical right fares little better. If we understand a radical right as the attempt
to maintain a group or policy in power for the sake of that power, without any
anendant claims to legitimacy, then genealogy rejects its claims. It does this first by
denying that power any legitimacy/5 and second where the power does not seek
legitimacy, genealogy condemns it for the unhealthy form of life that that power
porrends. For this form of life, even if it holds on to power without apology, must
still will an order, and that willing is the subject of Nietzsche's analysis. By his
account, we may argue, works of beauty that serve only to keep a few in power
lose their richness and complexity. Beauty becomes necessary only to legitimate a
conception of a subject and power; yet because a radical right does not seek to justify
itself, it has no such need f()r beauty, and so impoverishes our aesthetic need. 2(, But
the radical right cannot do without willing as such, and where it wants to reserve
power for a few, it must either suppress others' ability to will or must control it. But
if it suppresses others' wills, it makes its own power ineffective. Ir now no longer
dominates othcr agcIHs because there are no longer any agents posscssing wills: by
suppressing their wills, this naked power only thwarts itself. On the other hand, if
it only seeks control of other wills, then it fails ever to gain a grand style, with the
attendant sense of balancing strength and weakness that we saw, earlier, was essential
to the exercise of strength in willing. Its interpretation and basis in powcr thus
become impoverished.
Now the last rejection of power may seem futile because genealogy's condemna-
tion of the radical right does not bring about its abolition. But that is a general
condcmnation of any methodology because, in the face of an irrational or unapolo-
getic pursuit of power for its own sake, no rationalization can succeed. Yet at least
genealogy is effective in bringing out the limitations of that brutal power, for this
radical right grasp of power must establish and perpetuate itself in some way at least
among those who exercise it. Against such a grab for power, a theorist of democracy
who does not grasp the genealogy of democratic forms in domination and power
will have recourse only to the democratic forms of opposition. But these, because
they do not thematize the undemocratic mechanisms that can bring about democ-
racy, can oppose a shameless exercise of power only with mere moral incantations.
By conrrast, Nietzsche's genealogy defends a "community of creators" because it
depends on the very willing that underlies every exercise of power. Nietzsche can
suggest where the defense begins to develop, for his exploration of irrationalism
270 Salim Kemal

allows him to recognize that a community of creators must be prepared to coumer

violence and barbarity. That is, the community of creators may form as a counter
to a despotism that limits willing. And because he recognizes the irrational sources
of rational ttHmS, Nietzsche can thematize that countering by developing his
account of the community of creators.
To defend this claim for Nietzsche, we must look more carefully at the "commu-
nity of creators." Given Nietzsche's descriptions of their ravishing the herd and
nature (sec BGE and GM), it is not clear that these crearors can form a community.
This difficulty arises also because Nietzsche's stress on creativity, given the ditTer-
ences in our abilities ro create, seems to preclude the kind of balance between parts
involved in talk of a community. But Nietzsche also uses the vocabulary of richness,
health, strength of interpretation, and the like, that provides a positive reading of
objects and actions without bringing in any metaphysics. This leads us ro recognize
that even if Nietzsche does not provide an analysis of political structures, he does
give insight into the politics of aesthetic and other values; and ifhe gives us a geneal-
ogy of beauty, he also provides a politics of production so far as we must understand
beauty as art.
The community of crearors is not an impossibility. It only seems so from the
poinr of view of a resentment that seeks control of every action by clamping it under
already given rules. By contrast with some agents, who use categorical imperatives
as a mechanism for controlling moral creativity and our exploration of the complexi-
ties of new moral simations, Nierzsche srresses rhe laner, showing we generate new
rules in our actions. Rather than consider the fact of judging or responding ro
actions, he examines the matter of acting. His is a community of actors rather rhan
a community of responders, and as we saw in rclation [0 works of beauty, the former
community develops our of a relation of actors ro acts and nO[ of responders ro acts.
A work or action provides an example that other acrors can take up not as a rule ro
be followed by as an example they use ro produce their own work. The community,
then, is an imeraction of producers and their objects, of rules generating new rules,
of interpretations giving rise ro new interpretations, and not a matler of including
only those evems that satisfY a universalizable rule. In other words, we may still talk
about community even though it is a group of crearors who respond to each others'
works and actions by creating their own, or create their own independently.
But the last possibility raises a further difficulty. If we accept that individuals cre-
ate and act by their own lights and, even if they relate to other creators, do so only
to produce their own work rather than to tallow a rule, then the distance between
individual and community seems great. Little unity will arise from such independent
behavior, and the membership of common practices and inreractive forms of life
that are usually involved in talk of community, seem nonexistent in the case of inde-
pendent crearors-so much so that community of creators seems empty of coment.
Yet, we may argue, Nietzsche sees no conrradiction between such creative individual-
ity and community. For example, he sees beauty as "the high poim of communica-
tion ... the source of language" (WP 8(9), and the languages of rones, gestures,
 Nietzsche sGenealogy 271

and glances that art creates and depends on, the "host of conventions" that lie at
the basis of mature art, all give substance to the community that shares this language
and set of conventions.
Nor does such convenrion offend against creativity. Nietzsche sees convenrion as
"the condition of great art, not an obstacle" (WP 8(9). We do not condemn artists
as uncreative because they use linguistic and social convenrions to construct a work.
Conventions are a means for making ourselves and our creative products under-
stood, and they no more interfere with creativity than the rules of logic prevent us
from urtering truths. Indeed, in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, in "Thousand and One
Goals," Nietzsche maintains that people are creators first and individuals second,
suggesting both that an opposition berween individual and community is a result of
creativity, and not something that suppresses individuality, and that individuality
depends on conventions because creativity does so. That is, far from individual cre-
ator and community being opposed, they are interdependent: creators use language
and its convemions to produce their work and so enhance and develop the commu-
nity.
Only the community that seeks to overpower the individual in the name of some
social rule also opposes the creative individual. That oppressive community Nietz-
sche is happy to condemn; yet this does not deny all community, and Nietzsche also
pleads the need for a creative and social individual. And such creative and social
individualism, we may expect, will likely rebel against extraneous formal rules and
such conservative values as either seek comrol or oppose the individual to all forms
of community.
While this sense of a community based on actions can stand further detailing,
even at this general level we can raise an objection that typifies others. A community
of crearors, a critic may argue, is an oxymoron because while a community suggests
a balance and a relation of parts to the whole, where the former are all necessary to
the laner and, so, equally important, this harmony is contradicted by the fact of
creativity. For different subjects possess this ability ro differem degrees, and their
ability ro create works and rules will surely single out some individuals over others,
making them more important to the community, and so causing inequality. And,
because of this inequality, the community of creators becomes politically question-
able. While genealogy may be progressive insofar as it rejects conservative claims to
immutable moral judgments, truths, unequal sensibilities, and their resultant social
and political hierarchies, still it only results in another arbitrary grouping of unequal
actors. Yet progressive thought Illust surely liberate us from hierarchies and make
possible a free and equitable relation between agents. 27 Progressive thought must
make good its promise of equity, showing how any presem imbalances in such
things as wealth and creativity do not preclude equity in worth. Yet creativity does
not sustain such liberation.
The reply to this kind of objection is straightforward. Possession of the ability to
will and create is not a source of inequality: the democratic community no more
institutionalizes individuals in hierarchies by reference to variations in their intelli-
272 Salim Kemal

gence than a community of creators need exclude agents by reason of variations in

their ability to create. More importantly, the criticism uses an evaluative conception
of creativity, treating it as an inability to produce values that only some specially
gifted agents possess. That is not Nietzsche's conception-the herd does not lack
creativity, it merely fears to exercise it or prefers to control it. lS Nietzsche explains
that the "slave revolt in morality begins when ressentiment becomes creative and
gives rise to values" (GM I: 10); and, instead of denying that the herd is creative, he
diagnoses the character of their activity. Thar is, he is characterizing the relation
between members of the community on the axis of action rather than along the axis
of judgmenrs on actions. In orher words, the community of creators is not obviously
a system of inequalities.
Of course, Nietzsche does not provide any analysis of the political structures and
institutions that will sustain creative activity. But not only is his sense of politics
wider than such an instirutional analysis, he also gives us a vocabulary for a positive
reading of objects and actions. And this positive reading tells us how we should do,
even if it does not tell us whlltwe should do. It implicates a political relation between
crearors that nor only rejects conservatism but also does not depend on a metaphys-
ics of human narure, truth, or good judgment, and so is free of what could make it
conservative.
A community of crearors does not exclude any subject from this politics. And
though he does not give us an analysis of political institutions as such, Nietzsche
does suggest that we have a tool for excluding those who would introduce conserva-
tism. He talks of the richness of inrerprerations,2Y of their health,30 and of the
strength in styles, as we saw earlier, thar provide a crirerion for politics through a
nor ion of inclusiveness. We can exclude ill£erprerations that impose limitations and
exclude possible actions and actors. 31 People who promote, say, a communiry of
only whire males have a poorer abiliry ro acr, impoverishing themselves by insisting
on the validiry and incorrigibility of certain rules and having to suppress orhers
because they can find no reason to oppose them. Yet the very insistence rhat white
male society constirutes the only legitimate community already makes him redun-
dant in the light of the richer experience, interpretations, and forms of life available
from another perspective.
Without exhausting all possible viewpoints within the compass of a single moral
fable or eschatology, Nietzsche can move that the richer interpretation is bener
because it empowers us berrer to act and construct healthy, furure-seeing forms of
lite. The latter roo may dissolve, bur their destruction is the greater affair because
they cut more deeply into our power to produce the future. Thus, they may fail
under the pressure of their own inadequacies and for good reasons, which may
become clearer from another perspective, but that destruction has powerful conse-
quences because it explores our construction of values, forms of life, and becoming
more deeply. For genealogists it is important to keep open the furure. Here, every
interpretation and its form of life is seen as a willing; and for sustaining the abiliry
to act, for empowering us in a form of lite, we value that creativity. Irs contrast is
 Nietzsche's Genealogy 273

with a form of life that imposes redundant boundaries of class, race, sex, position,
and so on, on our power and will. Unlike this form of life, we prefer those works of
beauty that allow us the berrer to enact our life forms. And so far as the genealogy
of beauty makes this possibility available, it is a politics of production and creativity
that does not aesrheticize politics.

NOTES

I. See GS 353-380, and WP68, 69, etc. Nietzsche's references to science and imerpreta-
tion in this text are numerous. Translations of Nietzsche's works are drawn from Kaufmann's
BT, GS; Kaufmann and Hollingdale's GM and WP; Hollingdale's A, HH, TI. [Ed. Note-
Citations have been revised to conform with the sryle of this volume. In the course of making
such translations, errors were discovered. They are corrected here.]
2. See, for example, GM III, where the ascetic is understood in a number of modes,
including sryle, or Tl "Untimely" 19 and 20, whcre the relation of srylc to valuations is con-
sidered, and GS 290, where the association of creativity, sryle, and valuations is again dis-
cussed.
3. Of course, any quotations from Nietzsche must be handlcd carefully bccause thcir con-
text and purpose is not always clear in the aphorisms themselves. In this case, to rake art
seriously is for the philosopher to see objects and values as parts, as things constructed and
not given, and as open to our actions.
4. This turn to art is cemral to Alexander Nehamas' book Nietzsche: Lift as Literature
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985). However, Nehamas does not consider
the issue I want to raise, of the impact this extension to cognition and value has on our
conception of art, literature, and aesthetic value.
5. This also gives philosophy a critical role. See WP797, BGE 291, and GM where seeing
through the surface of values to their bases leads us to display the origins of values in power
relations, barbarism, and violence.
6. Nietzsche conceives origins not in terms of theit prehistory but of their nature and
possibilities.
7. F. W. Schiller, in The Aesthetic Education of Man, maimains that they are. Similarly,
Hegel sees works as symptomatic of a singlc story of thc developmcm of reason whose conclu-
sion lies some way beyond all art and beauty.
8. Nietzsche's targets include Kam herc, because he misconstrues Kam's notion of "disin-
tercstcdncss." Sce S. Kcmal, Kant and Fine Art: Kant and the Philosophy of Fine Art and Cul-
ture (Oxford: Oxford University Prcss, 1986): Nietzsche was simply mistakcn to understand
Kant in tcrms of a disinterestedness that excluded the possibility of ascribing an interest to
aesthetic judgmem.
9. That other world of "spirit," "reason," and a commensurate "morality," depends on
"an unnatural extirpation of desires," as ifhuman life were nothing until we escapcd its physi-
ology and passions to become moral. "But to attack the passions at their roots," Nietzsche
reminds us, "means to attack life at its roots" in our prcscm physiology (T1 "Morality" 1).
Thus we cannot trace that spiritualized morality to an origin in man (A 15). To oppose that
spiritualization by extirpation, Nietzsche formulates an alternative principle: "All naturalism
274 Salim Kemal

in morality. that is all healthy morality. is dominated by an instinct for life"; and this human
morality. this human life. "is at an end where 'the kingdom of God' begim" (TI "Morality" 4).
10. He writes that it is precisely through the pressure of opposites. and the feelings they
occasion. that "the great man. the bow with the greatest temion. develops" (WP 967).
11. [Ed. Note-I am unable to determine Kcmal's precise reference where he writes "ibid .•
65." I believe he is referring to 71 (not WP) "Germans" 6. bur the three "needful" things
listed there are: seeing. thinking. and writing.}
12. Actors "survey all the strengths and weaknesses of their nature and then fit them into
an artistic plan until every onc of them appears as art and reason and even weaknesses delight
the eye" (GS 290).
13. Yet style is not all; it has wider application than aesthetic valuc because it has repercus-
sions in morality and knowledge when its criteria are developed further. Bur this extension is
not made by Derrida. who thinks of style as the basic concept of Nietzsche's thought. He
does not rdate the notion of style to the feding for life that Nietzsche refers to. Sec Jacques
Dcrrida. Spurs: Nietzsche's Style. trans. Barbara Harlow (Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
1979).
14. This suggests again that beauty or ugliness are not aesthetic categories in any tradi-
tional sense but are measured by their fullness or their strength. The will to power empowers
us to generate interpretations.
15. In GS P 4. Nietzsche recognizes that the need to be comfortable with the superficial
unities of traditional art is necessaty; but that is never enough.
16. Each work holds together God and buffoon. Nietzsche says in BGE 223. where the
first provides meaning and the second impiously refuses all permancnr meaning.
17. Nietzsche's diagnosis of the conception of life and subject we enact in our values is
part of his analysis of the errors of our thought. especially his famous reversal in "The Four
Great Errors" in Tl. See also A I.
18. This activity. in turn. is seen from the perspective of life.
19. I have in mind Habermas and the "Frankfurt School" as a conrrast to Nietzsche at
this point.
20. The example I have in mind is Hume's reliance on a conception of human nature by
namral judgmenrs as the basis for our claims to knowledge and value. See for example. the
Treatise of Human Nature. Book III.
21. See 7reatise of Human Nature. Book II. for example. Section VII. on vice and virtue
and Book III. Parr II. Section II. on the origin of Justice and Property. See also D. C. Hoy.
"Nietzsche. Hume. and the Genealogical Method" in Y. Yovel (cd.). Nietzsche as AfJirmative
Thinker. (Dordecht: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. 1986): 20-38. Hoy seems to me to make
too much of the analogies between the "genetic" features of both thinkers' methodologies
and wrongly explains their differences only in terms of the generality of their approaches.
Hume accepts that a genetic account justifies the value; it is far from clear that Nietzsche does
so. Hume rests his analysis on claims about the efficacy of natural judgement; Nietzsche does
not accept this but instead criticizes thinkers who rely on any conception of human nature.
He argues that the mind is already ideologically committed and normative.
22. See Burke. Reflections on the Revolution ill France and Essay on the Beautiful and the
Sublime.
23. See. for example. GS 345. where he says that "even if a morality has grown out of an
error. the realization of this fact would not as much as touch the problem of its value." Cited
in Hoy. p. 20.
 Nietzsches Genealogy 275

24. See, for example, Sebastiano Timpanaro, On Materialism (London: New Left Books,
1971), and Peter Fuller, Art and Psychoanalysis (London: Writers and Readers, 1979), both of
which rely on a notion of human nature derived from biology ro propose that universal values
are available ro Marxism.
25. That is, it rejects a radical right claim ro legitimacy as it rejects a conservative claim ro
legi timacy.
26. See Nietzsche's criticisms of the "cultural philistines" and his account of aesthetic
necessity cited earlier.
27. Even if there is an actual inequality-from each according to their abiliry and to each
according ro their need-these imbalances remain unimportant because the worth of agents
is not decided by their wealth.
28. For Nietzsche, priests are creative and strong among the weak. See GM III on the
particular creativity exercised by the ascetic.
29. Sec, fi)f example, GM III: 12, where Nietzsche points our the role of interpretations.
The Will to Power contains numerous other instances of this stress.
30. See TI for more on Nietzsche's idea of health.
31. This is not entirely true as Nietzsche says we must narrow our perspective to produce
new values (see GM III: 12, where he talks of the narrowing of our perspective); but his whole
thrust there, too, is to make progress in producing new works, and where a narrowing frus-
trates this production, we shall jenison it.
18
Nietzsche and the Jews
The Structure of an Ambivalence*

Yirmiyahu Yovel

This chapter is based on a studyl that examines the image of Judaism as offered by
the two most important philosophers of the nineteenrh century, Hegel and Nietz-
sche. One was active in the first half and the other in the second half of the cenrury;
one was a major philosopher of reason and the other one of its severest critics. I
confine myself to treating both of them as philosophers, which means concentrating
on their own philosophical ideas rather than on their various users and abusers, and
understanding their image of the Jews in its relation to each philosopher's ideas and
overall philosophical project.
Hegel's philosophical project was a vast and ambitious one. It included the
attempt to reach a philosophical understanding of the modern world, its essence and
genesis, and thereby to shape modernity still further and lead to its climax. Hegel
saw European culture as the core of world history, and as being essentially a Chris-
tian culture-which the philosopher must translate and elevate inro concepts; Juda-
ism was a necessary background tor understanding the Christian revolution and era.
According to the Hegelian dialectic, every cultural form makes some genuine con-
tribution to world history (and the world Spirit), after which it is sublated (aufgeho-
ben) and disappears from the historical scene. Yet the Jews continued to survive long
after their raison d'etre had disappeared-indeed, after they no longer had a genuine
history in Hegel's sense, but merely existed as the dead corpse of their extinguished
essence. Now, with the French Revolution, the Jews were entering the modern world

'Originally published in Nietzsche and Jewish Culture, edited by Jacob Golumb (New York:
Routledge, 1997), 117-34. Reprinted with permission of Routledge.

277
278 Yinniyahu Yovel

and claiming their rights and place within it. Hegel, despite his ami-Jewish bias, was
perfixtly disposed (0 gram these rights, bur did not know what to do with the Jews
in modernity as Jews, nor how to explain their survival in terms of his system.
Nietzsche too had an ambitious philosophical project, in many ways opposing
Hegel's. A radical cultural revolurionary, his goal was not to bring the process of
modernity to culmination but rather to subverr and reverse it or, more precisely, to
divert it inro a totally differem course. The process that had starred with Socrates,
Moses, and Jesus, and that Hegel saw as creating truth, civilization, spirit, and even
God himself (the Absolure) was to Nietzsche a story of decadence and degeneration.
Nietzsche attributed this decadence ro two main sources-rationalistic metaphysics
and Christianity: the first stemming from the Greeks, the second from the ancient
Jews. He therefore needed an interpretation of Judaism (and also of Socratism, as
offered in The Birth of Tragedy) in order ro expose and upset the decadenr culture of
the present. Given these projects, Hegel had seen the merit of ancienr Judaism in its
discovery-which led ro Christianity-that God was spirit and that spirit is higher
than nature; whereas for Nietzsche this was the great falsification that the ancient
Jewish priests had brought about. However, as my analysis shows, Nietzsche did not
recognize a single, permanem Jewish essence. He distinguished three different modes
or phases in Judaism, and expressed admiration for two of them: for biblical Juda-
ism, and t()r the Jews of the laner Diaspora. 2 His harsh critique pours exclusively on
the middle phase, the second-temple "priestly" Judaism (as he calls it), which had
started the "slave revolution" in morality-namely, Christianity. Nietzsche's true
target is Christianiry: so much so that often he reads the ideas and even the phrases
of the New Testamenr directly into what he derogates under the name of Judaism.
On the emotionallevcl, Hegel, especially in maturity, had lost inrerest in the Jew-
ish theme, whereas Nietzsche's interest in it was increasingly passionate and burning.
And this links imo another aspect of my srudy: ro what extent did each philosopher
overcome the anti-Jewish feelings imbued in his upbringing and milieu? Those feel-
ings were of a different kind in each case. Nietzsche carne ro marurity in the second
half of the nineteemh century amid a wave of nationalistic and racist anri-Semirism
raging in Germany, which had already a distinct secular feature. For a shorr time,
Nietzsche says, he too "had resided in the zone of the disease" (meaning his associa-
tion with Wagner), but later he performed a powerful overcoming of that "disease"
and became opposed to the anti-Semites with parricular energy and passion.
Ir has become a commonplace to say Nietzsche was "ambivalent" abour the Jews.
Yet the word "ambivalent" itself is ambiguous and oftcn crcates an impression of
depth where there is but confusion. My aim is to analyze the precise structure of
Nietzsche's ambivalence about the Jews and bring to light its ingrediems in their
murual relations. On the one hand Nietzsche sees ancient Judaism as one of the
main sources of European decadence, and on the other he assigns modern Jews,
whom he admires, a leading role in creating the nondecadent, de-Christianized
Europe he wishes for the furure. As for modern anti-Semitism, Nietzsche repudiates
 Nietzsche and the Jews 279

it with the same passion he reserves for the proro-Christian Jewish "priests"-and
for similar reasons. These two human rypes, apparently so opposed [() each other-
the anti-Semite and the Jewish priest-are actually genealogical cousins: rhey share
the same deep-psychological pattern of ressentiment that Nietzsche's philosophy
diagnoses at the basis of human meanness and degeneration.

METHODOLOGICAL ELEMENTS

The following are the main methodological elements of this study: (I) I examine
Nietzsche's views of the Jews in relation ro his actual philosophy, not as casual
reflections that any intellectual, artist, or scientist may have about the Jews. (2) Tak-
ing an immanent approach, I deal with Nietzsche's own thought and not--despite
their interest for the historian or sociologist-with its many popular and politically
motivated usages, or with what is vaguely called "Nietzscheanism." (3) In addition
to their philosophical meaning, I cry also to listen ro Nietzsche's words in their rhe-
torical context. (4) To a limited extent I have taken his psychological career into
account-both his struggle with close anti-Semitic intimates, and his last twilight
letters before he went mad, which carry a special hermeneutic value. (5) Above all,
I am looking for the underlying structure of Nietzsche's complex position as indi-
cated above.
This search has led me to distinguish, first, between Nietzsche's attitude toward
anti-Semitism and toward Judaism. Second, within Judaism I had to furrher distin-
guish between rhree periods or modaliries: (1) biblical Judaism; (2) second-temple
"priestly" Judaism; (c) Diaspora and conremporary Jews.

