Musings on Nietzsche's Third Prejudice of Philosophers
To Begin With: Instinct VS Reason
It is normally assumed by individuals that the values and beliefs they hold are rational conclusions reached as a consequence of deliberate, rational thought. It does not readily occur to them that instinct, not conscious thought, might be the mechanism by which we come to make value judgments. In fact, this may seem unpalatable to most people to consider, since the notion that one's beliefs are entirely the product of uncontrollable instincts and not deliberate conscious thought in essence undermines the agency of the individual. If every belief one holds is merely the product of instinct, then one's entire life is essentially predetermined and fated to unfold precisely as one's deepest instincts dictate, with perhaps only a severely limited impediment to the fulfillment of these instinctual drives effected by rational thought.
One might think, however, that even if instincts determine all of our actions fundamentally, it is conscious reasoning and rational thinking which guides the individual's instincts in the proper direction as they arise. That is, although we have instincts as biological creatures, our conscious thought frees us from merely acting out instinctual drives the way other animals must and allows us to reason our way to logical conclusions instead of relying on deeply embedded behavioral patterns. But this assumes that our conscious, rational mind is not itself an extension of our instincts which, Nietzsche suggests, is to assume incorrectly.
The Dubious Role of Reason
It might be helpful for a moment to pause and consider the question, "What cause have we to think that our deliberate, conscious reasoning is not an instrument of delusion?"
We have all been the victim of our own errant reasoning at some point or other. Many of us will no doubt recall moments when we, to some frustration, discovered that we had willfully deluded ourselves with regard to some idea or person or experience. If we can be so deluded, the doubt must rise to taunt us.
"Is this lack of control over my own thoughts actually an immutable fact of my existence? Do I have any control at all? How could I have been so willfully blind?"
If our conscious mind is in reality a sprout born of our subterranean drives - if our logical faculties which are ostensibly under conscious control are in fact controlled not by us, but by our instincts, then these questions find an answer. Our conscious minds do not seek out the truth, precisely, but act primarily as Rationalization Machines for the instinctual regions of our brains from which our "thoughts" and behavior spring. Therefore, our Reason, which is an action of our conscious mind, is not a counterbalance to instinct, but rather plays a role in the fulfillment of instinct itself. It is the means by which we rationalize our behavior and our convictions post hoc.
In fact, our convictions, far from being the culmination of careful thought, may stem from deeper drives that we do not control - drives which Nietzsche calls “instincts.” These instincts propel us forward. They decide our actions and our values before we can even reason our way through them. In effect, our instincts dictate our philosophical predispositions. They are our hidden masters, steering us through our lives as we desperately struggle to rationalize the decisions of these dark masters in order to cling to some sense of autonomy or control or free will. To put it another way, we travel on the Ship of Biological Instinct, and our rational mind (our "Reason") travels in its wake shouting explanations and rationalizations for the ship's erratic and unpredictable movements in order to comfort us and shield us from the utter lack of conscious control we have over this Ship of Biological Instinct.
Imagine you are presented with a choice between two equally enticing options. You may imagine that as you consider the options, the one most appealing - the most logical or beneficial to you - will make its case through a process of careful consideration, and you will then decide to choose one of the options or the other. But in actuality, your instincts decided for you your course of action long before you were consciously aware of the decision. This is Nietzsche's claim. Instincts do not respond to reason. Rather, instincts precede reason. We do not reason our way through complex ideas and then decide the best course of action based on conclusions of our logic. Instead, we are led forward by deep, uncontrollable instincts which decide our actions for us prior to the application of reason. Our rational mind, traveling in the wake of these instincts then rationalizes them AFTER THE FACT. These rationalizations allow us to believe that we actually thought through our options and then acted, when we actually acted on instinct and then justified our behavior with mental gymnastics.
“I did this because it was good for me.”
“I did that because it was the right thing to do.”
No.
