On becoming Christian, Master and Slave Morality, the Passions and Being Excellent
Many people think of Nietzsche as any one or combination of the following: the Anti-Christ, an Immoralist, a misogynist, an anti-Semite, a narcissist, or my favorite- just plain insane
with illusions of grandeur.
But unfortunately, at closer examination, it’s quite hard to make a case that Nietzsche was any of those. By all accounts, including a beautiful account from Lou Salome, (probably one of the only relationships he had, Salome later left him standing at the train station while she escaped off with his best friend, Paul Ree. She would later write a book about his life and philosophy) he was described as kind and gentle person- in fact his last healthy act on the brink of insanity was to hug a horse, trying to prevent it from being beaten by its master.
He was not an immoralist by any standards; in fact, in some of his letters he wrote that his own morality was often more severe than the morality that surrounded him. For all their piousness it seemed to him that the Christians around him followed a much more lax system of ethics if any at all. They did not engage in self-discipline.
What Nietzsche rejects is not morality as such, but rather a certain conception of morality: let’s call it Morality with a capital “M”. According to which Morality is something singular, something like a set of divine commandments, something that is outwardly imposed on us, universal, something to be followed without question. Its not that Nietzsche necessarily rejected the idea of the 10 commandments for example, in fact he lived his life without breaking any of them, he obeyed all of them, if by obey you can interpret as acting in conformity with.
But what he rejected was the nature of them as such, something imposed upon him. According to Nietzsche, not killing is simply an expression of one’s own nature- nothing like a divine moral principle that must be followed inherently as such. Not killing is simply a statement that one has more interesting and important things to do with one’s life than hurt other people.
Likewise, for other such commandments, not stealing for example, isn’t a function of being prohibited from doing so, it is simply a matter of one’s own personal integrity, there’s something greedy, there’s something grubby about stealing- and so he would have condemned it, but not because its against the Moral law but because someone who steals is someone who is despicable, someone who is pathetic.
And so to with the other commandments.
Likewise, when it comes time to explain how some people can break the commandments so frequently, cause so much harm, and why they would do so-- the answer has to be from a physiological question, it can’t be relegated to the realm that simply some people are “evil”, that doesn’t explain anything.
When contesting Kant, its not like he rejects the idea of rationality or rational principles as such, instead he is very clear about the fact that what he rejects is the notion of universal rationality or morality that he points out is only a “rationalization.”
In short Kant’s theory of morality is that one should act solely with the intention of acting on the basis of a moral law. In his view “pure, practical reason” is what ought to guide us to action based on a rule or principle that you would “universalize”. In a sense, treating other people as ends in themselves and not as means. So, the only kind of motivation that Kant is looking at is the motivation to do the rational thing, to do the moral thing.
Looking at the system which Kant gives us, it’s apparent that in fact what he is giving us, like many moral systems, is simply a bunch of rationalizations for our actions. Example: is it a coincidence that acting on a moral maxim you would will into law and universalize for all people seemingly always ends up benefiting oneself? The truth is that the application of the law allows for all types of fiddling.
One of the main refutations of Kant’s morality is as follows: if you have a moral principle with which you can make no exceptions in its application, which Kant insists on, then to apply the principle you need some sense of what that principle is in any given situation. The first one that comes to mind is the commandment thou shall not kill. But right away, we can think of an exception, the most horrible attack scenario where you are left with no other choice but to kill your attacker in self-defense.
In this case we would want to say that it is not wrong to kill, it may be unpleasant and horrible, but it can’t be what you ought not to do in that situation. So, you have to create in a sense, qualifying phrases in the application of these moral laws for various circumstances.
But what according to Kant keeps these qualifying phrases from becoming exceptions to the universal law as such? Well, what keeps them from being exceptions is the fact that it is still in a sense universal: Anyone, you, me, anyone else should not kill except in self-defense. But of course, one can add more qualifying phrases. And if we were to use our ingenuity we could probably do this at some length. There’s a point at which if you add enough qualifying phrases, what you end up with is a class that is so narrowly defined that it really includes only just one, and the moral principal you are willing into universal law is actually just a rationalization for your own actions. It is never simply the application of a rational principle as Kant would have us believe.
Nietzsche would say that this in fact operates so that one doesn’t have to look as closely as he insists that we do into the motivations of our actions.
Nietzsche would also reject the idea of utilitarianism, as made famous by John Stewart Mill and Jeremy Bentham. And why? Mainly because they are moralities concerned with the “general good”, the general well being of the people. When deciding how to act the utilitarians would say that you must do the action that will bring about the greatest amount of good for the greatest amount of people. Something that Nietzsche himself was not particularly concerned with. In fact, he often said that we do not measure civilizations by the general well being but only by its highest specimens.