JUDAISM AND ANTI-SEMITISM

When Nietzsche attacks the anti-Semites or defends rhe Jews, he aims at real people:
the actual community of the Jews, and anti-Semitism as a contemporary movement.
By contrast, when dealing with ancient priestly Judaism Nietzsche treats it as a psy-
chocultural category that is latent in the current (Christian) culrure and that Nietz-
sche, as the "genealogist" of this culrure, has [0 expose. Contrary ro many anti-
Semites-and also (0 many Jewish apologerics-Nietzsche does nor project his view
of ancient Judaism into a polirical attitude toward rhe Jews of roday. This break
allowed him to be at the same time-and with the same intense passion-both an
ami-ami-Semite and a critique of anciem priesdy Judaism-rhe founrain of Chris-
tianiry.

THE ANTI-ANTI-SEMITE: QUID FACTP

A selection offour kinds of texts allows us to recognize the fact of Nietzsche's fierce
and univocal opposition to contemporary ami-Semitism. These texts are drawn
280 Yinniyahu Yovel

from (I) his published writings; (2) his intimate letters (to his sister, his mother, his
close friends); (3) his "twilight letters" written on the verge of madness; (4) "The
Fritsch Affair"-a correspondence with an anti-Semitic agitator who tried to recruit
Nietzsche-and "Zarathusrra" too, as Nietzsche says with disgust 4 -inro his camp.
Here are a few illustrations. In the Genealogy Nietzsche says of the anti-Semites:

This hoarse, indignanr barking of sick dogs, this rabid mendaciousness and rage of
"noble" pharisees, penetrates even the hallowed halls of science. (l again remind readers
who have ears for such things of that Berlin apostle of revenge, Eugen DUhring, who
employs moral mumbo-jumbo more indecently and repulsively than anyone else in
Germany today: Dlihring, the foremost moral bigmollth today-unexcelled even
among his own ilk, the anti-Semites.) (GM Ill: 14)

"This is our conviction: we confess it before all the world, we live and die for it. Respect
for all who have convictions!" I have heard that sort of thing even Ollt of the mouths of
anti-Semites. On the contrary, gentlemen! An anti-Semite certainly is not any more
decent because he lies as a matter of principle. (A 55)

Meanwhile they [the Jews] wanr and wish rather, even with some importuniry, (0 be
absorbed and assimilated by Europe; they long (0 be fixed, permitted, respected some-
where at long last, putting an end (0 the nomads' life, (0 rhe "Wandering Jew" ... (0
that end it might be uscfili and fair to expel the anti-Semitic screamers from the coun-
try. (BGE 251)

Since Wagner had moved (0 Germany, he had condescended srep by step (0 everything
I despise-even to anti-Semitism. (NCW"How I Broke Away From Wagner: 1)

To Overbeck:

This accursed anti-Semitism ... is the reason for the great rili: between myself and my
sister. (KGB Ill, 503)

And to his sister:

You have committed one of the greatest stupidities-for yourself and for me! Your asso-
ciation with an anti-Semitic chief expresses a foreignness (0 my whole way of life which
fills me again and again with ire or melancholy.... It is a matter of honor with me to
be absolutely dean and unequivocal in rdarion to anti-Semitism, namely, opposed (0
it, as I am in my writings. I have recently been persecuted with letters and anti-Semitic
Correspondence Sheets.' My disgust with this party (which would like the benefit of
my name only (00 well!) is as pronounced as possible ... and that I am unable to do
anything against it, that the name of Zarathusrra is used in every Anti-Semitic Corre-
spondence Sheet, has almost made me sick several times. (Christmas 1887, PN,
456-57)
 Nietzsche and the Jews 281

The intimate texts carry special weight, because they prove that Nietzsche's opposi-
tion to anti-Semitism was not merely external and "political" (or "politically cor-
rect"), as with many liberals, but penetrated into the deep recesses of his mind. That
result might have been reinforced by Nietzsche's intense relations with anti-Semites
such as his sister, Wagner, Cosima, and perhaps also Jacob Burckhardt. G These
depth-psychological relations could have served as a lever in providing the energy
for overcoming his own early anti-Semitism in the intense way he did, that is, not
as liberal rationalist but with all the passion of his being-that is, in a "Nietzschean"
way.

THE ANTI-ANTI-SEMITE: QUID JURIS

Even without considering psychology, there are sufficient philosophical grounds for
Nietzsche's active anti-anti-Semitism. The anti-Semitic movement contains and
heightens most of the decadent elements in modern culture that Nietzsche's philoso-
phy had set out to combat:

1. Anti-Semitism is a mass movement, vulgar, ideological, a new form of "slave

morality" and of the man of the Herd.
2. As such, ami-Semitism is a popular neurosis, affecting weak people who lack
existential power and self-confidence (as opposed to Nietzsche's "Dionysian"
person).
3. Anti-Semitism, especially in Germany, served to reinforce the German Reich
and the cult of politics and the State, which Nietzsche, as "the last un-political
German," denounces as "the New Idol."
4. Anti-Semitism, in Germany, was also the lubricant of German nationalism,
which Nietzsche opposed most insistently (though he did so "from the right").
5. Anti-Semitism also depends on racism; yet Nietzsche's philosophy rejects rac-
ism as a value distinction between groups (though he does admit of race as a
descriptive category). Nietzsche demands the mixing of races within the new
Europe he envisages.
6. At the ground of all the preceding points lies a common genealogical struc-
ture-fear, insecurity, existential weakness, and above all ressentiment-the
malignant rancor against the mentally powerful and self-affirming, and the
harred toward the other which preconditions one's own self-affirmation and
self-esteem. The anti-Semite's ardor conceals his/her deep insecurity: he does
nor start with the celebrating affirmation of his own being, but with the nega-
tion of the other's, by which alone the anti-Semite is able to reaffirm his own
self-which he does in an overblown, empty, and arrogam manner. "They are
all men of ressemiment, physiologically unfortunate and worm-eaten, a whole
tremulous realm of subterranean revenge, inexhaustible and insatiable in out-
bursts against the fortunate and happy" (GM III: 14)
282 Yirmiyahu Yowl

Here are a few more quotes, illustrating his opposition to nationalism and the cult
of politics and the state:

Is there any idea at all behind this bovine nationalism? What value can there be now,
when everything points to wider and more common interests, in encouraging this boor-
ish self-conceit? And this in a state of affairs in which spiritual dependency and disna-
rionalizarion meet the eye and in which the value and meaning of contemporary culture
lie in mutual blending and fertilization! (WI> 748)

The whole problem of the Jews exists only in nation states, for here their energy and
higher intelligence, their accumulated capital of spirit and will, gathered from genera-
tion to generation through a long schooling in suffering, must become so preponderant
as to arouse mass envy and hatred. In almost all contemporary nations, therefore-in
direct proporrion to the degree to which they act up nationalistically-the literary
obscenity is spreading of leading the Jews to slaughter as scapegoats of every conceivable
public and internal misfortune. As soon as it is no longer a matter of preserving nations,
but of producing the strongest possible European mixed race, the Jews are just as useful
and desirable an ingredient as any other national remnanr. (HH 475)

Culture and the state--one should not deceive oneself about this-are antagonists ....
All great ages of culture are ages of political decline: what is great culrurally has always
been unpolitical, even antpolitical. (TI "Germans" 4)

On the New Idol

State is the name of rhe coldest of all cold monsters. Coldly it tells lies too; and this lie
crawls our of its mouth: "I, the state, am the people." That is a lie!
... every people speaks its tongue of good and evil ... but the state tells lies in all
the tongues of good and evil. ...
Everything abour it is false; it bites with stolen teeth, and bites easily. Even its entrails
are ['lIse.
"On earth there is nothing greater than I: the ordering finger of God and I"-thus
roars the monster. And it is not only the long-eared and shortsighted who sink to their
knees.
Escape from the bad smell! Escape from the idolatry of the superfluous .... Only
where the state ends, there begins the human being who is not superfluous: there begins
the song of necessity, the unique and inimitable rune. (Z:I "On the New Idol")

Combined, Nietzsche's four negations-of nationalism, of racism, of anti-Semitism,

and of the cult of the state-also explain why his philosophy is inherently opposed
to fascism and Nazism, although these ideologies have abused Nietzsche for their
purposes.

THE ANCIENT "PRIESTLY" JUDAISM

Nietzsche's attack on ancient ("priestly") Judaism is as fierce and uncompromising

as his assault on anti-Semitism. The Jewish priests have spread rhe spurious ideas of
 Nietzsche and the Jews 283

a "moral world order," sin, guilt, punishment, repenrance, pity, and the love of the
neighbor. Thereby they falsified all natural values. The meek and the weak are the
good who deserve salvation; all men are equal in their duties toward a transcendent
God and the values of love and mercy He demands. (Nietzsche thus arrributes to
the Jewish priests a direct Christian content, and often describes them as Christian
from the start.) Yet beneath his doctrine of mercy, the priest's soul was full of malice
and ressentiment, the rancor of the menrally weak whose will-to-power turns into
hostility and revenge against the other, which is his only way to affirm himself.
Thereby the Jewish priests-pictured as early Christians-have created the "slave
morality," which official Christianity then propagated through the world. Whereas
the ami-Semites accuse the Jews of having killed Jesus, Nietzsche accuses them of
having begotten Jesus.

The slave revolt in morality begins when ressentiment itself becomes creative and gives
birth to values: the ressentiment of natures that are denied the true reaction, that of
deeds, and compensate themselves with an imaginary revenge. While every noble moral-
ity develops from a triumphant affirmation of itself, slave morality from the outset says
No to what is "outside," what is "different," what is "not itself"; and this No is its
creative deed. (GM 1:10)

Priestly morality is the morality of the existenrially impotent, in whom ressentiment

against the powerful and the self-assured has become a value-creating force. The
existential "slaves" take vengeance on their "masters" on an ideal plane, in that they
succeed in imposing their own values on the masters, and even cause them to interi-
orize those new values, and thereby subjugate them. Henceforrh the powerful person
sees himself/herself as sinner not only in the other's eyes but in his/her self-perception
as well, which is the ultimate form of subordination and also corruption.
Nietzsche thereby places the critique of anciem Judaism at a crucial junction of
his philosophy. It is grounded in ressentiment, a key Nietzschean category, and is
responsible for the corruption of Europe through Christianity. However, his critique
does not serve Nietzsche in fighting against contemporary Jews, but against contem-
porary Christianity and the "modern Ideas" he sees as its secular offshoots (liberal-
ism, nationalism, socialism, and the like). For modern Jews, after they go out of the
ghetto and become secularized, Nietzsche has far-reaching prospects, whereas the
modern anti-Semite is analyzed as the genealogical cousin of the ancient Jewish
priest, whose properties the anti-Semite has inherited, but on a lower level still, since
he lacks the value-creating power that the Jewish priests have demonstrated, and
since, in order to feel that he is somebody, he requires the fake security of mass
culture and the "togetherness" of a political movemem.
Nietzsche's analysis, like Socrates's dialectic, ends in an ironic reversal. While the
ami-Semite is the ancient Jewish priests' relative, the modern Jew is their complete
opposite (or "antipode"). As such, modern Jews are candidates for helping to create
284 Yinniyahu Yovel

a new Dionysian culture and redeem Europe from the decadence instilled by their
forefathers.
Rhetorically, too, the anti-Semite learns that, at bottom he has the same psychol-
0b'Y as his worst enemies in their worst period, and this is supposed to shock the
anti-Semite into disgust-perhaps at himself. However, by using anti-Semitic
images ostensibly against themselves Nietzsche is playing with fire.
It follows that Nietzsche holds two rather univocal positions: against modern
anti-Semitism and against ancient priestly Judaism, which are linked by the same
genealogical root, ressentirnent. Nietzsche's ambivalence derives from the combina-
tion of these two positions, which look contradictory but are not so in effect. From
a logical or ~ystematic point of view there is no contradiction between rejecting both
anci-Semitism and the moral message of ancient Judaism, yet this combination cre-
ates a strong psychological tension that ordinary people find hard to sustain. Hence
the need to transcend ordinary psychology and cultivate an uncommon, noble char-
acter capable of holding on to both positions despite the tension they create. In
other words, what is needed in order to maintain the two tense positions is not only
a common link between them (the opposition to ressentiment) but a special personal-
ity whose mental power allows it to maintain a stance of "nevertheless" and insist
on the distinction it involves.
This is nothing new. Almost every important matter in Nietzsche calls for an
uncommon psychology. This is true, above all, of arnor foti, which draws creative
power from hard truths, and affirms life despite the demise of all "meraphysical con-
solations." In Nietzsche one needs anyway to go beyond the limits of ordinary
humanity and human psychology, toward a goal that his rhetoric dramatizes under
the name of Ubermensch. Nietzsche's position on Judaism and anti-Semitism is no
exception.
In a word, Nietzsche's noncontradictory ambivalence requires holding two (or
more) differentiated positions that are logically compatible yet psychologically com-
petitive and hard to maintain together for the ordinary person. This analysis can
also help explain why Nietzsche's position has so widely been abused; for the mental
revolution that he sought did nor take place, while his ideas were generalized, vulgar-
ized, and delivered to a public in which the old psychology prevailed.
At the same time, we noticed on several occasions that Nietzsche himself exploits
anti-Semitic feelings and images that exist in other people (or whose traces persist
in his own mind) and manipulates them in a dialectical technique, as a rhetoric
device to insult the anti-Semites or hurt Christianity. For example:

Consider to whom one bows down in Rome itself today, as if they were the epitome of
all the highest values-and not only in Rome but over almost half the earth ... three
Jews, as is known. and one Jewess (Jesus of Nazareth. the fisherman Peter. the rug
weaver Paul. and the mother of the aforementioned Jesus named Mary). (GM I: \6)

As I said before. Nietzsche in this and similar cases is playing a dangerous game; his
meaning can be twisted against his intention, his irony misunderstood, and his
 Nietzsche and the Jews 285

words may enhance that which he actually opposes. The irony of speaking ironically
[() the vulgar is that the speaker himself may end up the victim of an ironic reversal,
by which his imeIH is undermined and his discourse is taken at face value. Nietzsche,
as a master of the art, should have anticipated the ironic fate of ironizers.

THE THREE PHASES OF JUDAISM

We have also seen that Nietzsche does not attribute to Judaism a constam essence
or genealogical pattern, but distinguished three periods or phases within it.
(1) In biblical times (the Old TestameIH) Nietzsche perceives Dionysian greatness
and natural sublimity that arouses his reverence. He does not accept the content of
the biblical figures' religious belief, but admires their attitude to life and religion
because it was vital, natural, this-worldly and was built on self-affirmation rather
than self-recrimination.

In the Jewish "Old Testament," the book of divine justice, there are human beings,
things. and speeches in so grand a style that the Greek and Indian literature have noth-
ing ro compare with it. With terror and reverence one stands before these rremendous
remnants of what man once was. (BGE 52)

At the time of the kings. Israel also srood in the right, that is. the natural relationship
ro all things. Its Yahweh was the expression of a consciousness of power, of joy in one-
self: of hope for oneself: through him victory and wdface were expected; through him
nature was trusted ro give what the people needed above all, cain. Yahweh is the god of
Israel and therefore the god of justice: rhe logic of every people that is in power and has
a good conscience. (A 25)

(2) The second temple and its priests are the object of Nietzsche's harsh and merci-
less attack. Here the "slave morality" revolution was performed, the major denatur-
ation and reversal of values that led to Christianity, as analyzed before.

To have glued this New Testament ro make one book, as the "Bible," as "the book par
excellence"-that is perhaps the greatest audacity and "sin against the spirit" that liter-
ary Europe has on its conscience. (BGE 52)

The concept of God falsified, the concept of morality falsified: the Jewish priesthood
did not srop there. The whole of the hisrory of Israel could not be used: away with it!
These priests accomplished a miracle of falsification .... With matchless scorn for every
rradition, for every hisrorical rcaliry, they translated the past of their own people into
religious terms, that is, they turned it inro a stupid salvation mechanism of guilt before
Yahw<:h, and punishment. (A 26)
286 Yinniyahu Yovel

On such utterly false soil. where everything natural. every natural value. every reality
was opposed by the most profound instincts of the ruling class. Christianity grew up-a
form of morral enmity against reality that has never yet becn surpassed. (A 27)

(3) Diaspora Jews again arouse Nietzsche's admiration. because they have demon-
strated the power of affirming life in the face of suffering and drawn force from it.
Moreover. Diaspora Jews have the merit of having rejected Christ and served as a
constant critic and counterbalance to Christianity.

In the darkest times of the Middle Ages ... it was Jewish free-thinkers. scholars. and
physicians who clung [0 the banner of enlightenment and spiritual independence in the
face of the harshest personal pressures and defended Europe against Asia. We owe it to
their exertions. not least of all. that a more natural. more rational. and certainly
un mythical explanation of the world was eventually able [0 triumph again. (HH 475)

The Jews. however. are bcyond any doubt the strongest. [Oughest and purest race now
living in Europe; they know how [0 prevail even under the worst conditions (even better
than under favorable conditions). by means of virtues that today one would like to mark
as vices-thanks above all to a resolute faith that need not be ashamed of "modern
ideas." (BGE 25)

CONTEMPORARY JEWS AND THE

CLOSING OF THE CIRCLE

As a result of their hard and long schooling and invigorating experience. the Jews
reached the modern era as the strongest and most stable people in Europe. and could
have dominated it. though they did not wish to do so. However. once they decided
[0 mingle with the other European nations. then because of their greater existential

power they would naturally. without intending to. reach a dominant position. in
the sense of determining the norms and the new values in Europe. If however. the
Jews continued their seclusion. Nietzsche grimly predicted they would "lose
Europe" (that is. emigrate or be expelled) as their ancestors had left or been driven
from Egypt. Nietzsche advocates the first alternative. The Jews must pour their gifts
and power into a new Europe that will be free of the Christian heritage: the forebears
of Christ must work today in the service of the modern anti-Christ (i.e .• Nietzsche-Dio-
nysus). alld thereby pay their debt to Europe for what their priestly ancestors had done to
it'?
For this to happen, European society must open up to the Jews and welcome
them. and the Jews must end their voluntary seclusion and involve themselves with
all European matters as their own: in this way they will, inevitably, attain excellence
and end up determining new norms and values for Europe. Nietzsche welcomes this
prospect with enthusiasm. because he sees the Jews as allies and levers in the transi-
tion to a higher human psychology and culture. If the Nazis considered the Jews as
UI/termenschell, to Nietzsche they were a possible catalyst of the Ubermensch.
 Nietzsche and the Jews 287

Nietzsche thus assigns a major role [() the Jews as Jews within his new Europe. He
opposes a nationalist (or Zionist) solution, because he wants the Jews to mix with
the other European peoples. At the same time he also opposes the usual, passive and
imitative, Jewish assimilation. His solution is creative assimilation, in which the Jews
are secularized, excel in all European matters and serve as catalysts in a new revolu-
tion of values-this time a curative, Dionysian revolution-that will overcome the
Christian culture and the "modern ideas" born of it the (Enlightenment, liberalism,
nationalism, socialism, and the like, and, if living to see it, fascism as well). The
Jews' role is thereby a transitory one, for it will abolish itself when successful.
It should be noted that Nietzsche's admiration for Diaspora Jews is not aimed at
them as bearers of a religious culture, but as displaying the human, existential ele-
ment that he needs for his revolution. Nietzsche, of course, is as opposed to the
Jewish religious message as he is to any other transcendent religion. The Jews' role is
cenainly not to "Judaize" Europe in a religious sense. But Nietzsche seems to believe
that their existential qualities can be extracted regardless of the content of their belief
Nietzsche would rather expect them to secularize and practice creative assimilation
in the framework of an atheistic Europe.
I must also emphasize that Nietzsche's pro-Jewish attitude does not derive from
liberalism. Just as his attack on nationalism and racism is coming, so to speak, "from
the right,"~ so his defense of the Jews derives from Nietzsche's own (Dionysian and
ami-liberal) sources. Also, the Jews are supposed to enhance that same Nietzschean
philosophy of life-a task that many Jews, who were and are liberals, can hardly
welcome.
Nietzsche's enthusiasm for the vocation of modern Jews is not merely theoretical;
it derives also from a classic problem confronting any revolutionary: where is the
lever within the existing system by which to revolutionize it? Who are the forces
uncontaminated by the system? The existence, in the form of the Jews, of a human
group he considers more powerful than the others and free of Christian culture is a
practical asset that Nietzsche badly needs in order to make his revolution look less
utopian in his and in others' eyes.
In any case, my study shows that the Jewish issue was far more central to Nietz-
sche's thought and project than is usually recognized. The former corrupters of
European culture and its designated redeemers, the Jews are placed by Nietzsche at
two of the critical junctures in his philosophy. It is thus noteworthy that he always
attributes some decisive historical role to the Jews, whether negative or positive, cor-
rupting or redeeming. In this ironic sense he continues to regard them as a kind of
"chosen people"-or the secular, heretical Nietzschean version of this concept!
This closes the circle of our analysis. Nietzsche as anti-ant i-Semite (and the "Dio-
nysian" admirer of modern Jews) complements Nietzsche as critic of ancient Juda-
ism, within the same basic conception and a single philosophical project. Using these
distinctions, we have delineated the structure of Nietzsche's ambivalence and the
relation between its ingredients. The analysis found a fairly consistent thought
behind it. Beyond the contradictions, flashes of brilliancy, dubious historical exam-
288 Yirmiyahu Yovel

pies, and arbitrary statemenrs that Nietzsche's pen often ejects, we discovered at bot-
tom a uniform way of thinking, applied w a central philosophical theme.

APPENDIX: NIETZSCHE AND HIS ABUSES

Here the question must arise: why was Nietzsche abused more than other philoso-
phers? What was it that attracted his abusers? There seem to be at least four reasons
for this: (l) his special mode of writing; (2) the nonordinary psychology required
by his position; (3) the "right-wing" origin of his sensibilities; and (4) his political
impotence.
(l) Nietzsche's mode of writing is one major reason. His rhewric is deliberately
often wild and paradoxical, inrended to arouse and provoke rarher than to simply
argue and inform; Nietzsche is at times itonic, at times bombastic, and both wnalit-
ies are traps for the naive reader; for Nietzsche's irony is not easy to decipher and
his fanfare produces overstated effects that OIhers might take at face value. Another
factor in his writing is the often deliberate use of conrradiction, which he used for
several reasons, including his "experimental" way of philosophizing, which shuns
final, dogmatic truths and tries to undermine its own authoritative wne.
(2) Another reason for abuse is that Nietzsche's philosophy puts a strain on ordi-
nary mentalities and often breaks the usual "packaging" of intellecrual strands; it
requires a person to hold on at the same time to positions that arc usually considered
psychologically incompatible. There is always some narrow path Nietzsche traces
within the cruder ordinary distinctions, a path that cannot always be defined con-
ceptually but requires, he says, a certain personality to locate and identify. Such nar-
row paths arc dangerous, however, in philosophy no less than in mounraineering;
one can easily take a deep fall and imagine one drags the author along.
(3) Several of Nietzsche's sensibilities, criticisms, and the like, when taken in isola-
tion, may invoke the joy of recognition in a rightist reader. Because of this partial,
local affinity he finds with a Nietzschean idea or sentiment, such a reader then
sweeps the whole of Nietzsche into his own camp, no maHer how many unsur-
passable obstacles he has to jump or ignore. This is bad, intellectually corrupt, his-
torically unjust, but very common and all too human. Today there is also a lcft-
wing appropriation of Nietzsche, which makes him the father of pluralism (even of
tolerance in a "post modern" sense),~ the liberator from "hierarchic" rationalism and
the "oppressive" Enlightenment. This abuse is no better, intellectually, than the
right-wing one, though politically it seems less ominous.
(4) Finally, Nietzsche attracted abusers because of what I call his political impo-
tence-the vacuum he left in political theory. I know this is not the common view
wday, but I think Nietzsche's protests against politics are borne out by a marked
lacuna in his thinking-the lack of a positive philosophy of the "mu/rirude." Politics
is not about the happy few, but about those ordinary people, the modern mass or
"herd" which Nietzsche did not care about and did not make the topic of any posi-
 Nietzsche and the Jews 289

tive philosophical reflection. This invites abuse, because when ordinary people are
supposed to act in extraordinary ("Dionysian") ways, or when a patrician message
intended for a minority is generalized-that is, vulgarized-into a mass political
movement, the resulr is not only intellectually grotesque but a political profanation
and possible catastrophe, quite opposed to Nietzsche's aspirations, yet an outcome
he should have foreseen. 1o

NOTES
Yovel utilizes the following translations: Kaufmann's A, BGE, NeW, PN, TI, and Z; Kauf-
mann and Hollingdale's GM and WP; and Hollingdale's D and HH.