You did what you did, Nietzsche says, because you followed some obscure instinct over which you exercise no control - an instinct under which all of your behavior is constantly operating and which constantly seeks a a fulfillment of itself. Along the way, as you were being led by the nose, you might have considered your own forward movement, and you might have analyzed it (perhaps deeply), but you were never in control of it. Instead your instincts were in control, and all you could do ultimately was justify the whims of those instincts. If this is true, then Philosophy, which is the pursuance of rational thought wherever it may lead, can be thought of as an extended practice of justifying instincts. Assuming this is true, let us agree for the moment that Philosophy can be referred to more accurately as “Biological Philosophy” - that is, philosophy as a necessity for rationalizing biological drives. Philosophy as an extension of the pursuit of our instincts.
The Cuckoo and Humans
Notice the primacy of the role of instinct (and thus, biology) to all of human action under this perspective. We are compelled by biological forces to behave in all sorts of ways which are essentially out of our control, and so our behavior can be thought of as fundamentally irrational. What is the rationality of telling the truth or being honest? Honesty and Truth are highly valuable, perhaps, but only as they pertain to us. There is no value placed on Honesty in the animal kingdom.
Cuckoo birds, for example, are cheats. Technically speaking, they are “parasitic brooders,” laying their eggs in the nests of other birds. In order to secure a place for their own eggs they even go so far as to push already-laid eggs out of the nest. Is this not murder? Is this not cheating? Not only has the Cuckoo played a cruel trick by forcing the other bird to raise hatchlings which are not its own, but the Cuckoo has killed (or at least aborted) the other bird’s offspring in the process. This duped bird will go on to rear the Cuckoo’s young entirely unaware of what has occurred. And should it afterward face an untimely end, its genetic lineage will be lost to history.
This is a cruel trick to play on any organism, and yet we do not call it murder or cheating. We invoke evolution and refer to it instead as an adaptive strategy. We recognize that the Cuckoo is merely employing what has proven to be a successful reproductive scheme. So, in fact, do we humans in our everyday endeavors employ such schemes to ensure our survival and reproductive success. We are here because our ancestors survived. We are the product and the heirs to the various means employed in our evolutionary past which granted us a better chance of surviving OVER others, and it is these successful methods to which we have over time ascribed value: bravery, honesty, strength, loyalty.
Yet these are not valuable in and of themselves anymore than a Cuckoo’s evolutionary adaptation is cruel. The Cuckoo's stratagem is not murder because it is actually an evolutionary adaptation. Evolution is concerned only with what works, and so it makes no judgments of its morality or "true value." If what we humans value is valued by us only because Evolution deemed it successful, then those things we value as human may hold no inherent value itself.
Ouroboros
If one accepts that we are led primarily by instincts, and then philosophy is the rationalization of the pursuit of these instincts, then this in fact implicitly suggests that our general philosophical tradition is actually sound in its assertions. Although Nietzsche’s logic so far has shown us that the values we ascribe to ideas are essentially arbitrary - akin to medals of honor bestowed upon successful biological strategies - it has also confined us to an existence wherein philosophies must resonate, or harmonize, with our biology.
Nietzsche suggests that our philosophy is nothing more than the rationalization of our instincts, but if our instincts are unavoidable, then this suggests that philosophy can't be anything more than an argument in favor of our instinctual urges. Observation and close examination might be able to lay open for critique our behavior, but the development of an individual’s personal philosophy can only be an argument for the behavior that arises from that individual’s set of instincts. It can never be proven true, or confirmed. This is because the nature of the argument is something like “my behavior can be successful.” But since behavior is the unconscious acting out of instincts, and instincts are not precisely true or false, then philosophical expositions can never be true or false. They are arguments for the way in which one's instincts direct one to behave, and not as discoveries of truths.
The philosopher in this view is nothing more than a careful proponent of one set of instincts over another set of instincts. He is not a bringer of truth, but an advocate for one evolutionary toolkit over another. It might be unkind to refer to him as a salesman, because a real philosopher is often making honest attempts to illuminate the morass of ideas which have not yet been properly articulated. Nonetheless, this morass will not bring truth to light, but will only argue for the instincts which drive the philosopher. This dark morass which he is exploring is himself, and he is arguing for himself, and for the legitimacy of his existence. He is a proponent for all of the instincts which make him who he is but there is no inherent truth to his claims.