When we think of Greek culture we think of the great thinkers and poets, the greatest art and beauty that came out of it. To think in terms of the general welfare, is in some sense missing the point or setting the hurdle too low. I’m sure he was just as upset when he saw his fellow man in despair or hurting but to him, nevertheless, that is not that goal of ethics- his focus is on what produces excellence. What he disagrees with here is the idea of morality as a leveling device, in a sense it lops off the tops, the peaks of excellence, and instead puts all its emphasis on the ordinary.
The problem, he wants to say, is if you follow these notions of morality, as you find it in the Judeo-Christian tradition, as you find it in utilitarianism, in Kant in particular, it is possible to be a good person just by not doing anything wrong.
If you think about the notion of Christian confession, the question is not, “what have you done that is wonderful this week”, instead the question is, “what have you done that’s evil, what sins have you committed?” And you could think that a sort of “A+” in confession would be something akin to, “absolutely nothing at all”. The idea is that not doing anything wrong makes you a good person.
This is exactly what Nietzsche would call the “sickly”, you could go through life and never do anything wrong, and one could imagine someone on their deathbed thinking, much like Tolstoy’s Ivan Ilyich does, “I don’t understand, I did everything right, I didn’t do anything wrong; yet, why does it feel so empty?”
Because the truth is being a good person and leading a good life really doesn’t amount to living a life at all. The Christian philosopher Kierkegaard reserves the special term “existence”, from which we get “existentialism”, for just this notion of a life contrary to this view- A life full of passion, vibrancy, adventure, devotion and commitment.
For Nietzsche too the idea is not just to be a good person, just obeying these rules, just being Moral, just not breaking these commandments- but instead the idea is to really live.
His alternative is pagan morality, as it comes from the Greeks. As opposed to Morality with a capital M, which is in a sense trying to come up to a certain bar of Morality and restraining ourselves from doing those actions which are prohibited, he is instead interested in the pursuit of excellence. Not only how to be a good person, but how to be excellent, how to thrive. Virtue ethics. The comparison with Aristotle can be made here as well.
It’s a whole different notion of ethics. Kant is often thought of as a very complicated and contrived version of the Golden Rule. In contrast, Nietzsche and the Greeks think what ethics consist of are excellences. Thinking of people in terms of virtues, to think of them in terms of in which ways people can be excellent, not just good, but excellent. And to be excellent is not for example just not doing what is wrong, obeying rules, but instead it is to be exceptional, it is to be the best.
This is the ideal, to be exceptional, not to be like everyone else and hopefully be a good person along with them- Kant’s ideal.
In fact, the test of having a virtue according to Aristotle is that you enjoy and thrive doing it.
Throughout his philosophy Nietzsche talks of Slave and Master Morality. I think its one of the most misunderstood aspects of his philosophy. In Beyond Good and Evil he talks about the genealogy of morals. How did Morals come about?
He talks about them based on the political context in which they originated. Some people in positions of power are able to look at the world in a very different way from those who are not. Master morality is the kind of morality that arises from these people that really have no one to answer to, can be masters of themselves, as well as other people. So, Master morality is a kind of morality that asserts itself in the world.
By contrast, a larger section of society, those who have to answer up to their behaviors, and are not in a position to do what they want to do, namely slaves. The kind of morality that develops in people in that situation is not one that has anything to do with self-assertion; instead it’s more likely to be: how to live your life in a way that will create the least problems for yourself.
Generally speaking direct self assertion is not going to be valued very highly, as that will only get one into trouble. And, Slave morality is one that Nietzsche associates with weakness, a position of political weakness in fact. A slave would avoid confronting a master directly but would in fact on the sly, among other slaves, criticize the master pretty harshly.
Nietzsche intends on the whole for this to be a type of psychological model of human behavior, and wants to consider how these may still in some way affect our behavior. He talks in example about the ancient Hebrews after a certain point in time, where they were in a sense their own masters, became enslaved.
Very clearly, this was a situation that a whole group of people had to deal with, they had to deal with the fact that they could no longer assert themselves as they used to, they had to deal with the fact that they were under the thumb of a people who didn’t share their religious views. And the way that they guarded their identity under these harsh circumstances, Nietzsche says, was to adopt a certain kind of Slave morality. One that asserts one’s self on the sly.
Similarly, he thinks that those who initially accepted Christianity were not those who were in charge, rather the underdogs, people who were slaves under the Roman regime. A Morality that appealed to the idea of challenging the masters- not directly, but indirectly, only through your own assessment of yourself- was a very appealing and workable view to have.
There was a certain sense of self-esteem that could be gained through Christianity without having to assert one’s self against the masters directly. Which, often could simply not be done.
An easy way to understand Master morality on the other hand is to view it in the terms that Nietzsche did, a naturalist psychological model for human behavior, namely: people do what they want to do. There are all different levels of desires, there are very vulgar desires, but then again there are very refined desires, and part of being a Master, or to use the word that Nietzsche preferred, part of being noble, is not a matter of not doing what you want to do, but to the contrary, making sure that what you want to do is in itself noble and refined.