1. Hegel and Nietzsche on Judaism (Tel Aviv: Schocken, 1996. [Ed. Note-Originally pub-
lished in Hebrew. Published in English as Dark Riddle: Hegel, Nietzsche, and the Jews (Univer-
sity Park: University of Pennsylvania Press and Cambridge, England: Polity Press, 1998).]
2. In a paper published in 1988 (M. Dufl}r and W. Minelman, "Nietzsche's ani rude
toward the Jews," Journal ofthe History of Ideas 49 (J 988): 301-17) the authors attribute to
Nietzsche a threefold division very much like mine, which they say they couldn't find in any
former publication. Had they looked more anemively they would have seen a shorr paper of
mine, "Perspectives nouvelles sur Nietzsche et Ie judalsme," Revue des etudes juives 88 (1979):
483-85, which suggests almost exactly the same division. That paper was a summaty of pub-
lic lectures given first at the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities and later at the Paris
Societe des Etudes Juives (materials from that summary are included in the present chapter).
This oversight also has a reassuring side, because if others have independently reached the
same thesis, then there must be something in the material that strongly calls for it. The three-
fold division suggested in my REJ paper is recognized and debated in another French paper
by D. Bechtel, "Nietzsche et la dialecrique de l'histoire juive," in D. Boure! and J. Ie Rider,
a
De Sils-Maria jerusalem (Paris: Cerf, 1991),67-69.
3. This section and the next are drastically shortened summaries. For a more complete
discussion, see YirmiyailU Yove!, "Nietzsche, the Jews, and ressentiment," in R. Schacht (ed.),
Nietzsche, Genealogy, Morality (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), 214-36.
4. This indicates, by the way, that Nietzsche was aware of already being abused in his
lifetime, hence his protests and indignation.
5. Nietzsche seems to refer to the Fritsch affair mentioned above.
6. There is no doubt Nietzsche considered Burckhardt an anri-Semite (though he was
perhaps less extreme than the others).
7. This analysis is chiefly based on D 205, which Nietzsche considered most representa-
tive of his views about Diaspora Jews (he referred others, like the ami-Semitic Fritsch, to it).
Its length do.:s nor allow quoting it in this summary.
8. From an aristocratic ethics of virtue and excellence and a Dionysian ethics of power.
9. This makes 110 sense, because Nietzsche does not tolerate all forms of life-some he
would have abolished completely-and because there is no principle of right behind his alleg-
edly "pluralistic" position (indeed no principle at all), which is incompatible with the leli:-
wing politics.
10. I think he did, but was unable to cope with it-except by indignanr protem, as in the
Fritsch affair.
19
Nietzschean Virtue Ethics*
Christine Swanton

1. INTRODUCTION

In Gorgias (5.506) Plato claims that "all good things whatever are good when virtue
is present in them."! Provided virtue is understood in the Greek sense of arete, or
excellence, the claim marks the fact that goodness in things is to be understood
through the idea of excellence, as opposed to quantities or amounrs of, say, pleasant-
ness or power. This is the key nor only to understanding virtue ethics, in general,
but to understanding Nietzschean virtue ethics, in particular.
Nietzsche's rejection of Hedonism (the idea that only pleasure is intrinsically
good) is well known; what is less clearly appreciated is that despite certain ambigu-
ities and exaggerations, ti)r Nietzsche goodness (or value) is not to be understood
through the idea of will to power (as such) either. It is rather to be understood
through the idea of will [0 power exercised well or excellently, or (as I shall put it)
undistorted will [0 power. Given that a virtue is a disposition of excellent or good
responsiveness to items in its domain (such as threatening or dangerous siruations,
pleasure, friends or potential friends), a Nietzschean virtue ethics based on the idea
of will to power will require that an agenr not be morivated by will [0 power as such,
but by undis[Orted will to power.
In providing an account of undistorted will to power, I seek to remove the major
obstacle to a Nietzschean virtue ethics, namely, the specter of immoralism. It is

'Originally published in Virtlle Ethics: Old and New, edited by Steven M. Gardiner (Ithaca,
NY: Cornell University Press, 2005), 179-92. Reprinted with permission of the author and
Cornell University Press.

291
292 Christine Swanton

interesting that in Natural Goodness Philippa Foot cites Nietzsche as a potential ally
with respect to morality's srructure (though not its content), "for what Nietzsche is
denying of the supposed virtue of charity is exactly the connection with human good
that was earlier said to give a character trait that status."2 I shall appeal to aspects of
Nietzsche's thought not emphasized by Foot, to question her view of him as an
immoralist. However my primary aim is not to defend Nietzsche himself from that
charge, but to develop a Nietzschean virtue ethics.
The claim of immoralism stems from two connected sources: (1) an overly narrow
understanding of will to power, and (2) a failure to appreciate the aretaic (or excel-
lence related) aspects of Nietzsche's notion of will to power. To rebut the immoral-
ism charge, but more importantly to develop a Nietzschean virtue ethics, we need
briefly to give an account of will to power. That will be done in the next section.
Sections 3 and 4 discuss two forms of undistorted will to power: will to power as
healrhy will to power and will to power as excellent forms of life affirmation. Section
5 arrempts to integrate apparent tensions between those two forms by developing a
Nietzschean virtue ethics in which the notion of a virtue is relativized to excellence
or goodness in "becoming," as opposed to an end-state of perfection.

2. WILL TO POWER

Will to power as a genus must be disringuished from various of its species. As a

genus, it is a highly general idea, applicable to all life forms. "A living thing desires
above all to vent its strength-life as such is will to power" (BGE 44).3 As applied
to humans, the need to "vent one's strength" (or expand) is connected essentially
with their nature as active, growing, developing beings, rather than mere receptacles
of pleasure or welfare.
On the face of it, this broad notion of will to power is almost devoid of content,
and as such seems an unpromising base for a virtue ethics. Maudmarie Clark claims,
for example, "that the psychological doctrine of the will to power ... does not
deserve serious consideration as an empirical hypothesis."4 Her reason for this claim
is that it does not explain anything, for will to power is "at work everywhere.'" The
will to power hypothesis can survive this objection, in her view, only if it ceases to
be monistic. "Will to power" would have to be defined so that at least some possible
motives are not instances of it.C, I shall propose an account of the erhical dimensions
of will [() power thar can survive the objection. The account has several aspects. The
first is structural. Will to power is understood rhrough the multifarious ways it can
be distorted. J. L. Austin's arrack on rhe notion of real did not eliminare the notion,
or restrict the broad range of phenomena [() which it could be applied. Further we
had to divest ourselves of certain essentialist understandings. We had to focus on the
various disparate ways things are not real if we were to secure a substantive contenr-
ful understanding. Again, Austin argued, it is unfreedom or lack of freedom, and
 Nietzschean Virtue Ethics 293

not freedom, that "wears the trousers." As far as will to power is concerned, the
situation is more complex. We give content to "will to power" not by considering
the various ways it can be absent, but by considering the various ways it can be
distorted.
This brings us to the second aspect of the account: a relation between the idea of
distorred will to power and its ethical dimensions. Distorted will to power underlies
vice, whereas virtue is marked by an absence of such distortion. Pity as a vice can
thereby be distinguished from virtuous altruism, which Nietzsche frequenrly calls
"overflowing"; laziness as a vice can be distinguished from virtuous "letting things
be"; resignation or "willessness" distinguished from sublimation, and (virtuous) soli-
tariness; courage from self-destructive recklessness; and anxiety-ridden fear from
proper prudence.
Third, and finally, will to power can have explanatory power only if the disparate
forms of distorted will to power can be seen to be related in a theoretically imerest-
ing way. That requires that the notion be fleshed out within a psychological frame-
work that gives substantive content to the various virtues and vices. Such a
framework, I suggest, may be provided by the development of Nietzsche's psychol-
ogy along the lines of Alfred Adler's views and those of later theorists and prac-
titioners. Maudmarie Clark's criticism of will to power, I conclude, has bite only
if will to power is seen as a simple positive motive without complex nominative
dimensions.
The confusion of will to power as a genus with species of will to power (or power)
as, namely, augmenting influence and power over, as well as the neglect of the are-
taic, have led to immoralist interpretations of Nietzsche. For example, in Stephen
D. Hales's consequentialist interpretation of Nietzsche,7 the distinction between will
to power generally, and unhealthy, distorted will to power is not drawn. On Hales's
interpretation of Nietzsche, the value (0 be promoted is power as such, whether or
not it expresses or promotes distorted tllrms. "It appears that his consequential ism
ultimately aims at the maximisation of power."" By contrast, on my view, Nietzsche
distinguishes between "life-affirming" and "life-denying" will to power, a distinc-
tion giving some content to the idea of distorred versus undistorted will to power.
This idea is present in psychology, where, for example, Erich Fromm contrasts
"malignant" and "benign" forms of aggression. 9
I have suggested that the idea of will to power, properly understood, can provide
a basis for a rich psychologically informed conception of virtue. However, if such an
understanding is to be garnered from Nietzsche, some kind of unity in his theory is
not easy to find. There seem to be two starring poinrs for an aCCOUJH of undistof(ed
will (0 power: will (0 power that is not unhealthy, and will to power that is not life
denying. Note, however, that these notions are best understood, not as prescribing
a monistic blueprint for a virtuous life, but as permitting multiple options con-
strained by (nonabsolute and sometimes conflicting) requirements to avoid various
forms of dis(Ortion.
294 Christine Swanton

3. UNDISTORTED WILL TO POWER:

LIFE AFFIRMATION

It is time now to give an account of undistorted will to power, for that account
makes for normativity-in short, for an ethics. However, wresting such an accoum
from Nietzsche is difficult. For Nietzsche's (or a Nietzschean) notion of undistorted
will to power has at its heart two cemral ideas: life affirmation and health. Unfortu-
nately {from the point of view of presenting a unified theory} these two ideas do not
appear to pull in the same direction. Of most concern is that what may count as life
affirming may be said on depth psychological criteria apparently favored by Nietz-
sche to be sick. In short, we have two potential criteria for undistorted will to
power-will to power that is life affirming or not life denying, and will to power
that is healthy or not sick.
Let us now investigate the moral theoretic underpinnings of a morality that is
based on life affirmation. The life affirmative aspects of Nietzsche's thought bear the
hallmarks of a value-centered morality. The values in question are the "life affirm-
ing" ones of, for example, creativity, self-assertion, spontaneity, overflowing, light-
ness of spirit, play. Life-affirming value theory mayor may not be virtue ethical. It
is virtue ethical only if the life-affirming values of creativity, spontaneity, play, and
so forth, are to be understood as aretaic; that is, as having excellence or virtue built
into them. Nonaretaic value centered moralities rely on the provision of a set of
"base-level" values (such as sponraneity, creativity, and play) specified independendy
of virtue. Such moralities then define virtues as dispositions to respond to these val-
ues appropriately-namely, to promote them, honor them, or (as on Thomas Hur-
ka's view) to love them.1O "Virtue" is thus understood derivatively in terms of certain
sorts of responsiveness to, or dispositions to, act favorably toward those values.
A virtue ethics requires by conrrast aretaic interpretations of the relevant values-
creativity must be creativiry that is free from all vice (or more weakly, some relevant
vices); play cannot be, for example, mocking, or (in competitive sport) must be com-
petitive without violating standards of fair play. Is an aretaic reading of the life-
affirming values a plausible reading of Nietzsche? I think so. A unifying aretaic value
central in Nietzsche's thought is the absence of something described as "the greatest
ugliness"-mediocrity. The absence of mediocrity is inherently an aretaic idea;
indeed, it connotes the satisfaction (to a sufficient degree) of standards of excellence.
The substantive task, of course, is to provide theories about what constitutes medi-
ocrity in, for example, music, the visual arts, politics, relationships, philosophy, and
other areas of human endeavor and culture. The specification of spontaneity, play,
self-assertion, as aretaic values cannot be given without having to hand theories of
excellence in those endeavors.
If the absence of mediocrity provides the aretaic value that unifies the various "life
affirming" values, may it not provide too, the cemral value that underpins the sec-
ond undemanding of undistorted will to power-that is, the healthy will to power
or will to power that is free of sickness? If so, then the two understandings of undis-
 Nietzschean Virtue Ethics 295

torted will to power can be combined inro a single Nietzschean virtue ethics.
Unhealthy and life-denying will to power could then be seen as both expressing
and promoting mediocrity, for Nietzsche. Much of Nietzsche's thought docs indeed
support this idea. Pity, a manifestation of "sick" will to power (for reasons to be
explained), is also harmful to life-affirming values, by undermining the achievemenrs
of "man's lucky hits" (i.e., those free of sickness), and by not accepting "meaningful
suffering," so needed for the finest creativity and the avoidance of mediocrity.
However, there are two problems with this unificatoty move. First, not all "sick-
ness" and life denial seems connected with mediocrity. There is no doubt that Nietz-
sche regarded the self-laceration of Christian saints (such as St. Teresa of Avila) as
unhealthy and life denying, but it would be hard to describe such saints as mediocre.
Rather, their actions and motivations are unhealthy and life denying because of their
connection with a sense of individual worthlessness.
It may be replied that I have just cited self-assertiveness as a life-affirming value,
and as such, as one of the values unified by the aretaic value of absence of medioc-
rity. Indeed this is so. But the kind of lack of self-assertiveness that is particularly
associated in Nietzsche's thought with mediocrity, is the passivity of herd-like
behavior condemned by Nietzsche in passages such as the following:

For this is how things stand: the withering and levelling of European man constitutes
our greatest danger, because it is a wearying sight. ... Today we see nothing with any
desire to become greater, we sense (ha( everything is going increasingly downhill, (hin-
ning out, gcning more good namred, cleverer, more comfortable, more mediocre, more
indifferellf, more Chinese, more Chrisdan-man, (here is no doubt, is "improving" all
(he rime. (GM I: 12)

Although in Nietzsche's view one could describe St. Teresa of Avila as suffering
from a highly problematic sense of worthlessness, one could not describe her as herd-
like or mediocre.
Here is the second problem with the unificatoty move. In Nietzsche's view, it
seems, the halring of the slide to mediocrity can be achieved by certain expressions
of what, in views recoverable from Nietzsche, could be regarded as sick. Consider
the apparently grandiose artist or philosopher living the ethics of creativity. Of such
a person, Nietzsche claims: "[H)e is not far from the sinful wish: pereat mundus, fiat
philosophia, fiat philoJophuJ, fiam!" (eM 1II:3) ["Let the world perish, but let there
be philosophy, the philosopher, Old"] Such a philosopher "does not deny existence,
he rather affirms his existence and only his existence." (eM III:3) Even the sickness
of bad conscience is lauded by Nietzsche, if it has a creative vigor: if it becomes
"active bad conscience" and "[brings) to light much that is new and disturbing in
the way of beauty and affirmation" (eM II: 18).
So let us think oflife affirmation and health as two somewhat independent aspects
of undistorred will to power and move on now to health.
296 C'hristine Swanton

4. UNDISTORTED WILL TO POWER: HEALTH

Anticipating psychoanalytic theory, Nietzsche not only largely understands health

through the idea of sickness, but also shares that view's general pessimism. "For man
is more sick, more unccrtain, more mutable, less defined, than any other animal ...
he is the sick anima\." And, "He is ... the most endangered, the most chronically
and deeply sick of all sick animals" (GM III: 13). The sickness that is at the forefront
of Nictzsche' s ancIHion is resentment: a manifestation of what Alfred Adler was later
to call the inferiority complex. In this complex, according to Adler, there is a gap
between the despised self and thc ego-ideal that at an unconscious level are in con-
flict. In the inferiority complcx, the conflict tesults in various sons of neurotic reso-
lution with neurotic "symptoms." The symptom of resentment, at least in its
supposed Christian form, is the topic of Nietzsche's best known discussion, but he
is remarkably insightful on two other species of inferiority complex: what Karen
Horney was later to call the expansionist solution or the desire for mastery (grandios-
ity and cruelty) and the solution of resignation. I I The intellectualist version of the
latter is the frequcnt target of Nietzsche's scorn. He excoriates philosophers who
rctreat (0 the world of abstraction and purc reason. I shall concentrate on the Chris-
tian version of a resentment-filled infcriority complex (called by Karen Horney the
self-effacing solution oflove) that is particularly important for a Nietzschean distinc-
tion between virtue and closely allied vices, as we shall presently see.
What, according to Nietzsche, is resentment? As Bernard Reginster puts it, Nietz-
sche's person of resentment is inhibited by a feeling of incurable impotence, while
retaining "pride" or "arrogance" and a desire at some level (0 lead a life of nobility
and srrength. 12 Furthermore, rhe conflict between the sense of weakness and expan-
sionist strivings is not resolved: either by a stoical elimination of desire or by a full
(self-loving) acceptance of one's objectively based weakncss.
The conflict between a desire to lead a life of strength, nobility, or achievement
and a sense of being impotent and worthless creates a nced for rcsolution. As a mani-
festation of this conflict, resentment consists in a certain sort of distorted resolution
of this conflict, one that valorizes the welfare of the weak, and thereby the altruistic
virtues, while at the same time failing to overcome a sense of impotence. This results
in externalized self-hate. Hence the manner in which the altruistic virtues are
expressed is one of represscd hostility and revenge, as is highlighted in Nietzsche's
discussion of piry in Daybreak.

An accident that happcns ro another offends us: it would make us aware of our impo-
tence, and perhaps of our cowardice, if we did not go ro assist him. Or it brings with it
in itself a diminution of our honour in the eyes of others or in our own eyes. Or an
accident and suffering incurred by another constitutes a signpost ro some danger ro us;
and it can have a painful effect upon us simply as a roken of human vulnerability and
fragility in general. We rcpel this kind of pain and offence and requite it through an act
of pity; it may contain a subtle self-defense or even a piece of revenge. That at bottom
 Nietzscheall Virtue Ethics 297

we arc thinking very strongly of ourselves can be divined from the decision we arrive at
in every case in which we can avoid the sight of the person suffering. perishing or com-
plaining: we decide not to do so if we can presem ourselves as the more powerful and
as a helper. if we are certain of applause. if we want to feel how fortunate we are in
contrast. or hope that the sight will relieve our boredom. (D 133)

In Nietzsche. nonvirtuous altruism-pity-is characterized by self-referential

comparisons maski/lg externalized hostility. By contrast. genuine virtuous altruism
is an overflowing expression of self-love. where the distorted will to power of pity is
absent. This is clear in the following passage. "In the foreground stands the feeling
of plenimde. of power which seeks to overflow. the happiness of high tension. the
consciousness of wealth which would like to give away and bestow." (BGE 260;
Kaufmann trans.) This sentiment. even the language. is echoed by Erich Fromm.

For the productive character. giving has an emircly differem meaning. Giving is the
highest expression of potency. In the very act of giving. I experience my strength. my
wealth. my power. This experience of heightened vitality and potency fills me with joy.
I experience myself as overflowing. spending. alive. hence. as joyous. 13

The overflowing and. indeed, passional namre of many of Nietzsche's virtues is a

phenomenon approvingly discussed by Robert Solomon. 14 But there is a problem
with Nietzsche's valorizing such virtues on the grounds that they are life affirming.
Grandiosity and grandiose self-destructiveness are. in Horney's view, one of the faces
of the neurotic "expansionist" solution. This is what Horney calls a "streamlined"
neurotic solution to the problem of dynamic conflict between the "superior" self
(the "ego-ideal"-to use Adler's term) and the despised self, in the inferiority com-
plex. In this version of streamlined solution. the inferior self is ruthlessly suppressed,
in contrast to the self-effacing solution in which the superior self-the ego-ideal-is
suppressed. I am not suggesting that all "overflowing" is sick as opposed to express-
ing a genuine "plenteousness": a Nietzschean term favored also by Fromm and C. S.
Lewis to describe genuine agapeic love. But certainly some kinds of overflowing
favored by Nietzsche seem, on the face of it, to be suspect. Consider the following
from Thlls Spoke Zarathwtra: "I love him whose soul squanders itself, who wants no
thanks and remrns none: for he always gives away and does not want to preserve
himself. I love him whose soul is overfull, so that he forgets himself, and all things
arc in him: thus all things spell his going under" (Z:I "Prologue" 4).

5. NIETZSCHEAN VIRTUE ETHICS:

CONTENT AND STRUCTURE

In this section, I shall claim that the apparent tensions revealed in the previous two
sections between ideals of health and life affirmation can be resolved by the develop-
ment of a Nietzschean virtue ethics based on Nietzsche's ideas of "self-overcoming"
298 Christine Swanton

or "becoming who you are": an ethics that does not presuppose the idea of an indi-
vidual end state of perfection. In brief, in this resolution, we are not to see health
and life affirmation as end-states of perfection. There are two broad possibilities for
resolution. First, one could imagine that those who are to become "who they are"
are a select few, for this is the means ro realize the perfectionist-consequentialist goal
of cultural excellence. This does not entail that individuals have, or should have, a
definite goal in mind when they improve themselves in "self-overcoming." Second,
one could reject consequential ism while maintaining the aretaic value of avoiding
mediocrity. "Becoming who you are" is an injunction for all to follow, by exemplify-
ing worthwhile achievement in one's own life and not destroying or undermining
the achievements of others.
1 shall adopt the second of these strategies. The central idea is that the tensions
can be resolved if we conceive of Nietzschean virtue as essentially tied to self-
improvement (self-overcoming) that does not presuppose an end-state of individual
perfection, in contrast to Aristotelian conceptions of virtue as end-states of perfec-
tion. If both health and life affirmation are seen as end-states of perfection, and
virtue as exemplifying both these ideals, then a virtue ethics based on them would
appear to have an incoherent conception of virtue, since, it seems, they are conflict-
ing ideals of perfection. By contrast, if norms of health and life affirmation are to be
embedded in a virtue ethics of self-improvement, the tensions between these norms
can be resolved. I shall claim that one can do this by recognizing that their function
as norms is constrained by norms of development, such as "do not be virtuous
beyond your strength."
Both the consequemialist and nonconsequentialist strategies for overcoming the
tensions between health and life affirmation as ideals presuppose that we can speak
of excellence in a process of betterment-in a process of what Nietzsche calls "over-
coming." For we can attempt to improve ourselves in ways that fall short of satisfy-
ing norms of development by, for example, running before we can walk (emulating
the supremely virtuous), seeing an analyst when we should not be, or not seeing an
analyst when we should, being overly reflective or insufficiently reflective, and so on.
However, how this idea features in the consequentialist strategy is quite different
from the way it figures in nonconsequentialist views.
Before developing the nonconsequentialist alternative, let us take a quick look at
the consequentialist strategy, for this has been a dominant interpretation of Nietz-
sche. Many commentators have undcrstood Nictzsche as a particularly nasty exem-
plar of perfcctionistic consequential ism. Perfectionism, whether consequentialist or
nonconsequcntialist, is the view that goodness or value is to be understood as "the
realization of human excellence in the various forms of culture.")) Perfectionism in
this sense is virtue-theoretic, if these excellences include, in a central way, the virtues
(howcver they are conceived in that theory). However, a virtue-theoretic form of
perfectionism may be consequentialist, in which case it would not be virtue ethical
on normal understandings. In fact, John Rawls ascribes to Nietzsche what Conant
calls "excellence-consequential ism," which means "(1) that rhe perfectionist is con-
 Nietzschean Virtue Ethics 299

cerned with optimizing the conditions which promote the achievemenr of excellence
in the am and sciences, and (2) that the goodness of an action is to be assessed in
accordance with the degree to which it maximises such forms of excellence."'6
There is some textual evidence that Nietzsche suppons this view. An example of
such evidence occurs in Beyond Good and Evil:

The essential thing in a good and healthy aristocracy is, however, that it does not feel
itself to be a function (of the monarchy or of the commonwealth) but as their meaning
and supreme justification-that it therefore accepts with a good conscience the sacrifice
of innumerable men who for its sake have to be suppressed and reduced to imperfect
men, to slaves and instruments. Irs fundamental faith must be that society should not
exist for the sake of sociery but only as foundation and scaffolding upon which a select
species of being is able to raise itself to its higher task and in general to a higher existmce:
like those sun-seeking climbing plants of Java-they are named spo matador-which
clasp an oak-tree with their tendrils so long and often that at last, high above it but
supported by it, they can unfold their crowns in the open light and display their happi-
ness. (BGE 258)

Insofar as this passage suggests a perfectionist consequenrialism, norms of self-

improvemenr, whether relating to health or life affirmation, are subservienr to the
promotion of the goal of overall cultural excellence understood in the following way.
The measure of cultural excellence is given by the overall achicvcmenr of the best or
most talented members of society. Tensions between ideals of health and life affir-
mation are resolved by understanding thcm in an instrumental way. If "sick" grandi-
osity in a talcnred anist enhances thc realization of cultural achievement, such
"sickness" is to be tolerated, even applauded. However, the consequenrialist under-
standing does not sit well with a central theme in Nietzsche: the requirement on all
of us to "become who you are"; to work at discovering and expressing the genius
within you. Let us now elaborate the second, nonconsequentialist strategy for over-
coming the tensions revealcd in the previous section.
The dynamic features of a nonconsequenrialist Nietzschean ethics are captured in
the aphorism, "Becomc who you are" where the injunction is intended to apply to
all, and virtues are understood as expressive of an individual's living this maxim in
her own life as opposed to their being seen as (faits whose status as virtues is wholly
dependent on their systematically promoting the consequentialist-perfectionist goal.
The aphorism, however, is on the face of it mysterious, suggesting that there is a
final state (of perhaps perfection) that is your true self and that you have a duty to
reach. However this reading secms un-Nietzschean: as Alexander Nehamas points
out, for Nietzsche, "becoming does not aim at a final statc."I? A less problematic
reading is suggested by the expanded version of the aphorism in "Schopenhauer as
Educator": "The human being who does not wish to belong to the mass needs only
to cease being comflmable with himself, let him follow his conscience, which calls [0
him: 'Be yourself! All you are now doing, thinking, desiring is not you yourself.' "IH
As Conant puts it, "All one need do is become uncomfortable with the discrep-
300 Christine Swanton

ancy between oneself and one's self-between who we are at present, and the self
that is somehow ours and yet presently at a distance from US."19 This does not entail
that there is an end-state of "arrival" where the self, or one of the selves, presently
at a distance from us, is the terminus of our endeavors. Self-improvement should be
thc basis of our endeavors, but that does not mean that we should have definite
productive goals such as being a great artist, which now drive all our actions. Nor is
there an end-state of perfection that one can reach such that one can say on rcaching
it that "I have arrived." Rather, improvement is a continuous maHer of overcoming
obstacles, becoming stronger, while dealing with the world and achieving worth-
while goals. These goals may themselves change as one becomes stronger and faces
new obstacles and circumstances. John Richardson puts the point well. 20 Having
argued that "will to power," or powcr, is not itself an end but is constitutcd by
improvement, growth, or development in "patterns of effort" in achieving the vari-
ous internal ends of" drives," he claims that

[t]his makes the connection between power and a drive's internal and even less direct
than we expected: not only does power not lie in this end's achievement, it doesn't even
lie in progress toward it but in improving this progress. Moreover, the criteria for this
"improvement" aren't set by the end-it's not just an improvement in the route's effi-
ciency for achieving the end. Rather ... it lies in an enrichment or elaboration of the
drive's activity pattern. 2I

Although there need bc no final state to which we should aspire, that constitutcs a
norm of perfection, there do need to be norms of self-improvcment if the idea of
becoming who you are is to make sense as an injunction for self-improvement.
How are norms of life affirmation and hcalth constrained by developmental
norms of self-improvement? Givcn that improvement is somcthing that occurs step
by step, what norms govern the steps we take? In Zarathustra, Nietzsche claims: "Do
not be virtuous bcyond your strength!" (Z:lV "On the Higher Man") Clearly this
is not a recipe for complacency or timidity: it has to be givcn a dynamic reading.
The point of the injunction is to warn us against directly emulating the supremely
virtuous. For such emulation is not appropriate to one in a state of "convalescence."
According to this view, a conception of a virtue such as gencrosity may be under-
stood not merely as a threshold notion (such that it is possible that one is both
virtuous and capable of improvemcnt) but also as a continuum, relativized to the
strcngth of the agcnt. Hence (virtuous) generosity for the self-improver may not be
overflowing bountcousness, for aHcmpts at such bounteousncss in the relatively
weak may constitute self-destructive, resentment-filled, self-sacrifice that is ulti-
mately harmful to others as well as oneself. A core virtue, or core component of
virtue, such as self-love, will not have the same features at differcnt points along the
self-improvement path. Just as a truly self-confident society will be able to dispense
with punishment according to Nietzsche, so thc strongest individuals will be able to
say: "Of what concern are these parasites to mc?" (GM II: 10) In other words, turn-
 Nietzschean Virtlle Ethics 301

ing the other check is a virtue of the strong. By conrrast, such behavior in the weak
is likely ro be a sign of regressive self-abasemenr. Though self-love in the strong can
manifest itself in a form of forgetfulness, in the weak, forgetfulness may be a form
of repression in which anger is driven inward and surfaces in various disrortions:
secretive revenge, birrerness, manipulativeness, jealousy. Beuer for the weak {O dis-
play asserriveness, even of a retaliarory kind, ro lessen their tendencies ro be
wounded. Nietzsche puts the poinr this way in Ecce Homo: "[The sick person] does
not know how ro get loose of anything, ro become finished with anything ro repel
anything-everything injures. Human being and thing obtrude roo closely; experi-
ences strike one too deeply, memory is a festering wound." (EH "Wise" 6)
Again, ro use another example of Nietzsche's, solitude as a disposition is a virtue
of the strong; otherwise, it is loneliness, the escape of the sick as opposed ro escape
ftom the sick (Z:III "Upon the Mount of Olives"). In solitude, whatever one has
brought into it grows-also the inner beasr. Therefore solitude is inadvisable for the
many" (Z:IV "On the Higher Education of Man"). In other words, though (proper)
self-sufficiency is a virrue, the proper cultivation and namre of that virtue is not
straightforward-it will have different manifestations according ro one's level of
strength. The cultivation of solirude and a desire for such is not advised for the
weak.
We are now in a position ro see how a dynamic, nonconsequentialist, Nietzschean
virtue ethics resolves the tensions revealed in section 4. Rather than health and life
affirmation being seen as somewhat independent states of perfection, norms of
healrll and life affirmation interact in differing ways in different contexts of sclf-
improvement or "self-overcoming." Progress is not undersrood simply in terms of
realizing an already given end, for the end itself is re-created more or less continu-
ously, and in a variety of ways for a variety of reasons. First, one's "pattern of activ-
ity" is enriched and modified as one reshapes one's ends in the light of circumstances
and developing desires and interests. Second, improving one's strength or health is
not a smooth progress, for in a sense one must be careful not to overreach one's
(currenr) strength. However, this is not to say that Nietzsche regards this as a univer-
sal injunction as opposed ro a general warning. At times he appears to admire such
overreaching. It would be a mistake to regard Nietzsche's norms as absolute and
nonconflicting. Finally, virrue itself is shaped by norms of self-improvement.
Though virtue rather than an amounr of power, say, is at least a necessary condition
of goodness in human beings, goodness should not be undersrood in terms of realiz-
ing an end-state of perfection.
The proposed understanding of a Nietzschean virtue ethics poses a problem. For
is it not rhe case that building self-improvement inro the very fabric of virtue is an
oxymoron? Is not a virtue a stable trait of character? Answering this question fully
presupposes an account of character traits-their robustness and malleability. My
own view, which cannot be defended here, is that virtues are more or less robust
depending on where the threshold of virtue is set in different contexts. Second and
more importanr, since practical wisdom is at least characreristically an aspect of vir-
302 Christine Swanton

rue, virtue involves self-knowledge, including knowledge of where one is placed on

rhe self-improvemenr parh, and of how large or small are rhe sreps one should rake.
Relarive robusrness had berrer not be confused with rigidity, incapacity [0 develop
further, and imperviousness ro changing conrexts. However, this is not [0 deny that
vinue, at high levels, is constitured by a solid core of incorruptible integrity, honesty,
and so fonh: a core of virtue not readily undermined by corrosive social forces and
institutions.
Let me now summarize the main features of a Nierzschean virtue ethics. I began
this chapter with the claim that Nietzsche's ethics is aretaic in the sense that good-
ness in things is to be understood as having excellence built into then. Where excel-
lence in things is characteristically understood as their either being handled
virtuously (say, virtuously handled money, honors, play, friendship, pleasure), or
their being themselves vinuous (virtuous human beings), such an ethics is a candi-
date for being a virtue ethics.
The content of Nietzschean virtue ethics is to be understood in terms of undis-
torted will ro power, which has rwo aspects: life affirmation and health. However,
these are not to be understood as end-states of perfection, but as norms of self-
improvement. The idea of undistorted will to power enables us to distinguish
berween virtues and closely allied vices, such as the forms of altruistic virtue and
vIce.
A Nietzschean virtue ethics can be seen as a nonconsequentialist version of perfec-
rionism in rhe sense defined above. However, Nietzschean vinue ethics is a nonstan-
dard form of perfectionism insofar as the road traveled seems more imponant than
the destination. Self-improvement is a process, itself having norms of excellence, but
(1) those norms do not presuppose that there is a single goal suitable for all, for we
are all differenr in strength, rhrears, interests, and circumstances oflife, (2) in a proc-
ess of "self-overcoming" we do not necessarily have in mind a long-term destination,
for rhe good life may involve much experimentation, and (3) virtue itself should not
be undersrood as an end-state of perfection. Rather, insofar as "self-overcoming" is
at the core of virtue, it is a dynamic process-norian, relativized to the strength of
individuals as well as [0 their roles and circumstances.

NOTES

lowe grateful thanks to Steve Gardiner for his helpful suggestions for improvement, and for
organizing the conference in Christchurch, New Zealand. for which this was originally writ-
ten. Thanks also to the participants, especially Robert Solomon.

1. Cited in Michael Siote, Morals From Motives (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000),
155.
2. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2001), 107.
3. Ed. Note-For translations of Nietzsche's works the author uses Hollingdale's transla-
 Nietzschean Virtue Ethics 303

tions of BGE, D; Smith's translation of GM; Kaufmann's translations of BGE (where noted),
EH, and Z.
4. "Nietzsche's Doctrines of the Will to Power," in Nietzsche, ed. John Richardson and
Brian Leiter (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001),139-49, at 140.
5. Ibid., 141.
6. Ibid.
7. "Was Nietzsche a Consequentialist?" International Studies in Philosophy 27 (1995):
25-34.
8. Ibid., 32.
9. Erich Fromm, The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness (London: Penguin Books,
1977).
10. See Thomas Hurka, Virtue, Vice, and Value (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001).
11. Karen Horney, Neurosis and Human Growth: The Struggle Toward Se/fRealization
(New York: Norton, 1970).
12. Bernard Reginster, "Ressentiment, Evaluation, and Integrity," International Studies in
Philosophy 27 (1995): 117-24, esp. 118.
13. Erich Fromm, The Art of Loving (London: Unwin Paperbacks, 1975 [1957]), 26.
14. See his "Nietzsche's Virtues: a Personal Inquiry," in Nietzsche's Postmoralism: Essays on
Nietzsche's Prelude to Philosophys Future, ed. Richard Schacht (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni-
versity Press, 2001), 123-48.
15. James Conant, "Nietzsche's Perfectionism: A Reading of Schopenhauer as Eaucator,"
in Nietzsche's Postmoralism.
16. Ibid., 187.
17. Alexander Nehamas, "How One Becomes What One Is," in Nietzsche, ed. Richardson
and Leiter, 255-80; at 261.
18. SE cited in James Conant, 197.
19. Ibid.
20. Sec his "Nietzsche's Power Ontology," in Nietzsche, 150-85.
21. Ibid., 158.
20
How We Became What We Are
Tracking the "Beasts of Prey"*

Daniel W Conway

There is, of course, a beast hidden in every man.

-Ivan Karamozov

The beast in me
Is caged by frail and fragile bars.
Restless by day
And by night rants and rages at the stars.
God help the beast in me.
-Johnny Cash

Nietzsche takes as his task the "translation" of the human being "back into nature"
(BGE 230).' Toward this end, he places humankind squarely within the amoral envi-
rons of the animal kingdom, which he in rum honors as nobler than the kingdoms
supposedly ruled by "man" and "God." He thus acknowledges no hierarchical
index-whether divine, metaphysical, or supernarural-whereby the human animal

* Revised by the author from its original publication in A Nietzschean Bestiary: Becoming Ani-
mal Bqond Docile and Brutal, edited by Christa Davis Acampora and Ralph R. Acampora
(Lanham, MD: Rowmdn & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2004), 156-77. Published with per-
mission of the author and publisher.

305
306 Daniel W Conway

could be considered to be categorically superior to other animals or endowed with

extra-animalistic powers and privileges. According (0 Nietzsche, the human animal
is neither the acme of natural selection, nor the telos of evolutionary development,
nor the lord of the beasts, nor the center of the biotic community, nor the steward
of the planetary thesaurus. The human animal is distinguished from other animals
largely on the strength of its unrivaled capacity to endure self- and Other-induced
suffering. 2
The main problem that Nietzsche faces in pursuing this task is that in many
respects, modern human beings do nor resemble other, especially wilder, animals.
We moderns are not obviously reliant upon unconscious drives and impulses to pro-
vide us with instinctual patterns of behavior that we then enact in pre-reflective
embodiments of our native vitality. Our possession of conscience and free will, our
facility with languages and complex symbolic systems, our creation of cultures and
civilizations, and our premonition of our own death all seem to place us well outside
the animal kingdom. To put it bluntly, the "ultramodern unassuming moral milk-
sop who 'no longer bites' " (GM P: 7) is nor easily confused with "the splendid blond
beast prowling about avidly in search of spoil and victory" (GM I: 11). It is therefore
incumbent upon the genealogist of morals to explain how it is that we became what
we are. In so doing, he must accollnt for the development of the human being from
wild predator to domesticated herd animal.
Nietzsche's account of this development is well known to us in its general outline.
The domesticated human animal is uniquely characterized by its "bad conscience"
(schlechtes Gewissen), from which it suffers as a result of its enforced renunciation of
the unconscious drives and impulses that formerly regulated its organic activity. In
keeping with his commitment to the evolving paradigm of scientific naturalism,
Nietzsche thus attempts to account for the "bad conscience" as an organic affliction
that significantly restricts the human animal's capacity to exteriorize its native
energy.3 This affliction was produced, he conjectures, as a result of the involuntary
inward discharge of primal aggression, which in turn invested the human animal
with an unparalleled, if jumbled, expanse of interiority:

All instiners that do not discharge themselves outwardly turn inward-this is what I call
the internalization of humankind: thus it was that man first developed what was later
called his "soul." The entire inner world, originally as thin as if it were stretched
between two membranes, expanded and extended itself, acquired depth, breadth, and
height, in the same measure as outward discharge was inhibited. (GM II: 16)

This process of "internalization," he further conjectures, is the consequence of

the most fundamental change (humankind] ever experienced-that change which

occurred when he found himself finally enclosed within the walls of society and peace.
The situation that faced sea animals when they were compelled to become land animals
or perish was the same as that which faced these semi-animals, well adapted to the wi!-
 How We Became What We Are 307

derness. to war. to prowling. to adventure: suddenly all their instincts were disvalued
and "suspended." (GM II: 16)

This is a powerful hypothesis. and it ranks among the most daring and influential
of Nietzsche's many contributions to philosophy. As an explanation. however. this
hypothesis raises at least as many questions as it answers. How. for example, did this
"fundamental change" come about? Who or what is responsible for confining these
wild, warlike, prowling semianimals behind the "walls of society and peace"?
Here Nietzsche finds himself in a familiar difficulty. Like Hegel, Feuerbach,
Marx, Freud, and all other practitioners of philosophical anthropology, he must
appeal to an event or occurrence that is fully natural (and, so, in principle empiri-
cally verifiable). despite having no direct evidence of the event or occurrence in ques-
tion.4 This means that he is obliged to speculate on the nature of the historical
processes that delivered the human animal to its current state of domestication and,
in this case, to posit an unexpected, inexplicable rupture in the development of the
human anima\.5 The chief danger involved in speculations of this son is that they
encourage historians and anthropologists to rely on human conventions (e.g., found-
ing agreements, social contracts) to accounr for the origins of human society. If
Nietzsche's hypothesis is to avoid a vicious circularity, then it somehow must
account for the domestication of the human animal without appealing to any vir-
tues, powers, or capacities that uniquely belong to the modern human beings whose
situation it is supposed to explain.
The very next section of On the Genealogy of Morals provides a clarification of
this hypothesis. "Among the presuppositions of this hypothesis," he explains, is the
following conjecture:

The welding of a hitherto unchecked and formless populace [Bel!o/kerung] into a firm
form was not only instituted by an act of violence bur also carried to its conclusion by
nothing but acts of violence-that the oldest "state" thus appeared as a fearful tyranny,
as an oppressive and remorseless machine, and went on working until this raw material
of peoples and semi-animals [Rohstoff von Volk und Halbthier] was at last not only thor-
oughly kneaded and pliant but also formed. (GM II: 17)

To be sure, this "presupposition" would bear further elaboration. The original pre-
sentation of the "hypothesis" in GM II: 16 idcntified no agents or culprits who
might be deemed responsible for the enforced confinement of the formerly wild
hominids. There, in fact, we were led to conclude that all formerly wild hominids
sutTered a common fate penaining to the suspension and devaluation of their
instincrs. 6
As Nierzsche asserts in GM II: 17, however, this fate was not suffered uniformly
by all formerly wild horn in ids. Here, in fact, he alludes to rhe fateful meeting of two
hominid rypes, one less and rhe other more estranged from its native animality. Wit-
ness, for example, his unsentimental account of the origins of the "state":
308 Daniel W. Conway

[Slome pack of blond beasts of prey, a conqueror and master race kine Eroberer- und
Herren-RasseF which, organized for war and with the ability to organize, unhesitatingly
lays its terrible claws upon a populace perhaps tremendously supetior in numbers bur
still tormless and nomadic. (GM II: 17)"

As this passage intimates, Nietzsche's "presupposition" is apparently meant to

explain how the "semianimals" described in GM II: 16 came to find themselves
involuntarily immured within civil society.~ As it turns out, they were forcibly placed
there by other hominids, who, for reasons as yet unknown, either possessed or
retained a greater share of their native wildness and predatory spontaneity.
Nietzsche thus conjectures that the domestication of the human animal began
with a sudden act of mass capture, as a "conqueror- and master-race" of hominids
tyrannized a weaker (but larger) populace of nomadic hominids. The members of
this weaker populace were compelled to forego the free, spontaneous discharge of
animal vitality to which they had been accustomed, and they were obliged instead
to resort to an internal discharge of their primal drives and impulses. They thereby
acquired interiority and the "bad conscience" that marks its expanse. IO
Nietzsche does not disclose the basis for this stipulated distinction between two
types (or subspecies) of wild hominids. The "semianimals" who suddenly found
themselves captive were "well adapted to the wilderness, to war, to prowling, [and]
to adventure" (GM II: 16), but they were utterly unprepared for the bewildering
assault of their unknown aggressors. He observes that the aggressor type appeared
on the scene much as it appears in the thick of his narrative: suddenly, unpredict-
ably, and without adequate explanation. Relying on a familiar image of the masterly
human beings whom he most admires, 1 1 he compares the arrival of the aggressor
type to the onset of an unforeseen natural disaster:

One does not reckon with such [viz., "masterly"] natures; they come like fate, without
reason, consideration, or pretext; they appear as lightning appears, too terrible, too sud-
den, too convincing, too "different" even to be hated. (GM 11: 17)

This sort of comparison is convenient not only for the captive hominids, who need
not borher to divine the morives of their inscrutable aggressors, but also for Nietz-
sche, who is freed thereby from the onerous task of explaining the origins, history,
and aims of the aggressor type.
What are we to make of this ingenious, albeit sketchy, account of the origins of
the "state"? Perhaps Nietzsche means to appeal here to the stochastic variations that
characterize any species population of sufficient size. It is probable that some identi-
fiable subset of wild hominids would be far more aggressive than the average homi-
nid, and it is plausible that these stochastic ourliers might band together and
conquer the larger (but less aggressive) subser. Alternately, we might interpret the
suddenness with which the aggressor type appears on the scene as suggesting the
unprecedented meeting, and subsequent clash, of two separate species of hominid
 HoUJ We Became What We Are 309

development. Or perhaps he helps himself (0 such an obviously facile distinction in

order (0 mock any attempt (including his own) (0 unearth the his(Orical origins of
the "state." 12
In all fairness (0 Nietzsche, he advances this "presupposition," as well as the
"hypothesis" it serves, in the context of the more sweeping anthropological narrative
offered in eM II. For the purposes of developing this narrative, he may be satisfied
simply to establish the possibility of a stricrly naturalistic explanation of the origins
of the "bad conscience." In that event, the historical accuracy of his "hypothesis"
would be less important (0 him than its adherence (0 the evolving paradigm of scien-
tific naturalism. Perhaps, that is, the text comprising eM II: 16-17 is primarily con-
cerned to speculate on the unique historical conditions under which the "beasts of
prey" might have established a more settled, place-bound form of community. 13
The rest, as they say, is history-human history, to be precise. Once caged, these
formerly wild hominids began to explore the undiscovered country of their inner
kingdom. Emboldened by the "slave revolt in morality" (eM I: 10), captive peoples
falsely claimed for themselves the freedom to choose their enforced domestication.
To cope with the meaningless suffering of the "bad conscience," the human animal
heaped one compensatory fantasy upon another, culminating in the installation of
guilt as the primary motivation for its various endeavors. And, so, we became what
we are: sickly animals verging precariously upon the "will to nothingness."