If you think of someone like Mozart, what he wants to do most is compose the perfect piece of music; by him doing what he wants to do he is in fact doing something that we all want as well. The consequence of the Masters doing what they want to do, as he puts it, is making the whole civilization more excellent.
So, to be clear, he is not for anyone just doing whatever it is that they want to do-- in essence, he thinks that people can’t avoid doing what they want to do anyway- but instead it is making sure that what it is you want to do is noble and refined. So being a Master in this sense is being the best, being the best as a person, being the best as an artist, as a warrior or whatever.
Slave morality has to be conceived of as a reaction, a reaction in particular Nietzsche says, to Master morality. A reaction to people who can do whatever they want. Instead they follow the premise, don’t do what you want to do, don’t try to do what you want to do because you will only be frustrated, and to compensate for this they create a kind of Slave morality.
He says interestingly enough, that the very notion of “good” and “evil” is a distinction that only exists within slave morality. The master doesn’t question anything that he does or how he lives, he simply lives how he wants, but in contrast the slaves begin to question their status and their role in life.
Nietzsche in fact thinks that this revolution, this trans-valuation of values was particularly ingenious. First of all, the slaves developed their morality in virtue of being resentful, resentful of whom, the masters of course- who can go around being as obnoxious as they feel like with no consequences, and the slave revolt in morals comes when they make that observation.
Indeed, the slaves start to think, what the masters are isn’t good in itself, in fact it isn’t good at all, the way the masters are, the way they assert themselves, the slaves come to view with skepticism. They end up concluding that it’s evil. Even if they were in the positions of the masters, they imagine, they wouldn’t want to act that way. They are not something to admire, they are something to despise.
If that is true, what are the slaves by contrast? They can view themselves as good. But, notice, this is exactly opposite to how the masters view themselves, the masters see themselves as good without question, and they see those who are not like them, cannot do what they want as bad. But “evil” is a distinction that only the slaves make. The slaves have to conclude that they are good whereas the masters know they are good without question.
And, in fact, the slaves can only conclude that they are good on the basis of having seen someone as worse than themselves.
What good amounts to is not asserting yourself in the way that the masters do, having more self-control.
This is termed as the trans-valuation of values.
For the masters good is who they are and what they do,
bad is not getting what they want, failure, or those people that can’t.
For the slaves it is the opposite. Good for them is not doing all those things that the masters do.
Wealth has always been something desirable, but here comes Christianity and what does it tell you: “Its easier for a camel to get through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to get into the kingdom of heaven.” In other words, wealth is evil, money is the root of all evil. Also, meekness becomes a virtue, “the meek shall inherit the earth.” This trans-valuation of values in opposite of the masters.
The interesting question is, how did we get to the point where slave morality is simply Morality? Constantine converted himself and the Roman Empire, there was a switch historically, but what is more interesting is the mechanism with which this transformation took place.
It can be illustrated in a crude example, in a certain naturalistic account- and we can talk about how a transformation of this type might have taken place.
Imagine a baboon colony; and if you visit a zoo you can tell immediately that the baboons rank themselves in a certain kind of order. At the top is always the Alpha male. The male baboons are bigger than the females and the older are often tougher and wiser than the younger males. So you essentially have this ranking where the alpha male baboon does whatever he wants whenever he wants.
If there is a favorite spot on the baboon island, a rope swing with a tire for example, he takes over and swings whenever he feels like it, and if another baboon is there he will just scatter. When the food comes if he’s hungry he just plows in and takes it and the others have to wait their turn. And in general, if he wants to mount he mounts, if he wants to run he runs, if he wants to throw things he throws things.
Now, one can imagine, between the particularly articulate and intelligent baboons among the beta males and females, a certain resentment starts building up, why does he get to do whatever he wants to do and we have to wait in line. We do we get mounted whenever without our say so, and so on and so forth.
And so they invent a story.
It can’t be that when they get together they could team up on the alpha male and defeat him, if that was the case things would have changed a long time ago. The story goes like this:
There is a new head master of the zoo, and this particular zookeeper has contempt for alpha males, he doesn’t like how they do whatever it is that they want to do; and when the zookeeper finally comes to visit the colony he is going to make short work of the alpha male, unless of course, he changes his ways.
One can imagine the alpha male hearing this story over and over again throughout the years and he may begin to worry that the zookeeper might actually come and if all the other apes are right, he’s going to be in big trouble. He may develop a type a self constraint, trying to tie himself down in order to make himself no different than all the others. It’s a phenomenon that Nietzsche calls bad conscience. It’s that twist between master and slave morality, the psychological conflict.
Now we can imagine the alpha male finally giving in, stating and acting as if he is just another ape.
And here’s how slave morality becomes the Morality, accepted not just by the slaves but accepted by everyone.
Nietzsche is not supposing we could ever go back to master morality, he doesn’t think it is possible, but what he asks us to do is go beyond “good” and “evil”, beyond simply viewing ourselves in terms of how much we can vilify others.
TTC- Original Lecture by Robert Solomon
RIP