II

But what of the "beasrs of prey" who unwittingly launched the development of the
human animal along its current, deathbound trajectory? Were they in turn con-
quered, enslaved, or slaughtered by an even wilder pack of predators? Or did they
simply vanish, perhaps as suddenly and unpredictably as they appeared? That such
questions are not merely academic in nature is confirmed by Nietzsche's surmise
that "the meaning 0/all culture" lies in "the reduction of the beast of prey 'man' to
a tame and civilized animal" (eM 1:11). Let us turn now to consider how this
"reduction" might have been accomplished.
It is no accident that Nietzsche locates the formative activity of the "beasts of
prey" in the dim prehistory of the species. Over the course of this unrecorded
period, the human animal slowly acquired the ability (if not the permission) to make
promises. This acquisition in turn obliged the human animal to endure the forcible
investiture of memory, conscience, and [he spare furnishings of interiority.
Throughout this blood-soaked period of human prehistory, the creatures wielding
the instruments of torture, delighting in every shriek, moan, and lamentation, were
none other than the "beasts of prey."
Within the larger seuing of Nietzsche's philosophical anthropology, the "beasts
of prey" fiJI the role of a kind of permanently missing link. They are the shadowy,
liminal creatures that connect the domesticated human animal to its wild ancestors
310 D,miel W Conway

in the unbroken chain of evolutionary development. Owing to this unique role, in

fact, the "beasts of prey" acquire a quasi-mythic status. In what is perhaps his most
dubious reference to the activity of the "beasts of prey," he describes them as pos-
sessed of attributes conducive both to wild predation and to civilized cultivation: 14

Once they [viz., these noble men) go outside, where the strange, the stranger, is found,
they are not much better than uncaged beasts of prey. There they savor a freedom from
all social consrrainrs, they compensate themselves in the wilderness for the tension
engendered by protracted confinement and enclosure within the peace of society, they
go back to the innocent conscience of the beast of prey, as triumphant monsters. (GM
I: II) 15

As this passage suggests, we apparently are meant to think of the "beasts of prey" as
partaking equally of both civilization and wilderness. Although indirectly responsi-
ble for the affliction of the "bad conscience" in others, the "beasts of prey" enjoy
the privileges and freedoms pertaining to an "innocent" conscience. 16 They are able
to postpone immediate gratification if necessary, but without forfeiting their capac-
ity to visit their primal aggression upon unlucky captives. When they are not patrol-
ling the enclosing walls of civil society, they scale these walls and return to the
wilderness that renews their animal vitality. Although these predators govern their
caprives under an impressive regimen of self-imposed organization, apparently set-
ting aside their natural "irritation" and "disquiet" with such tasks (eM III: 18), rhey
also retain the freedom to revert periodically to the wilding of a wolf pack. Borrow-
ing a sentence from a related discussion, we might think of the "beasts of prey" as

Human beings whose nature was still natural, barbarians in every terrible sense of the
word, men of prey [Raubmenschenl who were still in possession of unbroken strength
of will and lust for power ... more whole human beings (which also means, at every
level, "more whole beasts"). (BGE 257)

These paradoxical descriptions of the "beasts of prey" illuminate the conceptual

problem that exercises Nietzsche in eM II. Put bluntly, he can find no fitting ana-
logue in the wild animal kingdom to the organized assault that his "beasts of prey"
supposedly conduct on unsuspecting, unformed tribes. Much to our surprise, in
fact, his "beasts of prey" do not mercilessly slaughter (all of) their captives. Nor do
rhey torture or play with their captives, as a cat will toy with a vole until (or while)
killing it. Unlike the "great birds of prey," who insist that "nothing is more tasry
than a tender lamb" (eM I: 13), these "beasts of prey" keep their captives. They not
only put their captives to work, but also impose upon them the order and discipline
needed to work efficiently and productively. These "beasts of prey" thus exert on
their formerly nomadic captives a distinctly formative influence, which is conducive
to the processes familiarly known to us as "domestication," "cultivation," and
"acculturation." In short, Nietzsche's supposedly terrible "beasts of prey," whose
appearance he likens to the onset of a terocious natural disaster, are also cultivators
 How We Became What We Are 311

and nurrurers. In this respect, or so it might seem, his "beasts of prey" depart most
dramatically from the practices of the wild predators on whom they are modeled. 17
Having exposed the softer, gender side of his "beasts of prey," Nietzsche must
now explain how a predatory animal, whose natural orientation to weaker animals
is the dispensation of torture and death, also possesses a different orientation to its
prey. That is, he must demonstrate that what we call "predation" and "cultivation"
are in fact coeval expressions of primal animal vitality, such that the seemingly
uncomplicated "beasts of prey" naturally exhibit predilections for domestication and
acculturation. This is not to suggest, of course, that "beasts of prey" cannot also be
organized and disciplined. The animal kingdom is replete with creatures that exhibit
highly organized patterns of collective behavior, including those predators that con-
tribure unwittingly to the domestication of other animal species. It is to Nietzsche's
credit, in fact, that he opposes the popular caricature of "wildness" with an
expanded and more sophisticated notion, which enables him to account for the
capacities of complex natural systems for self-organization and self-regulation.
Still, it is certainly fair here to cast a suspicious eye on his evolving portrait of the
surprisingly versatile "beasts of prey."IM Does he advance his anthropological narra-
tive only by equivocating on the beastliness of the "beasts of prey"? Has he perhaps
baited his readers with his profile of a bloodthirsty, downswooping, death-dealing
predator (GM 1:13), only to switch in mid-narrative to an organized, patient, delay-
gratifYing nurturer? Has he cleverly trained this predator to serve its master as brutus
ex machina?
Nietzsche's most persuasive response to this line of questioning would most likely
draw upon his controversial description of the "beasts of prey" as artists. IY It is their
native capacity for artistry, he maintains, that enables them to engage in a kind of
predation thar is also civilizing and nurturing. As he explains,

Their work is an instinctive creation and imposition of forms; they are the most invol-
untary, unconscious artists there are-wherever they appear something new soon arises,
a ruling structure that lives, in which parts and functions are delineated and coordi-
nated .... They exemplifY that terrible artists' egoism that has the look of bronze and
knows itself justified to all eternity in its "work," like a mother in her child. (GM II: 17)

As this passage confirms, the "beasts of prey" practice their artistry in the preferred
medium of other human or hominid beings. In bringing order and purpose to a for-
merly formless populace, the "beasts of prey" impart meaning and identity to their
captives. They are, in shorr, givers of new life, "artists of violence and organizers
who build states" (GM II: 18).
It is difficult not to find this imagery abhorrent. Nietzsche's cavalier allusions to
the "molding" and "ordering" of entire tribes and people-which by no means lack
t()f[n and culrure prior ro their capture-are at least as disturbing as his approbarory
references to the "blond beast." Indeed, many of his readers have registered their
disgust with his careless glorifications of violence, and with his political naivete in
312 Daniel W Conway

general. 20 Other readers have attempted to soften his praise for the "beasts of prey"
by focusing on his experimental deployment of potentially defensible rhetorical
srrategies. 21 Still others have attempted to separate his admiration for innovation and
creativity from the retrograde political sentimems it so often serves. 22
Whatever we may think of it, however, Nietzsche's appeal to the artistry of the
"beasts of prey" is the key to his accoum of the domestication of the human animal.
By characterizing the "beasts of prey" as artists, he means to draw our attention to
the transformative, life-bestowing effects of any ourward expenditure of animal vital-
ity. The scene of predation, he apparently wishes to claim, is not limited to the
pursuit, capture, and death of the prey organism. Predation more fundamentally
produces a multivalent vivification of the surrounding environment. While this vivi-
fication is most evident in the predator and prey species, which mutually encourage
one another to adapt continually to their shared habitat, it is by no means restricted
to them. Even those outbursts of primal aggression that culminate in the death of
the prey organism succeed in refreshing the surrounding environment, contributing
to the renewal of natural cycles and the maintenance of growth within the environ-
ment as a whole. Although predation invariably eliminates individual members of
prey species, it also renews the prey species as a whole and thereby grams life to the
interdependent configurations of species in a particular habitat.
Predators are therefore always also artists. They continuously recreate the environ-
ment that surrounds them, thereby renewing its unique and terrifying beauty. They
are in fact artists in rhe highest sense recognized by Nietzsche, for they create and
re-create new forms of life. He is quick to emphasize, moreover, that the artistic
dimension of these displays of primal aggression is by no means deliberate or inten-
tional, much less malicious or immoral: "Their work is an instinctive creation and
imposition of forms; they are the most involuntary, unconscious [of] artists" (GM
11:17). In this respect, too, they resemble the swollen river, the bolt of lightning,
and the crashing boulder, inasmuch as they, too, unintentionally transfigure their
surrounding environment.
This blind transformation of the surrounding environment is what Nietzsche
means by the artistry practiced by the "beasts of prey." To be sure, they cannot help
bur stalk, maim, £Orture, and kill their victims, any more than "birds of prey" can
help but seize tender little lambs (GM 1:13). To expect or require them £0 do other-
wise, after the fashion of the Church, would oblige one to sicken these noble crea-
rures (TI "Improvers" 2). According to Nietzsche, however, the perspective adopted
by the Church on the "beasts of prey" is unt()f(unarely (and typically) narrow. In
doing what they do naturally, the "beasts of prey" do not merely stalk, maim, tor-
ture, and kill, as if these activiries could be neatly abstracted from the larger contexts
in which they transpire. As preda£Ors, the "beasts of prey" also create something
ordered and vital from an otherwise inconsequential mass of formless hominids.
Here, too, we must not allow ourselves to be distracted by Nietzsche's offensive
imagery. His larger point is thar predation in any form contributes to the renewal
of life and the reanimation of otherwise moribund natural systems. In the context
 How We Became What We Are 313

of his aIHhropological narrative, this means that the "beasts of prey" also elevate and
improve the populace upon which they vent their primal aggression. Those captives
who survive the form-giving wrath of the "beasts of prey" are ennobled by the
assault, for they are then able to partake of "a ruling structure that lives, in which
parts and functions are delineated and coordinated" (GM Ill: 17).
The specific case of predation thus demonstrates (or reminds us) that the conven-
tional distinction between "wild" and "civilized" is of only limited use to Nietzsche.
Any prehistorical event of interest to him, like the founding of the original "state,"
invariably confounds our efforts to distinguish neatly between "wilderness" and
"civilization." As his narrative discloses, what is generally considered "wild" is far
more civilized than we initially might have thought, and what is generally considered
to be "civilized" is often wilder than we are inclined to admit. In £reating the "beasts
of prey" as artists, that is, he does not deviate from the model of wild nature so
much as he expands upon it, purging it of residual traces of moral prejudice. When
viewed from the tragic perspective that he recommends to his readers (GS 370), both
wilderness and civilization appear far more complex, possessed of far greater overlap
and murual interpenetration, than we otherwise might have thought. Rather than
equivocate on the beastliness of the "beast of prey," he actually undertakes a more
thorough investigation of what predation actually entails. In particular, he encour-
ages his readers to understand predation as always already involving some elements
of what are more regularly associated with civilization. As it turns out, in fact, preda-
tion involves killing and cultivating, maiming and nurturing, destroying and creat-
ing. To be a "beast of prey" is to practice a form of lethal artistry that also nurtures,
informs, enriches, and civilizes.
The unintended elevation of this captive populace in turn closed the distance that
originally separated it from its conquerors. As the populace improved, so, presum-
ably, did the quality and quantity of the material products of its enforced labor,
upon which the "beasts of prey" had grown increasingly dependent. When the
"beasts of prey" inspected the fruits of their artistry, as mirrored back to them in
the structure and definition that now informed the captive populace upon which
they labored, the reRections they beheld exerted an indirectly civilizing effect on
them. Inspired by the order, form, and beauty they had impressed upon their help-
less captives, the "beasts of prey" may have unleashed similar regimens of violence
against themselves. The ensuing modulations of their artistry in turn may have
educed natural capacities for domestication and cultivation from their native com-
plement of drives and impulses. In other words, the evolution of beastly predation
into organized domestication may have been a natural, dialogical consequence of the
formative artistry practiced by the "beasts of prey" on their captives.
The feedback loop initiated by their artistry also enables Nietzsche to account for
their eventual disappearance. As we have seen, the dialogical process described above
also led to the gradual, indirect, and unwitting self-domestication of the "beasts of
prey."23 Over the course of this process, the acculturation that attends the imposi-
tion of form onto matter fed back upon its purveyors, gradually domesticating them
314 Daniel W. Conway

in accordance with the principles they dictated (0 their captives. 14 What may have
begun as amoral play with their helpless captives-as a prelude, perhaps, (0 (Orture
or sacrifice-eventually resulted in the "beasts of prey" joining the populace they
had seized. Although it may be difficult (0 imagine these "beasts of prey" blending
into the docile populace of a modern polity, it may not be so difficult (0 imagine
them joining a populace that they had molded in their own, wild image. Perhaps,
thar is, the "beasts of prey" need not have fallen very far (0 have joined the elevated
populace (0 which they had imparted form, shape, and identity.
Yet even the most talented of artists could not have raised a formless nomadic
mass (0 a level commensurate with the wild "beasts of prey." Nietzsche must conse-
quently account for a countervailing leveling influence, by means of which the
"beasts of prey" were sickened, de-clawed, and thoroughly domesricated. They were
victimized, he conjectures, by none other than the ascetic priest, who effectively poi-
soned the dialogical relationship that originally obtained between the "beasts of
prey" and the products of their artistry. Owing (0 the intercession of the ascetic
priest, the "beasts of prey" learned (0 pity their captives and (0 loathe the beauty
that was reflecred back ro them by rhe producrs of their primal aggression. 2s Having
become works of art in their own righr, the "beasts of prey" were powerless to refuse
the ascetic priest's dispensations of guilt and self-conrempt.

III

But why would the noble "beasts of prey" have allowed themselves (0 become vul-
nerable (0 such a dangerous enemy? Nietzsche intimates that they inirially may have
detected more utility than danger in the priest. The priestly class originally may have
been nothing more than a motley assortment of magicians, seers, shamans, prophets,
and healers, from whom the "beasts of prey" sensed no credible threar ro rheir
dominion. (As we shall see, in fact, the priests became both dangerous and trium-
phant only as a byproduct of the way in which they were treated by the "beasts of
prey.") The ascetic strain of the priestly type emerged fairly late in their reign, and
only as an unforeseen consequence of the organizing disciplines they imparted (0
their captives.
It seems likely that at some point the "beasts of prey" would have needed to
communicate their organizing principles to their captives. If so, then they also may
have needed ro work closely with a select group of mediators, who in turn would
have been entrusted to communicate their demands to the populace as a whole.
The labor of mediarion may have fallen to the priests, whom Nietzsche describes
as "neurasrhenic" (GM I:6}-and, so, as naturally (if pathologically) sensitive and
empathetic. These early priests, already adept at translating languages, arbitrating
dispures, interprering dreams, divining porrents, unlocking prophecies, reading
enrrails, and generally decoding regnant symbolic systems, presumably would have
been indispensable to the organizing activities of the "beasrs of prey."
 How We Became What We Are 315

As Nietzsche explains, however, the priestly type also possesses a plasticity of soul
that naturally produces a double agency. In political terms, the priest thrives by colo-
nizing the interstitial spaces of a society, mediating between competing classes,
strata, and castes. His mastery of lines and media of communication enables him [0
reverse the customary, downward flow of state power and [0 disrupt the acknowl-
edged chain of command-even as he honors it. The priest gladly relays the wishes
of rhe ruling elite, bur only at great expense [0 its credibility and authority. With
every communication of directives from above, the priest wages from below a silent,
psychological war. While receiving the commands that are [0 be disseminated to
the populace, the priest also steals secrets, sows the seeds of jealousy and distrust,
manipulates language, flatters and ingratiates, and generally subverts the unity and
stability of the ruling elite. Nietzsche's "beasts of prey" may have possessed a suffi-
ciently developed inner life [0 organize themselves and their prey, perhaps even [0
provide cultivation and nurture, but they were no match for the cunning of the
ascetic priest.
Nietzsche thus links the disappearance of the "beasts of prey" [0 their ill-fated
dealings with the priestly class. As he explains, the priest

must be the natural opponent and despiser of all rude, stormy, unbridled, hard, violent
beast-of-prey health and might. The priest is the first form of the more delicate animal
that despises more readily than it hates. He will not be spared war with the beasts of
prey, a war of cunning (of the "spirit") rather than one of force, as goes without saying;
to jight it he will under certain circumstances need to evolve a virtually new type of beast of
prey [Raubthier-Typusl out ofhimse/f, or at least he will need to represent it-a new kind
of animal ferocity in which the polar bear, the supple, cold, and patient tiger, and not
least the fox seem to he joined in a unity at once enticing and terrifYing. If need compels
him, he will walk among the other beasts of prey with bearlike seriousness and feigned
superiority, venerable, prudent, and cold, as the herald and mouthpiece of more myste-
rious powers, determined to sow this soil with misery, discord, and self-contradiction
wherever he can and, only too certain of his art, to dominate the suffiring at all times.
(GM III: 15, emphasis added)

In this remarkable passage, Nietzsche endeavors [0 fill a conspicuous gap in his larger
narrative. While a conventional war of violence would be no contest, an unconven-
tional war of cunning would place the "beasts of prey" at a distinct and unfamiliar
disadvantage. In particular, he muses, a war of cunning could provoke the ascetic
priest to replicate his antagonists, transforming himself into a "beast of prey" (or a
credible facsimile thereof) in his own right.
Nietzsche envisions this priestly "beast of prey" on the model of a diploid mon-
strosity, possessed of the natures of "polar bear," "tiger," and "fox," which are com-
bined in an assemblage both "enticing and terrifying."26 Thus transformed, the
ascetic priest infiltrates the ranks of the "beasts of prey," even "feigning superiority"
over them. What is more, he battles them where they least expect [0 be engaged-in
their beloved wilderness, where, presumably, they relax any mechanisms of self-pro-
316 Daniel W. Conway

tection cultivated to shield them from the toxic ressentiment of their captives. U nbe-
knownst to them, perhaps wirh their unsuspecting assistance, the priest poisons their
tonic wilderness and surreptiriously subjects them to techniques of domestication.
As they fall prey to his domesticating spell, they voluntarily abandon their wilder-
ness, growing progressively inured to the peace and security of civil society. Once
disabused of their will for freedom, they forego altogether their furlough privileges
and slowly, imperceptibly, sink to the level of their former captives.
As they recruited the priestly class to propagate their form-giving directives, the
"beasts of prey" unwiningly tutored the priests in the strategic deployment of their
double agency. Those priests who were not crushed by the artistty of the "beasts of
prey" apparently learned to manipulate the suffering of others to insulate themselves
from the scrutiny of their captors and to secure the allegiance of their followersY
Nietzsche's focus on the artistry of the "beasts of prey" thus enables him to issue a
balanced (if fantastic) reckoning of their enduring contributions. Just as he credits
them with unconsciously introducing order, discipline, and beauty into the world,
so he holds them responsible for legislating the conditions under which the "bad
conscience" developed.
An unintended consequence of their artistry, he speculates, was the empowerment
of some priests as "artists" of equal power and surpassing ingenuity.28 As it turns
out, the artistry of the "beasts of prey" served as the model tor the cunning of the
priesrs. What the "beasts of prey" achieved by means of their physical, ourward,
overt discharge of animal vitality, the priest learned to achieve through psychologi-
cal, inward, covert operations. In particular, the priest discovered the most powerful
organizational device known as yet to human history: the ascetic ideal, by means of
which he turned the tables of domestication on the "beasts of prey." Having con-
vinced the "beasts of prey" to rely ever more heavily on his ministrations, the ascetic
priest eventually exploited this relationship of dependency and polluted the "inno-
cent" conscience of his captors. Poisoned with guilt, afflicted by the "bad con-
science" that they, ironically, had introduced into the world, the wounded "beasts
of prey" finally joined the captive populace they had formerly tyrannized.

CONCLUSION

Today, the "beasts of prey" are nowhere to be found (GM I: II). By the "early Mid-
dle Ages," Nietzsche observes, "the most beautiful specimens of the 'blond beast'
were hunted down everywhere" and transformed (== "sickened") into Christians
(Tl "Improvers" 2). The "blond beast" now resides only at the "hidden core" of
noble peoples and cultures (GM I: II), its native wildness barely discernible beneath
a thick mantle of domestic manners and civilized politesse.
Nietzsche nevertheless resists the conclusion that the disappearance of the "beasts
of prey" necessarily spells the collapse of the human species. The animal vitality of
the "beasts of prey" continues to circulate-albeit in dispersed, disaggregated, per-
 How We Became What We Are 317

haps even entropic, form-throughout the decadent nations, peoples, and cultures
of late modern Europe. Indeed, the challenge he faces is not unlike the challenge
faced by the priestly class at the time of the founding of the original "state"-
namely, how can he tap this seemingly inaccessible reservoir of monstrous, trans-
formative energy and channel it toward the furtherance of his own, conrrary ends?
How can he contribute to the occasion of a metamorphosis that will supercede, can-
ce/' or neutralize the mutation that ushered the ascetic priest onto the stage of
human history?
Not surprisingly, his favored solution to this problem borrows heavily from his
account of the ascetic priest's successful campaign to tame the "beasts of prey." He
pins his dim hopes for the future of humankind on the possibility of another dialec-
tical advance or mutation, along the lines of the one he describes in On the Genealogy
ofMorals. In particular, he envisions a counterevolution involving a similar transfer
and conversion of eneq,,}, from the ascetic priest to his as-yet-unknown other. This
counterevolution will nor produce a simple reincarnation of the "beasts of prey,"
but it may produce an Other whose generative role recalls in some salutary respects
their form-giving anistry.
Nietzsche may have in mind some such dialectical advance when he alludes to the
possible emergence of a "many-colored and dangerous winged creature" from the
"repulsive and gloomy caterpillar form" of the ascetic priest (GM III: 10). He hope-
fully idenrifies this emergent "creature" as the" 'philosopher'," whom we should
not confuse with those "philosophers" who have disguised themselves herewfore in
"ascetic wraps and cloaks" (GM III: 10). Were this new "philosopher" to take wing,
borne aloft by a gust of "pride, daring, courage, and self-confidence" unknown since
the heyday of the "beasts of prey," we would be in a position to regard the lengthy
interregnum of the ascetic priest as an intermediate stage in the evolution of the
human animal, a stage as natural and appropriate to our development as is the cater-
pillar to the emergence of the glorious burrerAy.29
In that event, morality itself would appear just as Nietzsche wishes for his readers
someday to be able w view it: as a necessary, nonlethal stage in the development of
the human spirit. Ifhe has his way, in fact, his preferred readers of a distant posterity
will be in a position to regard the moral period of human development as a long,
treacherous, comical, but ultimately successful detour w the freedom and strength
of will formerly embodied by the "beasts of prey."

NOTES

I wish to thank Ralph and Christa Davis Acampora for their instructive comments on prelim-
inary drafts of this essay.

I. With the exception of occasional emendations, I rely throughout this essay on Kauf-
mann's translations of BGE, and Tl; and Kaufmann and Hollingdale's GM.
318 Daniel W Conway

2. For an excellent commentary on BGE 230 see Laurence Lampert. Nietzsche's Task:
An Interpretation of Beyond Good and Evil. New Haven. CT: Yale University Press. 2001.
226-31.
3. The "bad conscience" is. as he says. "an illness like pregnancy" (GM II: 19). from
which. pn:sumably. the birth of something new might follow. At this point in his narrative.
Nietzsche launches a new account of the origin of the bad conscience. which. as Henry Staten
observes. "throws the previous account into confusion" (Nietzsche's Voice [Ithaca. NY: Cornell
University Press. 1990], 54).
4. My discussion of Nietzsche's contributions to philosophical anthropology draws
extcIISively from Richard Schacht. Making Sense of Nietzsche (Chicago: University of Illinois
Press. 1995). especially chapter 10.
5. For a consideration along these lines of the difficulties involved in Nietzsche's prof-
fered explanation. see Keith Ansell Pearson. Viroid Life: Perspectives on Nietzsche and the
Jramhuman Condition (London: Routledge. 1997). 101-3.
6. The analogy that Nietzsche pursues in GM II: 16 is particularly misleading in this
respect. Like "sea animals" compelled to "become land animals or perish." these "semiani-
mals" were obliged to "devalue" their instincts or perish. According to this analogy. in fact.
no oppressor or aggressor coerces these "semianimals" to evolve. The compulsion they experi-
ence arises. presumably. in a non-agential change in the environment, to which they must
adapt.
7. Nietzsche uses this prccise phrase in GM 1:5 to describe the Aryan race.
8. Nietzsche offers a similar account of "the origins of an aristocratic socicty": "Human
beings whose nature was still natural. barbarians in every terrible sense of the word. men of
prey [Raubmenschenl who were still in possession of unbroken strength of will and lust for
power. hurled themselves upon weaker. more civilized. more peaceful races. perhaps traders
or cattle raisers. or upon mellow old cultures" (BGE 257).
9. He uses the term "semianimals" again in GM II: 17. and he identifies them as belong-
ing to the "raw material" that was worked over by the "oppressive and remorseless machine"
of the original state.
10. For a detailed and insightful discussion of the emergence of the "bad conscience."
see David Owen. Nietzsche. Politics, and Modernity (London: Sage Publications. Ltd .• 1995).
56-67.
11. See. for example. TI "Skirmishes" 44. where Nietzsche explains that the "genius. in
work and deed. is necessarily a squanderer.... He flows Ollt. he overflows, he uses himself
up. he does not spare himself-and rhis is a calamitous. involuntary fatality. no less than a
riwr's flooding the land."
12. See Paul J. M. van Tongeren. Reinterpreting A10dern Culture: An Introduction ofFried-
rich Nietzsche's Philosophy (West Lafayette. IN: Purdue University Press. 2000). 202-5.
13. It would be interesting to map Nietzsche's anthropological narrative onto the contro-
versial thesis advanced by Paul Shepard. Shepard boldly asserts that "as a species we are Pleis-
tocene. owing little or nothing ro the millennia of urban life.... The radical implication of
this is that we. like other wild forms. may actually be less healthy in the domesticated land-
scapes than in those places to which our DNA remains most closely tuned" (Paul Shepard.
"Wilderness Is Where My Genome Lives." Whole Terrain 4 (1995/1996): 13).
14. Aaron Ridley nicely sums up the problem here by noting that "[wlhat Nietzsche is
evading in all this. of course, is the recognition that the nobles need a 'bad' conscience them-
 How We Became What l\7e Are 319

selves even before they can create the conditions required to produce it in others .... The
nobles need a 'bad' conscience to do what they do" (Nietzsche's Conscience: Six Character
Studies /rom the Genealogy [Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998], 20-21). As I hope
ro show in Part III of this chapter, it is at least plausible for Nietzsche to claim that the
"innocem" conscience of the "beasts of prey" creates the conditions under which the "bad
conscience" arises and develops.
15. Both Staten (16-21) and Ridley (20-22) cite this passage as evidence of the internal
strain exerted on Nietzsche's hypothesis by his apparent need to maintain his founding
dichotomies between "noble" and "slave," "wild" and "cultivated," "active" and "reactive,"
and so on.
16. As Nietzsche explains, "It is not in them [viz., the "beasts of prey") that the 'bad con-
science' developed, that goes without saying-bur it would not have developed without them,
this ugly growth" (GM II: 17). The "inventor of the 'bad conscience,'" he explains, is none
other than the "yearning and desperate prisoner" who had no choice but ro make an enemy
of himself, to redirect inward the animal aggression that he would naturally direct ourward
(GMII:16).
17. Here, it would seem, Nietzsche approaches the limits of his attempt to model the
"beasts of prey" simultaneously on the insrinctual aggression of animal predators and on the
self-organizing eHiciency of well-crafted artifacts or machines. The more strongly he relies on
the lattet modd, namely, to account for the organizational predilections of the "beasts of
prey," the further he strays from his former model. For a promising account of "machine
evolution" that is not restricted (as is Nietzsche's) by an anthropocentric emphasis on
machines as human artifacts, see Ansell Pearson, 138-42.
18. As if to concede this point, Nietzsche later explains that the "beasts of prey" partici-
pated only reiuctanrly in the collective organization of their captives, and against their better
judgment: "[TJhe strong [die Starkenl are as naturally inclined to separate as the weak [die
SchwachenJ are to congregate; if the former unite together, it is only with the aim of an aggres-
sive collective acrion and collective satisfacrion of their will to power, and with much resis-
tance from the individual conscience.... [Tjhe instinct of the born 'masters' (that is, the
solitary, beast-of-prey species of human) is fundamentally irritated and disquieted by organi-
zation" (GM HI:I8).
19. On the unique artistry of the "beasts of prey," see Ridley, 83-85.
20. See, for example, Mark Warren's catalog of the "limits" of Nietzsche's political
thought, Nietzsche and Political Thought (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1988), 207-48.
21. Richard White thus draws our atrention to GM as a "performative critique," which
"Nietzsche uses ... to direct us toward a particular vision of the future" (Nietzsche and the
Problem o/Sovereignty [Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1997], 38). One result of this
"performative critique," apparenriy, is (0 free us "to go beyond the fable of a literal prehis-
tory" (140). Paul van Tongeren similarly concludes that Nietzsche does not intend his "myth
of descem" (0 "refer to a specific moment in time." The lesson we should draw from such
passages is that "domination, submission, and struggle are not so much the first steps in the
development of the human being as they are its continuous principle: from the beginning,
human beings are characterized by this distinction" (205).
22. Lawrence Hatab maintains, persuasively, that Nietzsche's admiration for creativity and
"artistry" actually militates against the antidemocratic animus of his political writings. The
political regime that would best foster Nietzschcan creativity, Hatab proposes, is in fact
320 Daniel W. Conway

democracy-provided, of course, that the democracy in question would both honor and
enforce a fair, mutually elevating contest between democratic citizens (A Nietzschean Defense
of Democmcy: An Experiment in Postmodern Politics [Chicago: Open Court, 1995], 51-54).
23. Although most domesticate species have been forcibly tamed by other, "stronger" spe-
cies (usually homo sapiens or its hominid ancestors), the occurrence of self·domestication is
not unknown. Researchers have recently theorized, for example, that some canid species effec-
tively domesticated themselves, so that they could live in closer proximity to the edible waste
products created by humans/hominids (see Karen E. Lange, "Wolf to Woof: The Evolution
of Dogs," National Geographic Oanuary 2002): 4-6). According to this account, the human
culmre or home is an occasion for the domestication of wild canids, but not its cause. Could
a similar conjecrure provide some of the details of Nietzsche's anthropological story? Did early
hominids effectively domesticate themselves in order to avail themselves of a promising food
supply-perhaps, as Nietzsche apparently prefers, of the stability afforded them by farming
(rather than roaming)?
24. My use of the term "domestication" is not meant to imply the kind of change in
genetic structure that is produced through standard breeding techniques. As Shepard points
out, "if we follow the definition of 'domestic' as a type created by controlled breeding with
conscious objectives by humans, then we ourselves are genetically wild" (l3).
25. The unintended self-domestication of the "beasts of prey" may have prompted Nietz-
sche's admonition: "[Let us] guard ourselves against the two worst contagions that may be
reserved just for us-against the great nausea at man! against great pity for man!" (GM IJI: 14).
26. Staten argues that Nietzsche's account of the ascetic priest as a "delicate" rype of "beast
of prey" exposes a tension within his own conception of power as primarily physical and
outwardly directed (57). My own sense is that this passage is meant to explain the emergence
of a conception of power that is rooted in an expanded understanding of the physical world.
It is not the case that the slaves invented "mental" power to counter the "physical" power of
their masters. If that were the case, then nothing would have happened inlto the "physical"
world of the masters. What the slaves accomplished, perhaps unwittingly, was the formulation
of a more comprehensive understanding of the physical cosmos, which now must be under-
stood to comprise unseen forces. The slaves do not rule a parallel, "mental" world of their
own invention, so much as they stumble upon a more complete understanding of the one
world, the physical world of visible and invisible forces, over which they and their masters vie
for supremacy.
27. Nietzsche thus describes this new, mutant species of priest as a "sorcerer and animal-
tamer, in whose presence everything healthy necessarily grows sick, and everything sick tame"
(GM III: IS). He also likens the priest to a "shepherd" caring for his "herd" (GM 1I1:l5), a
comparison that confirms the formative tole of the "beasts of prey" in the developmt:llt of
the ascetic priest.
28. That the priests, too, are artists is confirmed by Nietzsche's observation that "the slave
revolt in morality begins when ressentiment itself becomes creative and gives birth to values"
(GMI:IO).
29. In fact, if we may associate one Flugelthier (the butterfly; KSA 5, 361) with another
(the honeybee; KSA 5, 247), then we are perhaps enritled ro read the preface to On the Geneal-
ogY ofMorals as introducing Nietzsche and his unknown friends as legitimate claimants ro the
title of" 'philosopher.'"
Bibliography

There is an abundance of literature on Nietzsche. The suggestions below were

selected not only for their quality but also for their specific focus on Nietzsche's 011
the Genealogy of Morals. Suggestions for furrher reading that coordinate with the
main pans of the present text are annotated. A few more general works on Nietz-
sche's moral and political philosophy are included at the end.

"ON GENEALOGY"-RELEVANT WORKS

Conway, Daniel W. "Writing in Blood: On the Prejudices of Genealogy." tpochc 3: il2

(1995): 149-81. Consideration of how to apply the insights of the Genealogy as they relate
to Zarathustra's ideas "On Reading and Writing" and then [0 a reading of Nietzsche's
activity of writing the Genealogy itself.
Geuss, Raymond. "Nietzsche and Genealogy." European Journal of Philosophy 2:3 (I 994):
274-92. Distinctive in its rare treatment of relevant discussions in Nietzsche's Antichrist.
Guay, Robert. "The Philosophical Function of Genealogy." In A Companion to Nietzsche.
Ed. By Keith Ansell Pearson. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 2006, 353-70.
Hoy, David Couzens. "Nietzsche, Hume, and the Genealogical Method." In Nietzsche as
Affirmative Thinker. Y. Yovcl, ed. Dordtrecht: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1986,20-38.
Describes genealogy as a way of doing philosophy that is akin [0 Hume's notion of "experi-
mental reasoning," personalized and evaluative in the hands of Nietzsche.
Kemal. S. "Some Problems of Genealogy." Nietzsche-Studien 19 (1990): 30-42. Compact
explication of objections to Nietzsche's genealogical investigations, including parriculariry,
relativism, and normativeness. Kemal grants that these ace central to genealogy, and otters
an account of how they are positive features (rather than negative consequences) of Nietz-
sche's work.
Owen, David. "Criticism and Captivity: On Genealogy and Critical Theory." European Jour-
mzl ofPhiiosophy 10:2 (2002): 216-30.
Schrifi:, Alan D. "Nietzsche and the Critique of Oppositional Thinking." History of European
Ideals (I989), 783-90. A succinct account of Nietzsche's critique of binary reasoning and
how this idea is developed in the writings of postmodern (specifically French) philosophers.

321
322 Bibliography

See also the later version of this work, along with rdated discussions applied to a wide range
of "post-structuralist" thinkers in Nietzsche's French Legacy. New York: RourIedge, 1995.
Williams, Bernard. "Naturalism and Genealogy." In Morality, Reflection, and Ideology. Ed. by
Edward Harcourr. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000, 149-61. Provides interesting
discussion of what is wanted from a naturalistic orientation in philosophy, particularly eth-
ics. Offers the especially provocative suggestion that fictional srories generally, and Nietz-
sche's genealogical stories particularly, could be compatible with such aims.

"READING THE GENEALOGY"-RELEVANT WORKS

Butler, Judith. "Circuits of Bad Conscience: Nietzsche and Freud." In The Psychic Lift of
Power: Theories in Subjection. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1997,63-82.
Explores the "performative" dimension of bad conscience and guilt. Considers the ascetic
ideal, the desire for desire, and the "sorry bind" of subjectivity, which involves subordina-
tion (to the community) as the vety condition for the possibility of the affirmation of indi-
vidual existence.
Clark, Maudemarie. "Nietzsche's Immoralism and the Concept of Morality." In Nietzsche,
Genealogy, Morality: Essays on Nietzsche's On the Genealogy of Morals. Ed. by Richard
Schacht. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994, 15-34. Argues that Nietzsche's
immoralism is largely limited to his critique of one particular kind of morality, which is
thought to be all that morality is. Provides a reading of the second essay of GM that is
supposed ro show the possibility of a nonmoral social contract theory, which includes con-
ceptions of justice, fairness, and other concepts associated with morality generally.
Janaway, Christopher. "Nietzsche's Illustration of the Art of Exegesis." European Journal of
Philosophy 5:3 (1997): 251-68. Conclusively argues that the third essay of GM is organized
according to the order outlined in the first section of the essay, and that the "exegesis" the
third essay is supposed to constitute (see GM P:8) is of that rather than the epigraph from
Thus Spoke Ztlrathustra.
Loeb, Paul S. "Is There a Genetic Fallacy in Nietzsche's Genealogy ofMorals?" In/mernatiollal
Studies in Philosophy 27:3 (1995): 125-41. Arriculates Nietzsche's imerest in aristocratic
origins to consider whether fallacious reasoning is at the core of GM, and how our concep-
tion of the "genetic [Illacy" has some origination with Nietzsche's book.
Newman, Michael. "Reading the Fururc of Gcnealogy: Kant, Nietzsche, and Plato." In Nietz-
sche and Modern GernIan Thought. Ed. by Keith Ansell Pearson. New York: Routledge,
1991, 257-82. Considers the relation between GM and Z, partially through consideration
of how GM III is an exegesis of the epigraph from Z (cf. Janaway). Focused on the cultiva-
tion of readership and how Nietzsche's texts rdate to each, other in this way.
Rcginster, Bernard. "Ressentiment, Evaluation, and Integrity." International Studies in Philos-
ophy 27:3 (1995): 117-24. Emphasizes that Nietzsche's discussion of ressentiment is rooted
to his implicit conception of integrity such that the resentful person is characterized by
their peculiar inability to integrate the values he or she professes.
Risse, Mathias. "Origins of Ressentiment and Sources of Normativity." Nietzsche-Studien 30
(2003): 142-70. Considers how ressentiment, particularly, arises given Nietzsche's "specula-
tive anthropology." The conceptions of mind and practical identity that emerge from the
account are compared and contrasted with Korsgaard's Kant and Nietzsche.
 Bibliography 323

Risse, Mathias. "The Second Treatise in On the Genealogy ofMorality: Nietzsche on the Ori-
gin of the Bad Conscience." European Journal of Philosophy 9:1 (2001): 55-81. Analyzes
GM II:21 particularly to disringuish the bad conscience that is associated with guilt from
an earlier stage of bad conscience. Focuses on the idea of "indebtedness to the gods," Chris-
tianiry's appropriation of indebtedness, and the relation between Christianity and morality
generally.
Siemens, Herman. "Nietzsche's Agon with Ressentiment: 'Iowards a Therapeutic Reading of
Critical Transvaluation." Continental Philosophy Review 34 (2001): 69-93. Develops an
agonal model of transvaluation that supplies the basis for therapeutic practice, which
accounts for the existing decadence Nietzsche finds in modern culture and meets his cri-
tiques of conceptions of health and healing as practiced by the ascetic priests.
Solomon, Robert C. "One Hundred Years of Ressentiment: Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morals."
In Nietzsche, Genealogy, Morality: Essays on Nietzsche's On the Genealogy of Morals. Ed.
by Richard Schacht. Berkeley: U niversiry of California Press, 1994, 95-126. Considers
Nietzsche's discussion of ressentiment particularly in light of his characterization of weak-
ness and strength.

"CRITIQUING GENEALOGY'-RELEVANT WORKS

Ansell Pearson, Keith. "The Significance of Michel Foucault's Reading of Nietzsche: Power,
the Subject, and Political Theory." Nietzsche-Studien 20 (1991): 267-83. Discusses Fou-
cault as among the first (0 recognize the political implications of Nietzsche's conceptions
of power and freedom, particularly as they rclate to thinking about rhe political subject as
historicized and in rhe wake of critiques of modern metaphysics. Useful even for those
lacking great familiarity with Foucault's work.
Foucault, Michel. "Nietzsche, Genealogy, History." In Language, Counter-Memory, Practice:
Selected Essays and Interviews. Ed. Donald F. Bouchard. Trans. Donald F. Bouchard and
Sherry Simon. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1977. Challenges what he considas
to be metaphysics' emphasis on origins, which supplies the basis for certain views about
universal history and considerations of difference that Foucault rejects. He considers him-
self to be aligned with Nietzsche in rejecting such conceptions of origins and their value
for helping us to understand ourselves, our history, and our future prospects.
Macintyre, Alasdair. "Genealogies and Subversions." In Three Rival Versions of Moral
Enquiry: Encyclopaedia, Genealogy, and Tradition. Notre Dame, IN: Universiry of Notre
Dame Press, 1990. GiHord Lectures given at University of Edinburgh in 1988. Discusses
the relation of the genealogical text to canonical authority and the tradition of encyclope-
dia, and considers this in the case of Foucault. While genealogy appears to have an advan-
tage in the recognition of the historical development of ideas, norms, and standards,
Macintyre doubts that the genealogist's own position escapes that which he critiques.
Owen, David. "The Contest of Enlightenment: An Essay on Critique and Genealogy." Jour-
nal of Nietzsche Studies 25 (Spring 2003): 35-57. Compares Kant's critical projects with
Nietzsche's, leading to a comparison of the two on the issue of selt:legislation. Owen argues
that Nietzsche is wholly committed to enlightenment rather than abandoning it for myth
as Habermas suggests.
Pippin, Robert B. "Nietzsche's Alleged Farwell: The Premodern, Modern, and Postmodern
Nietzsche." In The Cambridge Companion to Nietzsche. Ed. by Bernd Magnus and Kathleen
324 Bibliography

Higgins. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996, 252-78. Consideration of prob-
lems associated with linking Nietzsche with a renunciation of modernity. Includes discus-
sion of Habermas's critique of Nietzsche with significant discussion of Nietzsche and Hegel
and Nietzsche's GM.
Pizer, John. "The Use and Abuse of'Ursprung': On Foucaulr's Reading of Nietzsche." Nietz-
sche-Studien 19 (1990): 462-78. Challenges the view that Nietzsche abandons consider-
ation of origins and a sense of organic development in meaning.
Saar, Marrin. "Genealogy and Subjectivity." European journal of Philosophy J 0:2 (2002):
231-45. Endeavors to pin down precisely in what genealogy consists. Defines genealogy as
always concerned about the subject, as history, as critique, and as textual practice. Contrasts
"stabilizing" genealogies with those that are disruptive.

"POLITICS AND COMMUNITY"-RELEVANT WORKS

Brown, Wendy. "Nietzsche for Politics." In Why Nietzsche Still? Reflections on Drama, Cul-
ture, and Politics. Ed. by Alan D. Schrift. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000,
205-23. Argues for an agonistic relationship between theory and politics that moves
beyond "identity and application"; genealogy plays a role in creating this alternative.
Card, Claudia. "Genealogies and Perspectives: Feminist and Lesbian Reflections." Interna-
tional Studies in Philosophy 28:3 (1996): 99-111. Offers a particularly interesting take on
hatred and evil and the perspective from which Nietzsche makes his critical observations.
Diprose, Rosalyn. "Nietzsche, Ethics and Sexual Difference." Radical Philosopk'l 52 (1989):
27-33. Argues that Nietzsche supplies "a genealogy of the divided self" that could be use-
ful for developing an "ethics of difference."
Roodt, Vasri. "Nietzsche's Dynamite: The Biography of Modern Nihilism." South African
joul'1lal ofPhilosophy 16:2 (1997): 37-43. Develops the idea that Nietzsche's texts provide
conceptual resources for thinking of ourselves as having multiple biographies and genealog-
ical lineages upon which we can draw to develop new senses of community among those
who ordinarily think they have little in common.
SCO{[, Jacqueline. "On the Use and Abuse of Race in Philosophy: Nierzsche, Jews, and Race."
In Race and Racism in Continental Philosophy. Ed. by Robert Bernasconi. Bloomington:
Indiana University Press, 2003, 53-73. Argues that Nietzsche's notion of race is tied ro his
conception of decadence, purity, and health, all of which include various psychological,
not simply biological features, which ditTers from the strictly biological conception of
Nietzsche's nationalist and anti-Semitic contemporaries.
Shapiro, Gary. "Diasporas." In Nietzsche and jewish Culture. Ed. by Jacob Golumb. New
York: Routledge, 1997, 244-62. A personal narrative rhat ties reading Nietzsche to living
one's life. Focuses on Nietzsche's seduction of Jewish readers, and then provides a compel-
ling account of how the author himself was seduced.
Warren, Mark. "The Historicity of Power." In his Nietzsche and Political Thought. Cam-
bridge, MA: MIT Press, 1988, 79-110. Includes an interesting discussion of "the genea-
logical method" in chapter 3, see esp. 102- 10, challenging a number of prominent
interpretarions and arguing for rhe notion of genealogy as a mode of critique.
 Bibliography 325

BOOKS WITH SIGNIFICANT DISCUSSIONS

DIRECTLY DEVOTED TO ON THE
GENEALOGY OF MORALS

Allison, David B. Reading the New Nietzsche. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Linleficld Publish-
ers, Inc., 200 I.
Ansell Pearson, Keith. Nietzsche Contra Rousseau. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1991.
- - - . An Introduction to Nietzsche as Political Thinker: The Perfect Nihilist. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1994.
Babich, Babene E. Nietzsche sPhilosophy ofScience: Reflecting Science on the Ground ofArt and
Life. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994.
Clark, Maudemarie. Nietzsche on Iruth and Philosophy. New York: Cambridge University
Press, 1990.
Deleuze, Gilles. Nietzsche and Philosophy. Trans. Hugh Tomlinson. New York: Columbia
University Press, 1983.
Havas, Randall. Nietzsche's Genealogy: Nihilism and the Will to Knowledge. Ithaca, NY: Cornell
University Press, 1995.
Owen, David. Nietzsche, Politics, and Modernity. London: Sage Publications, Ltd., 1995.
Ridley, Aaron. Nietzsche's Conscience: Six Character Studies fom the Genealogy. Ithaca, NY:
Cornell University Press, 1998.
Scheler, Max. Ressentiment. Trans. William Holdheim. Ed. Lewis A. Coser. New York: The
tree Press, 1961.
Schacht, Richard. Making Sense of Nietzsche: Reflections Timely and Untimely. Urbana: Uni-
versity of Illinois Press, 1995.
Schrifr, Alan. Nietzsche's French Legacy: A Genealogy of Poststructuralism. New York:
Routledge, 1995.
Schrift, Alan. Nietzsche and the Question of Interpretation: Between Henneneutics and Decon-
struction. New York: Routledge, 1990.
Strong, Tracy B. Nietzsche and the Politics ofTi-ansjiguration. Expanded Edirion. Urbana: Uni-
versity of Illinois Press, 2000.

SELECTED BOOKS AND ARTICLES ON NIETZSCHE'S

MORAL PHILOSOPHY AND MORAL PSYCHOLOGY

Bailey, Tom. "Nierzsche's Kanrian Erhics." International Studies in Philosophy 35:3 (2003):
5-27.
Bergmann, Frirhjof. "Nietzsche's Cririque of Morality." In Reading Nietzsche. Ed. by Robert
C. Solomon and Kathleen Marie Higgins. Reprint. New York: Oxford University Press,
199(),29-45.
Danro, Arthur C. "Some Remarks on The Genealogy ofMorals." International Studies ill Phi-
losophy 18:2 (J 986): 3-15.
Foot, Philippa. "Nierzsche: The Revaluation of Values." In Nietzsche: A Critical Collection.
326 Bibliography

Edited by Robert Solomon. Reprinted in Virtues and Vices and Other Essays in Moral Philos-
ophy. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2002.
Geuss, Raymond. "Nictzsche and Moraliry." In Morality, Culture, and History: Essays all Ger-
man Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.
Hunt, Lester. Nietzsche and the Origin of Virtue. New York: Routledge, 199\.
Leiter, Brian. Nietzsche all Morality. London: Rourledge, 2002.
May, Simon. Nietzsche's Ethics and His War on "Momlity. "Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1999.
Moore, Gregory. "The Physiology of Moraliry." In his Nietzsche, Biology, Metaphor. Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002, 56-84.
Parkes, Graham. Composing the Soul: Reaches of Nietzsche's Psychology. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1996.
Parsons, Katherine Pyne. "Nietzsche and Moral Change." In Nietzsche: A Collection ofCritical
tssays. Ed. by Robert C. Solomon. Garden Ciry, NY: Doubleday, 1973.
Schacht, Richard. cd. Nietzsche's Postmoralism: tssays on Nietzsche's Prelude to Philosophy's
Future. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
Schacht, Richard. Editor. Nietzsche, Genealogy, Momlity: Essays on Nietzsche's On the Geneal-
ogy of Morals. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994.
Thatcher, David S. "Zur Genealogie der Jl.loml: Some Textual Annotations." Nietzsche-Studien
18 (1989): 587-99.
Williams, Bernard. "Nietzsche's Minimalist Moral Psychology." European Journal ofPhiloso-
phy 1:1 (1993): 1-14.
Index

Abel, G., 174n9 121,153-54,156,158n3, 188nll, 191, 193, 195-96,

Acampora, c., 105n24, 163- 16In27, 164-65, 168, 170, 202,205,2071110,208nI2,
64, 173n3 171,305-320; child, 164, 208nI3,212,213, 216,
Action(s), 40-41, 47, 61-62, 166, 172, 176n26; domesti- 225,316
100, 102, 133, 137-41, cation, 309-316; "men of ascetic priest, 60-61, 83, 202,
194-98,259-60,263,266 prey," 310, 318n8; as sick 207n10, 213,251,253,
activiry, 133, 136-38, 141, 158 animal, 20, 30, 164-65; 314,315-17. See,llso
actors, 261, 264, 266-67, 270, "mere animals," 158-59113, priests. asceticism, 12, 58,
272,274nI2 165-67,170, 173n';; 212
Adler, A., 293, 296, 297 "semi-animals," 306-7, audience (of Nietzsche's GM),
Adorno, T., 11,223-25, 318n6. See illso beast of 177-78,196,202-3,205,
228-29 prey; blond beast; philo- 206n2, 208n19. Sent/so
Aesop, I J3 sophical amhropology reading. Austin, J. L., 292
ae;thetic(s), 7, 89, 224; justifi- Anscombc, G. E. M., 54n6 Aurelius, M., 178
cation, 63; values, 225-26, Ansell Peatson, Keith, 14n7, authenticity, 101-4
229, 240, 260-63. See IIlso 318n5.3191118 autonomy, 88-89. 101, 137-
art; values anthropology, 239, 240, 241 38, 148, 150-51, 154-56,
agent(s)/agency, 40, 46-50, allti-ami-Scmitism, 9, 182-84, 163-64, 171
54-55nI3, 62, 86-88, 96, 279,281-82. See al,.o Jews.
98. 123, 131-145,200, anti-Christ, 286 Baadet, F. von, 210
249, 262-64, 267, 275n27. anti-Semitism/anti-Semites, 84, Babich, B., 104nlO, 105n27,
See also acrors 182-84, 207nlO, 278-74. 105n28
IIgOII, 115-16, 236 See also Jews. aphotism, Bachelard, G., 76nl2
Akibiades, 115-16 9-10, 75n2, 182-87, bad conscience, 3-4, 26, 30-
altruism/altruistic, 41, 297 1891117 35, 113, 128n28, 143,
amot rati, 4, 38n10, 152, 155, Aquinas, T., 240 161n23, 164-66, 172,
176n24,284 Archilochus, 179 250-SI,295,306,308-
ancestty, 2.n, 235, 243 Arendt, H., 105nl6 310,316,319nI4,319nI6
Andler, C, 209 arete (excellence), 291-92, 294 Bakhtin, M., 236
animals, 23, 161n27, 174n12, Aristotle, 102, 124n2, UlO beast of prey. See animals.
306; beast of ptey-rype, 315; att/artists/artistry, 49-50, beaury, 12, 259-63, 267-
beasl(s) of ptey, 1]5, 154, 55n19, 179, 180, 187, 70,273
251,305,308-17,319nI4, 207119, 208n \2, 225-26, becoming, 95, 153, 155, 157,
319n18; blond beast, 35, 229,251,260,265,267- 167, 173n3, 195, 196,260
205,234-35,306,308, 68,311-16,3281128 "becomlillg] who you are,"
311; camel, 165; human ascetic ideal{s), 3, 7, II, 22, 35, 14114,49,103,151,
animal, 6, 20-21, 105n24, 83,114, 161n23, 180, 298-300

327
328 Index

being, 70, 71, 74, 104n2, 196, 172, 176n24, 208n13, fate, 28-31, 37, 38n7, 55n15,
260 263-7,270-73 102-3,124,151,155,157,
Benjamin, W., 225 credit/creditor. See debtor/credi- 165. See also amor f;lti Feb-
Benveniste, 255n17 tor rdation. critique; ideol- vre, L, 75nlO
Bergmann, f., 110 ogy, 229; totalizing, 11, Fichte, Immanuel H" 2 III
Rergoffen, D., 37n2 221 24,226-28,230nI0 bnk, E., 218nl8
Bible (citations from), 2-3, 69, foot, P., 89, 91n27, 9In2!),
75nlO, 103, 104nl, 123, Dalll" \ .. '>4n4, 62-64, 292
183, 186, 290 1.'.~II' 124n3 forcc(s), 35, 72, 96, 116, 134-
Biser, E., 218n 17 debtorlcreJitor relation, 4, 32- 35,149,153-54,211;
Binner, R., 125n7, 145n3, 144 33, II-i, 250-51 active and reactive, 35, 245,
Bizet, 187 decadenLe, 185,210-11,278, 247-49
blond beast. See animals. body, 284 forgetting, 9,149, 153-54,
5,67-68,70-74,75n2, deconstruction, 254n9 159n5, 160n19, 163, 165-
75n4, 103, 134, 149, Ddeuze, 11, 228, 230n6, 68, 170-72, See alw
176n25, 236. See also physi- 230n8, 230n9,245-53 nlenlory
olob'Y' Bourget, P., 209-10, democracy, 156, 161n24, Foucault, 228,233, 234-38,
217n6,218n7 231nlO, 169, 319n22 147-49
Burckhardt, J., 281 Derrida, II, 189n14, 233, 238- freedom, 4, 27-30, 37, 49-51,
Burke, E., 268 43,274n13 55n15, 88,95,132-33,
Descartes, 177, 238 143,148-49,150-51,
descenr, 4, 227-28, 134-36 155-57, 158n12, 163, 165,
causality, 131-145;passim, 151, 171,211,251
desire, 75nl, 136, 184, 194,
158 Freud, S., 73-74, 76n15, 93,
248-49,251-53,255nI5
Christianity/Christian, 3, 4, 12, 95, 168, 192,201,228,
dialectic, 99-100, 229
40-49,51-52,67,69,71, 242-43,248-49,250,252
Digby, K" 117
77,100,114-15,119, 133, Fritsch, '1'., 7, 10, 280, 289n5
Dionysian, Dion)'sus, 14n3, 24,
145nl, 154, 183, 185, 186, fromm, Erich, 293
159n5,197,238,281,284-
197-200,203-4,208nI6, 87, 289n8
214,218nI4,251-52,2 7 8, disintegration [f);\gregation]' Gast, P., 37nl
279, 283, 286-87; Christ, 211-14 Gemes, K., 54n8
225. See also Jesus domination, 30, 43, 98, 100, gender, 252
Clark, M., 10, 55n13, 188n9, 224,228 genealob'Y. 4-5, 12,39-40,52,
188nIO,207nll,292-93 Dostoevsky, 209, 217n2, 236 54n9, 58-59, 68-70, 73,
dass, 235, 252 drivels), 72, 75nl, 199 75n1, 94-95,227,233-43,
communication, 229-30 DUhring, E., 84, 207nlO, 280 246,259-60,261-62,
community, 251, 259, 26M, duty, 154. See also responsi- 264-68
270-71 bility. Germans, 186,200
COl1lte, A., 242 Ceuss, R., 39, 52
Conanr, J., 43-44, 55n21, 298, Einstein, 174n9 God, 70-71, 74, 88, 93,151,
299-300 Else, G., 127nl9 164, 186,215,250-52,
Conscience, 101, 106n28, 113, Enlightenment, 203, 223-24, 265. See also Yahweh
143,150,152,156,171, 228 Codc/, K., 174n9
252,309,310,316, estrangement, 191-93, 199 Goethe, 197-98
319n14. See also bad con- eternal recurrence, 9, 28, 36- grammawlogy, 241
science 37, 38n7, 157, 166-71, Greeks, 185, 196,204-5
consciousness, 72, 99, 102, 174n8, 178n12, 175nl3 Guarrari, F., 11,245-53
148-49,163,167,175nI9, ethnocentrism, 239, 240 Guay, R., 49, 54118, 55n21
192,199,201,211 excellence, 55n21, 55-56n24, guilt, 4, 30-31, 33-35, 37,116,
consequenrialist ethics, 293, 82,110-11,115 143-44, 145n2, 165-66,
298-99 existentialism, 157, 158 174116,250-51
conservatism, 268, 271-72; expression, 48-50, 138, 144
"new conscfvacisnl,» 230n 1. expressivist, 49, 139-40 Habermas, 11.233-34, 274n19
See alw right wing Hadot, P., 178
Conway, D., 55nl4 family, 251-52 Hales, S., 293
cosmology, 174n9 fascism, 186, 252-53, 282, 287 Hatab, 1..,147,151-52,
creativity, 7, 12,60, 125n7, fatalism, 38n7, 176n24 161n24.319n22
 Index 329
Havas, R., 105n24, 160n16, 259,260-61, 263f, 266, 95-96, Ill, 137, 157-58,
160n23, 161n24 272 165,170, 178-80, 194-95,
health, 12, 197,252,265,272, irrationalism, 229, 270 197-98,215-16, 219n18;
294, 296-98, 300-30 I. See Israel, 119, 184 life affirmation, 294,
also sickness. 297-98; life denial, 208nll
Hegel, 97, 98, 138-43, 205, Jacobi, F., 210 Locke, 5, 250
223-24, 229, 246, 273n7, Janaway, C, 10 l.oeb, P., 15n9, 158n3
277-78 Jaspers, 38n 10 love, 237, 252, 297
Heidegger, 104n7, 174n12, Jesus, 104n I, 283, 284. See also l.uther, 75nlO
179,246-48 Christ
Maclnryre, A., 56n27
Heraclitus, 2, 13n3, 14n4, 179 Jew(s)/Jewish, 182-83, 185,
Mallarme, S., 224
hermenemic (noun), 63-64, 196,200,202-4,208nI7,
Marshal, L., 122
182 277-89. See also Judaism
Marx, 93, 97, 105n18, 208n16,
Herzen, A., 209 Joyce, J., 93
228, 243, 248, 252; Marx-
Hesiod,204 Judaism, 114-15, f85, 277-89
ism, 274n24
Hesse, H., 246 judgmenr, 225-26, 229, 250,
masters/mastery/masterly
Hippocrates, 178-79 268
human beings, 6-7, 109-
history, 4,12,23,25,58-59, just/Justice, 70, 84
13, 115-16, 120-22, 136-
61-64,94,97101, 195, 37, 157-58,201,204,246,
204-6, 219n20, 236, Kafka,253 250-51, 283,308,210n2~
242-43 Kant, \., 29, 41, 102-4,
master moraliry, 97-98,
Hider, A., 252 104nlO, 105n19, 124n3, 100, 120-21, 125n5,
Hobbes, 250 160n21, 179,226,240,
125n9, 151,224
Holderlin, 186 273n8 May, S., 40,163, 173n2
Hollingdale, R., I, 148, 159nl2 Kaufmann, W., I, 102, 148,
memory (includes remember-
Homer/Homeric, 98, 105n13, 159nl2 ing), 101, 103, 149-51,
119-2~ 125n~ 127nl~ Kemal, S., 273n8 154,157, 160n19, 165-68,
204 Kierkegaard, S., 74 184,200-201,239,309.
honesry, 69, 137 Klages, L., 218nl4
See also forgetting
Horkheimer, M., 11,223-25, K1ossowski, P., 175nl3 metaphysics, 62, 74, 247
228-29 knowledge, 4, 21, 26, 36-37,
Miles, T., 160nl5
Horney, K., 296-97 45, 70, 160n19, 169,
Mill, J., 104
Hoy, D., 14n6, 274n24 175n18, 192, 194-99,
Moles, A., 174n9
human beings. See animals 259-60 monism, 247, 249
Hume, 5, 14n6, 179,203,268, Korsgaard, C, 90n4.' , moral psychology, 131-45, 158
Kropotkin, P., 209 Muller-l.auter, W., 104n4
274n24
KrUger, H., 182, 188n8,
Hurka, T., 294 music, 70, 181
189nl5 myth, II, 223, 225,227-30,
Hutcheson, 38n3
234,241,242
Lampert, L., 317n2
Illich, 1., 189n 13 Lang, B., 190n21 Nambikwara, 239-40, 243
illness. See sickness. immoral- Lange, Karen E., 31On23 nationalism/nationalist, 185,
ism, 12,292 language, 5, 67-68, 75n2, 135, 281-83,287
information theory, 241 160nI8,226,229,239, naturalism, 6-7, 15nl3, 42, 44,
innocence, 143, 166, 174n6 241-42 101,133-34,136,157,309
instincts, 31, 69, 88, 94, 102-3, La Rochefoucauld, F., 80 Nazi(s)/Nazism, 97, 105n16,
116, 136, 152, 163, 165, laughter, 26, 170, 240, 265 235,282,286
171 Lee, R., 119, 122, 126;'12 necessiry, 157
inrem/intenrion, 49-50, 62- "leftist" readers, 288 Neharnas, A., 103, 299, 273n4
63, 102, 133, 135-36, Leiter, B., 7, 39, 54n9, 55n 17, nihilism, 46, 101, 185,203,
138-40 55n21,55n22,82-83,81- 209-11,213,216,217nl,
internalization (includes inpsy- 82,9In27,176n24,207nll 266
chation), 31, 129n29, 136, Levi-Strauss, C, II, 238-42, noble moraliry, 86, 110-13,
145n2, 149,306 243 124n2, 125n5, 135, 183,
imcrprctation, 4, 6, 9- 10, 12, L.ewis, C, 297 186,310-314.316,
42, 54n4, 57-64,67-69, liberals/liberalism, 161 n24, 287 318n14. See also master
72-73,96,135,142,226, life, 24, 36, 63-64, 67, 69, 83, morality. normativiry, 294
330 Index

objectivity, 78-79,184,193- 219n18, 219n20, 223, respeer, 85, 154, 156

96, 198-99, origins, 3-4, 6, 226-28,234,237,241-42, ressentiment, 87, 109, 112-13,
12,67-69, 120,227,234- 248-49, 254n14, 253, 116, 119, 121, 125n7, 133-
35,236,243,262,273n6 268-69, 289n8, 293,297, 35, 183-84,200,204,213,
overman, over-human. See Uber- 300, 320n26. See also will to 215-16,238-39,241,272,
mellSc/; power 279, 281, 283-84 320n28
Ovid,186 pride, 168, 184 revaluation of values. See values
Owen, D., 105n24, 152, 154- priest(s), 12, 114, 195, 218n 14, revenge, 84,112-13,119,136,
56, 160n21, 161n24, 251,279,282-85,314-16. 184, 194, 240, 283. See a/so
318nl0 See a/so ascetic priest ressendlnellt
progressivism, 12,268-69,271 Richardson, J., 15n10, 56n23,
p.1"ions, 80, 194 promises, promising, 10 1-2, 300
past (problem of), 57-58, '61, 137-38, 148, 150, 153-56, Ridley, A., 40, 53nl, 55n22,
64,93-94, 101,103,165, 158-59n3, 163, 171, 91n21, 105n21, 105n24,
173n) 173n3,200-201,309 160-6In23,318nI4
pathos/pathos of distance, 84, psychoanalysis, II, 71, 75nl, "right wing" readers, 12,269,
95, 104n7, 112, 142, 193, 93,249-50,251-53 287-88
206 psychology, psychologisr rights, 148, 156, 159n 12
Patton, P., 47-48, 54nl0 (Nietzsche as), 21, 68, Risse, M., 105n22
Pearson, K., 159n6 75nl, 95, 205-6 Roos, R., 75n5
Pecora, Y., 253n2 punishment, 5, 59, 62-63, Rofty, R., 113
Peirce, c., 117-18 139-40,250-51 Rousseau, J., 97, 243, 250
perfectionism, 12, 55n21, 155- purity, 114-15
5(}, 161n24, 298-300 Sartre, J., 242, 249
Pericles, 204 race/racism, 186, 235, 252, Schacht, R., 89, 318n4
perspecrive(s)/perspectivism, 45, 272-73,281,282 Schelling, 226
259,261,275n31 Ranciere, J., 185 schizoanalysis, 249
persuasion, 113-14 rationality, 99-100, 102-3. See schobrs, 181, 194-99, 205
philosophers, 181,201-2, a/3'o reason Schopcnhauer, A., 26, 33, 40-
208nl3 rationalism, 224 42,44,9~7Sn4,76nI4,
philosophi,al anthropology, Rawls, J., 298 195,207n9,214
161n27, 307, 309 reading, 9, 69, 158, 178-87, Schiller, F. W., 273n7
philosophy, 67-69, 73-75, 236,245 science, 7, 11, 45, 13.3 ,\ I, !.l8,
75n4, 180 reason, 11, 210; great, 73; 153, 189n17, 193-~S,
physics, 104n7, 176n24 instrumental, 225, 229. See 207n6,239-43, 251
physiology, 68. See also body also ration ali ty self, 2, 71, 102-3, 235, 236,
Pimlar, 14n4, 103 recollection, 167-68, 175n13. 241; de-selling [Entse/bs-
pity, 85, 91n16, 296-97, 314 See al.w memoty tUllg], 97, 100, 103
Plato, 127n18, 175n13, 185, redemption, 33, 95, 100, self-deception, 136
232,237-39, 255n15, 291; 176n21, 251, 263-65 self-knowledge, 2, 14n4, 68,
Platonist, 234 Ree, P., 3, 24 88-89,184, 199,205. See
pleasure, 213, 237, 250, 253 Reginster, B., 50, 296 also knowledge
pluralism, 72, 247, 249, 288 Reich, W., 253 self-overcoming, 26, 37, 74,
poetry, 260 Reik, T., 75n9 137,154-55,166,171,
polemic, 236 religion, 164, 189n17, 198 297-302
politics, 12, 72, 10 I, 103, 156, remembering. See memory semiotics, 68
161n24, 184-86,211,252, Renan, 196 Seneca, 188n5
267,270,272-73,281, repression, 196, 207n8, sexual ethos, 237-38; sexuality,
288-89. See ,z/w state 208n18, 228,248-49, 253 252
positivism, 242 responsibility, 28-29, 34, 37, shame, 115-16
Post, L., 128n26, 128n27 63-64,88, 102, 105n24, Shepard, P., 318n13, 320n24
post-modern, 288 114, 141, 143-44, 148, sickness, 12, 164-65, 171,210,
poSt-structuralism, 246-47 151, 153-55, 161n23, 213,296-97,301. See tllw
power, 47-49, 54-55nI3, 72, 163-64 health
88,96, 103, 135-36, 142, resentment, 12, 127, 135, 137, Silberbauer, G., 121-22
148, 150, 152, 155-56, 206, 296. See alw ressenti- slave(s), 86-87, 109-130; anti-
165-66, 186,210,213-15, nlen( Semitism as, 283, 285; P,IS-
 Index 331

Jim, 136-37, 196; slavish Taylor. C. 139 302; virtue ethics. 12.291.
human beings, 320n26; temporality. 74. 101, 166-67. 294
slave morality, 86-87, 96- 174n9, 1741110. 1741111,
100, 112-15, 124113, 131, 202,204-5 Wagner. R.• 187. 199. 207n9.
164, 183,201,246,281 Terrullian. 240 208nI6.225.278.280-81
slave revolt, revolution, 8, 86- Thatcher, D .• 1. 14n8 war. 35. 184-85
87,109-10,116,118-21, Thomas. E.• 128n27 Warren. M .• 54n13. 319n20
123-24, 125n7, 135-37, time. 95-96 weakness, 131. 142
161n23, 271, 278, 309 Tongeren. P.• 318n12. 319n21 Weber. 103
Socrates, 99, 114-16, 141, 153, tragedy, 99. 207n9 Weiss, P. 225
171, 175n15, 210, 225, 237 translation. 73. 239-40 Weisse. C. 210
solipsism, 265-66, 267 truth. 4. 7,44-46. 70. 74. 193- White. R.• 157. 161n29.
Soil, I., 175nl4 97.215.226.228-29. 319n21
Solomon, R., 297 230n7.237.241 Wilcox, J., 10. 188n9. 189nll
"sovereign individual," 9, 88- Turgencv. I.. 209 will(s)/willing. 5.22.27-28.
89, 101-3, 105n22, 147- 133-34. 140. 164-65,
61, 163-65, 173n2, Ubermenschl(ibmnenschen 170-71. 176n24. 195,211-
176n25, 199-201,204 (includes overhumanity). 9. 14,248-49,253,266.269.
soul, 4, 71, 97,102, 134, 144, 33.101.147-48.150. 152. 272; to life. 24. 37. 71, 72-
149, 184, 186,235,240 156.158. 159n3. 163-73. 73.149.151,156-58.
species, 216, 219n19 246.284.286 161n23, 214, 218n14; to
Spencer, H., 242 ugliness, 263 nothingness, 22. 34. 212-
Spinoza, B., 34, 143 uncanniness. 2. 191-92.200- 15. 218nI4,253. 309; to
S[. Teresa of Avila, 295 206. 208n18. 238. 241-42 power. 6-7. 11-12.30.47-
Stambaugh,]., 174117, 176n21 utility. 40. 45 (in quote). 79, 48.50-52,71.73-74.95.
state, the, 121. 281-82. 308-9. 110 13~ 137. 164.210.214-
313,317 16. 2181114. 218n17,
Staten. H .• 173n5. 318n3. 219n18. 223,226,228-29,
val ue(s) , 17-18.77, 103. 114.
320n26 246-49.253, 274n14.
131.183-84.203.215,
Stegmaier. W., 1051122 291-302; quanta. 210-11.
259-68; impartial. 112,
Steven. J.• 14n7 214; ro truth. 22. 36-37.
115-18, 123-24; instru-
strength, 100. 131-32. 141. 45-46.51-52.193. 194-
mental. 79-80. 88; intrin-
297.301 96. 197-99.203.205,
structuralism, 228. 234. 242 sic. 5, 40-41.51,79-88,
90n5.90n6. I II, 116. 207n1l
style. 27. 69. 183. 186. 189n14, Williams, B., 15n13, 90n5,
211, 260-61. 274nl3 124n3; re-evaluation of val-
ues. 21-22. 39-52. 77-91; 91n23, 138. 145n4
subject(s)/subjectivity, 8, 71. Wilmsen, E.• 128n25
131-45, 219n19. 224-25. revaluation of values. 43.
90nl (contrasted with "re- Wittgenstein. 1.. 11. 179
237. 247-48. 267. 269. See woman. 181, 189nl4
also actors evaluation"). 136-37. 141-
42 ; reversal of values. 285; writing. 9. 178-87.238-41.
suffering, 31, 42. 54n4. 59-64. 243
85.911116,98. 145n2. 196. value judgments. 225-26.
207n9. 213,250. 253. 306, See also judgment; revalua-
tion of values Yahweh. 285
309,315
suicide. 219n20 Veblen. T .• III
Surrealists. 225 violence. 178-79.235.239-41. Zarathustra. 3.152. 158n12.
251. 315; predation. 160n19. 164-73.280. See
taste. 44. 51-52. 225-26. 309-13 also Thus Spoke Zarathustra
230n7. 260 virtue. 80, Ill. 289n8. 291- Zionist. 287
332 Index

INDEX LOCORUM

Listed in order of publication using the citation formats and abbreviations indicated in the front maner.

The Birth o/Tragedy (generally): 61: 38n7 118: 85

21,26-27,63,99, 103, 96: 261 125: 43
159n5 214: 245, 253 127: 54n5
"Self-Criticism" 2: 263 Daybreak (generally): 39-44, 151: 44
"SeirCriticism" 7: 26, 265 46,51,80,82,94,255 270: 49, 103, 171
4: 262 P 3: 44 277: 176n23
7: 207119 9:40 290: 171,260
8: 207n9 10: 41 299: 171,259
9: 207n9 13: 41, 42 310: 208nl3
12: 186 14: 54n3 317:95
13:99 16: 41,120 324: 26
13: 171 21: 41 327: 26
14: 171,238 24: 41 328: 25
Untimely AledittltiollS (gener- 23: 54nll 353: 192
ally): 26, 59, 63-4 33:41 335: 29,171, 176n24
The U", alld Disadvalltage of 38:40 338:85
History jor Life (generally): 42: 194, 208n13 340: 175nl3
58,62, 94, 102 43: 208nl3 341: 28, 32, 168-70, 174n8,
P: 195, 198 70-2: 54n3 175n13, 176n24
3: 57,94 76-80:41 342: 168, 170
4: 198 77-8: 54n4 343: 43-44
5: 195, 198 78:42 344: 45, 194
s6: 195 84:69 345: 207n4,274n23
8: 195 86:41 346:46
9: 58 95:207n4 349:47
10: 195
98: 54n3 353:47
10: I04n7
99:40 354: 192, 210
Schopfllhauer tIS Educator
103: 80 357:44
(g<:nerally): 50, 55n16,
104: 55n14 370: 24,196,313
55n21
106: 42 379: 265
2:26
108: 80 382: 22, 25
3: 104n7
109: 72 Thus Spoke Zamthustm (gener-
299
lVe Philologists (generally): 68 112: 54n II ally): 22, 64, 70, 103, 152,
HUlllall All 100 Humalt (gener- 119: 72 154
ally): 40, 71, 120 131: 42 I: "Prologue" 4: 297
P: 25 132: 41 I: "On the Three Metamor-
92:9InI5 133: 296-7 phoses": 164, 166
35: 178,184 199:42 I: "On Reading and Writ-
36: 80 205: 289n7 ing": 179
40: 79 254: 54nll I: "Of War and Warriors":
94: 120 285: 194 124n2
114: 186 542:210 I: "On the New Idol": 282
163: 184 556:42 I: "Thousand and One
5SI: 94 The Gay Scimte (generally): 42- Goals": 271
475: 185,282,286 43,45-46,85,95 I: "On the Gift-Giving Vir-
4SI: 184-5, 189n19 P 4: 274nl5 tue": 175n 17
618: 59n8 II: 192,210 II: "Blessed Isles": 171
629: 91n15 13:54nll,85 II: "On Self-Overcoming":
AssOItt'd Opiuiom aud Maxims 108: 43, 175nl7 164
89: 120 109: 175n17 II: "Immaculate Perception":
7/;<, W'twderer and His Shat:low 110:45-46 195
(generally): 94 116: 40, 46 Il: "Of Scholars": 195, 196
 Index 333
II: "The Prophet": 175n20 68: 168. 184 125n5. 135. 142.204.
II: "On Redemption": 33. 121: 186 272. 283. 309,320n28
64.94. 165. 171. 173n4 186:23,25,54n7 1:11: 23. 112-13, 124112.
II: "The Stillest Hour": 171. 188: 23 125119,204,306,309-10,
175nl8 195: 114 316
III: "On the Vision and {he 202:23.25.48.59.202-3: 1:12: 23. 295
Riddle": 167. 169. 48 1:13: 49. 87. 99.112.131-
174nlO. 175n13. 175n16. 200: 195 38. 143-44. 145n2. 150-
175n20 207: 97. 195. 198-99 51. 153. 164.310-12
III: "On Involuntary Bliss": 211: 264 1:14: 70-1. 82
169 212: 25.97 1:16: 125115.204
III: "Before Sunrise": 169 213:25 1:17: 1261111
Ill: "Upon the Mount of 223: 265. 274nl6 II:I: 101. 149.155.164-65.
Olives": 301 224: 225 167,200
III: "On Apostates" 2: 71 225:28.48 11:2: 88,101-2, 147, 150.
III: "On the Three Evils": 226: 25 152-3.156-58.163.165.
169 228: 25 201
III: "The Convalescenr": 229:23 II:3: 163, 165-66
167. 169. 174n12. 230:46.69.305 II:4: 24
175n18.175n20 231: 120, 186 11:6: 31-2
III: "On the Great Longing": 232:49 II:7: 83, 161n27. 206n2
176n26 246: 69. 75n9 II:9: 125n5
III: "The Seven Seals": 170. 247:69 II:ll: 84, 135
1761125 251: 280 II:12: 54n12, 84,133. 135.
IV: "On the Higher Man": 252: 25 138, 140, 142
300.301 257: 310. 318n8 11:13: 140
IV: "At Noon": 169 258:299 11:14: 113. 142
Beyond Good dnd Evil (gener- 260:98.11O-11,125nS.297 11:15: 143
ally): 22. 28. 30. 43. 48. 261: 86 II: 16: 31-2,60. 129n29,
86, 97. 120, 152 265: 141 136, 164.224-5.250.
1': 181 295: 20.24.68 284. 306-8, 318n6.
I: 226 0/1 the Gmelliogy ofMorals (gen- 319nl6
2: 44, 78. 199 erally): 20-22, 30. 40, 11:17: 121, 128n28, 210.
3: 210 54n9. 58. 69. 72. 83-7. 242, .307. 308, 311-12,
4: 199 96-7. 101. 105n22. III, 318n9,319nJ6
5:44 115-16.119,123,131. Il:18: 32,96,116,295.311
8: 186 147-49, 154, 161n23 11:19: 114. 164,251, 318n3
10: 70 (on the tirle of): 242-.3 Il:20: 32
13: 47, 210 1':1: 169. 180,202,206112, 11:21: 165,213
16-20: 150 235 1I:22: 20. 33, 137,251
17: 132 1':2: 192 1I:24: 22. 169.213
19: 30, 49.134. 140 1':4: 204 11:28: 209
21: 28,134.151. 176n24 1':5: 203 III (epigraph): 10. 15n15.
22:68 1':6: 23, 59-60. 90n2 179-80, 187n7, 18Sn7
25: 286 1':7: 20, 24, .306 III:I: ISO-82. 189nll. 213
29: 210 1':8: 24, 26,178. 180-82 III:2: 180
30: 197 1:1: 183 III:3: 295
31: 44 1:2: 86. 110, 125n5 III:5: 208nl2
32: 192 1:4: 126nll. 227-8 III:6: 226. 260
39: 197 1:5: 118. 120. 126n II. JJ1:7: 58
43:49 127n19. 204. 318n7 III:9: 210
44: 292 1:6: 111.114, 142.314 111:10: 201-2, 317
46: 43.91n20 1:7: 111-12. 114, 125n5. 1JI:1I: 83.212
52:285 142. 182, 183. 204 III: 12: 275n29 and n.31
56: 171, 182 1:8: 114, 182-84,200 III: 13: 212, 228, 296
61: 24 [:9: 23,119.182, 183 III: 14: 20. 203, 212-13.
62:25 1:10: 86-88,109-10.121, 280-81. 320n25
334 Index

III: 15: 60. 62. 213. 320n27. "Skirmishes" 48: 164 619: 211
315 "Skirmishes" 49: 164 622: 211
!l1:l6: 204. 212 "Skirmishes" 51: 179 675: 214
iII:17: 196. 207n10. 212-13. ::Ancienrs:: (generally): 69 685: 214-16
313 AnCIents 4: 24 692: 213-14
111:18: 213. 310. 319nl8 "Ancients" 5: 24 748: 282
lII: 19: 88. 213 The AlIlichrist{generally): 250 795:259
III:20: 30-1.61.213 P:208n19 802: 260
I1I:22: 71. 186 I: 2(,3. 274n17 S09: 270-71
IJ\:23: 191. 193.205.212 9:212.214 816: 259
IlI:24: 194.202.241.263 15: 69.198. 273n9 864: 216
Ill: 25: 194.225 16:69
899:210
111:26: 185. 196 18: 215
967: 274nlO
III: 27: 22. 166. 185. 194. 24: 125n5. 215
983:34
202-3.242 26:69.251
1048: 259
111:28: 22. 61.180.194.196. 44: 183. 208nl6
212.253.266 52:69.71
Kritische Studienausgabe (KSA)
The GlSt' of Wagner (generally): 55: 280 I. 547 ( = "Socrates und die
27 Ecce 1I0mo (generally): 21. 24. Tragoedie"): 99
P: 24 26.40.71-2.94 5.291 (=GMIl:l): 148
I: 72 P:3: 71. 197 5. 293( = GM 11:1): 15802
7: 211 P:4: 25 5. 337 (= GM 11:25): 159
9: 21 "Wise" 3: 94 nl2
lil'iliglJt of the IdnIJ (generally): "Wise" 6: 301 5. 361( = GM III: 10)::
24.43.49.59.69 "Clever" 2: 76n13 320n29
P: 68. 70 "Clever" 9: 199 5. 247 ( = GM P: I): 320n29
"Maxims" 8: 197 "Clever" 10: 34 7: 30 [15]: 104n7
"Socrates" (generally): 171. "Books" 3: 26 9: 11[148]: 167. 169
175nl9 "Books" 4: 69. 186 9: 11 [196]: 175n17
"Socrates" 5: 115 "Books" 5: 69. 205 9: 11 [143): 38n7
"Socrates" 8: 115 "BT" 2: 36 9: II [318]: 174011
"Socrates" 9: 116 "BT" 3: 24 10: 1 [109): 69
"Socrates" 10: 210 "0" I: 40 10: 4 [81): 168
"Reason" 3: 71 "Z" I: 170 10: 4 [85]: 166
"World" 6: 21') "z" 2: 22 10: 18 [34): 76n20
"Morality" I: 273n9 "Z" 6: 26 11: 25 [7): 174n12
"Morality" 2: 273n9 "GM": 20. 171. 177-78. 11:34(185):96
"Morality" 5: 21 '). 262 191.203.233 11: 35 [47): 103
"Morality" 6: 29 The Will to Pou.er (generally): 11: 37 [4): 72-3
"Errors" 7: 29. 134. 274nl7 69 11: 38 [12): 247
"Errors" 8: 29. 38n7 2: 208n20
II: 40 [21]: 76n16
"Improvers" I: 7')n3 38: 210
12: 2[127.2]: 20,3
"Improvers" 2: 312. 316 43: 2l)
"Improvers" 3: 71 12: 2 [190J.47: 96
46: 214
"Germans" 4: 282 12: 2[82], 2(78). 2[86):
55:212.214
"Skirmishes" 5: 43. 119 76nl,)
229:7507
"Skirmishes" 14: 216 260: 213 12: 2 [148]: 96
"Skirmishes" 19: 263 401: 214. 216 12: 2 [82J: 74
"Skirmishes" 24: 263 461: 21') 12: 9 [91).65: 76019
"Skirmishes" 26: 70 481: 267 13: 11 [29J: 96
"Skirmishes" 38: 29. 49 484:73 13: 11 [48): 97
"Skirmishes" 41: 48 491: 76n15. 76nl6 13: 14 (79): 95
"Skirmishes" 43: 164. 166. 513: 267 13: 14 [102): 103
213 552: 76019 13: 14 [121): 95
"Skirmishes" 44: 318nll 556: 267 13: 14 [174]: 95
About the Contributors

Christa Davis Acampora is associate professor of philosophy at H unrer College and

The Graduate Cenrer of the City Universiry of New York. She is coediror, with
Ralph R. Acampora, of A Nietzschean Bestiary: Becoming Animal Beyond Docile and
Brutal (2004) and aurhor of numerous arricles on Nietzsche.

Keith Ansell Pearson holds a Personal Chair in Philosophy at the University of

Warwick. He is the ediror of A Companion to Nietzsche (2006) and coediror, with
Duncan Large, of The Nietzsche Reader (2006).

Babette E. Babich is professor of philosophy at Fordham University in New York

City and adjunct research professor of philosophy at Georgerown University, Wash-
ington, D.C. She is author of Word!' in Blood. Like Flowers: Philosophy and Poetry,
Music. and Eros in HiJ'lderlin, Nietzsche, and Heidegger (2006) and Nietzsche's Philoso-
phy o/Science: R~flecting Science on the Ground 0/ Art and Life (I 994; Iralian 1996).
A three-time Fulbright Scholar and Nietzsche-Fellow (Weimar: 2(04). she is
founder and executive ediwr of New Nietzsche Studies and has edited several book
collections including Habermas, Nietzsche, and Critical Theory (2004), Hermeneutic
Philosophy o/Science. Van Gogh's Eyes. and God (2002), Theories o/Knowledge. Criti-
cal Theory, and the Sciences (1999), Nietzsche, Epistemology, and the Philosophy o/Sci-
ence (1999), and From Phenomenology to Thought, Errancy. and Desire (1996).

Eric Blondel is a professor at the University of Paris I (Panrheon-Sorbonne) where

he holds the Chair in Moral Philosophy. Among his numerous writings are works
on Nietzsche, Rousseau, love, and film. His Nietzsche: The Body and Culture, £0
which he refers in the excerpt reprinted in this volume, was published in English
£ranslation in 1991.

Daniel W. Conway is professor of philosophy at The Pennsylvania State University.

He is the author of Nietzsche's Dangerous Game (1997) and Nietzsche and the Politi-
cal (1997), and the edi£Or of the four-volume Nietzsche: Critical Assessments (1998).

335
336 About the Contributors

Ken Gemes is senior lecturer in philosophy at Birkbeck College, University of Lon-

don. He has published many papers on the philosophy of science, as well as on
Nietzsche.

Jurgen Habermas is a permanenr visiting professor of philosophy at Northwestern

University. He is emeritus from the universities of Heidelberg anmd Frankfurt, and
he served as the director of the prestigious Max Planck Institute in Starn berg, Ger-
many. He is the author of more than fifteen books, including Knowledge and Human
Interests (1986), The Legitimation Crisis (1973), The Theory ofCommunicative Action
(1981), The Philosophical Discourse ofModernity (1985), Between Facts and Norms:
Contributions to a Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy (1992), and The Divided
West (2006).

Salim Kemal taught philosophy and held research positions at numerous institu-
tions, including Dundee, Princeton, The Pennsylvania State University, and Cam-
bridge. Among his many articles and books are Kant and Fine Art (1986) and The
Poetics ofA/forabi and Avicenna (1991). He was cofounder, with Ivan Gaskell, of the
book series Cambridge Studies in Philosophy and the Arts.

Paul S. Loeb is profcssor of philosophy at the University of Puget Sound. He is the

author of numerous anicles on Nietzsche and is currently completing a book on
Thus Spoke Zaratlmstra.

Mark Migotti is associate professor of philosophy at thc University of Calgary. He

works and publishes on Nietzschc's ethics, Peirce's theories of truth and science, and
the interplay between cpistemic and ethical evaluation.

Wolfgang Muller-Lauter was coeditor of the de Gruyter critical edition of Nictz-

sche's complete works and professor emeritus in the Department of Protestant The-
ology of the Humboldt University in Berlin. His numerous essays and books have
had tremendous influence on Nietzsche studies. His Nietzsche: His Philosophy of
Contradictions and the Contradictions of His Philosophy, a chapter of which is
reprinted here, appeared in English translation in 1999.

Alexander Nehamas is Edmund N. Carpenter II Class of 1943 Professor in the

Humanities, professor of philosophy, and professor of comparative literature at
Princeton University. His Nietzsche: Lifo as Literature (1985) has been translatcd
into nine languages. He has also authorcd The Art of Living: Socratic Reflections from
Plato to Foucault (1998) and Virtues of Authenticity: Essays on Plato and Socrates
(1998).

David Owen is profcssor of social and political theory, and deputy dircctor of the
Centre for Philosophy and Value, at the University of Southampton. He is the
author of Maturi~y and Modernity (1994) and Nietzsche, Politics, and Modernity
(1995) as well as coeditor of Foucault contra Habermas (1999) and two forthcoming
 About the Contributors 337

volumes: Recognition and Power and Cultural Diversity and Political Theory. He is
currendy completing a book tided Nietzsche's Genealogy ofMorality.

Robert B. Pippin is the Evelyn Stefansson Nef Distinguished Service Professor in

the Commiuee on Social Thought, the Depanmenr of Philosophy, and the College
at the University of Chicago. His latest book is Nietzsche, moraliste franfais: La con-
ception nietzscheellne d'une psychologie philosophique (2006).

Aaron Ridley teaches philosophy at University of Somhampton, United Kingdom.

He teaches courses on aesthetics, Nietzsche, logic, and problems of value, and con-
ducts research in the area of philosophy of music. His books include Nietzsche's Con-
science: Six Character Studies from the "Genealogy" (1998) and The Philosophy of
Music: Theme and Variations (2004).

AJan D. Schrift is the F. Wendell Miller professor of philosophy and director of the
Center for the Humanities at Grinnell College, has published extensively on Nietz-
sche and French philosophy. His most recent books include Twentieth-Century
French Philosophy: Key Themes and Thinkers (2006), Modernity and the Problem of
Evil (2005) and Why Nietzsche Still? Reflections on Drama, Culture, and Politics
(2000). He is currendy overseeing an eight-volume history of Continental philos-
ophy.

Gary Shapiro is the author of Nietzschean Narratives (1989), Alcyone: Nietzsche on

Gifts, Noise, and Women (1991), Earthwards: Robert Smithson and Art After Babel
(1995), and Archaeologies of Vision: Foucault and Nietzsche on Seeing and Saying
(2003). He is currendy working on questions of geophilosophy.

Tracy B. Strong is UCSD Distinguished Professor of Political Science at the Uni-

versity of California, San Diego. He is rhe amhor or editor of many articles and
several books including Friedrich Nietzsche and the Politics of Transfiguration (third
edition, 2000), and Jean Jacques Rousseau and the Politics of the Ordinary (second
edition, 2001). He has also served as the editor of Political Theory: An International
Journal of Political Philosophy.

Christine Swanton is a professor at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. Her

book Virtue Ethics: A Pluralistic View was published in 2005. Her most recent article
on Nietzsche, "Can Nietzsche be both an Existentialist and a Virtue Ethicist," is [0
appear in Values and Virtues.

Yirmiyahu Yovel holds distinguished chair positions in philosophy at the Hebrew

University in Jerusalem and at the New School University in New York. He has
wrinen extensively on Spinoza, Kant, Hegel, and Nietzsche, including Dark Riddle:
Hegel, Nietzsche, and the Jews (1998), which includes extended development of the
text excerpted in this volume, and Spinoza and Other Heretics (1989). He is the
editor of Nietzsche as Affirmative Thinker (1986).