At this point the reader will notice something strange. If we are so constrained by deep biological drives that we can hardly philosophize (that is, think) beyond what our biology demands of us, then we have the key to determining which philosophical system will function best and will benefit us most. If no philosophical system will function if it is not artfully tailored to our specific biological nature, and if philosophy only unearths arguments for our biological drives, then only the philosophy which most accurately arrives at premises that complement our biological nature will survive. That is, the philosophy best adapted to our nature will survive in the arena of ideas. Evolution will weed out unsuccessful and untenable philosophies.
It does not matter that our values are only illusions, because though we can accept that they are illusions, we cannot develop additional values to the ones granted to us by our specific biology. This means that if we attempt to become the architects of a philosophy that transcends what we truly are, this philosophy will make no sense to us. It will cause a mismatch between the philosophy that we develop and our own biology. Furthermore, if what we value is arbitrarily "true," then to develop a transcendent philosophy must entail creating new illusions which we will then call truth. It would make more sense once we admit that our values are arbitrary, that it is the refinement of these values to which we must be committed.
We can admit that perhaps life is not inherently meaningful, but we cannot construct a philosophy that accepts this, because our biological drives tell us that we are meaningful. It tells us that our existence, and the furtherance of our existence, is important. And in fact, it is the pursuit of this which has driven all past civilizations, and which drives us even now.
Fernando Nava
It is normally assumed by individuals that the values and beliefs they hold are rational conclusions reached as a consequence of deliberate, rational thought. It does not readily occur to them that instinct, not conscious thought, might be the mechanism by which we come to make value judgments. In fact, this may seem unpalatable to most people to consider, since the notion that one's beliefs are entirely the product of uncontrollable instincts and not deliberate conscious thought in essence undermines the agency of the individual. If every belief one holds is merely the product of instinct, then one's entire life is essentially predetermined and fated to unfold precisely as one's deepest instincts dictate, with perhaps only a severely limited impediment to the fulfillment of these instinctual drives effected by rational thought.
One might think, however, that even if instincts determine all of our actions fundamentally, it is conscious reasoning and rational thinking which guides the individual's instincts in the proper direction as they arise. That is, although we have instincts as biological creatures, our conscious thought frees us from merely acting out instinctual drives the way other animals must and allows us to reason our way to logical conclusions instead of relying on deeply embedded behavioral patterns. But this assumes that our conscious, rational mind is not itself an extension of our instincts which, Nietzsche suggests, is to assume incorrectly.
The Dubious Role of Reason
It might be helpful for a moment to pause and consider the question, "What cause have we to think that our deliberate, conscious reasoning is not an instrument of delusion?"
We have all been the victim of our own errant reasoning at some point or other. Many of us will no doubt recall moments when we, to some frustration, discovered that we had willfully deluded ourselves with regard to some idea or person or experience. If we can be so deluded, the doubt must rise to taunt us.
"Is this lack of control over my own thoughts actually an immutable fact of my existence? Do I have any control at all? How could I have been so willfully blind?"
If our conscious mind is in reality a sprout born of our subterranean drives - if our logical faculties which are ostensibly under conscious control are in fact controlled not by us, but by our instincts, then these questions find an answer. Our conscious minds do not seek out the truth, precisely, but act primarily as Rationalization Machines for the instinctual regions of our brains from which our "thoughts" and behavior spring. Therefore, our Reason, which is an action of our conscious mind, is not a counterbalance to instinct, but rather plays a role in the fulfillment of instinct itself. It is the means by which we rationalize our behavior and our convictions post hoc.
In fact, our convictions, far from being the culmination of careful thought, may stem from deeper drives that we do not control - drives which Nietzsche calls “instincts.” These instincts propel us forward. They decide our actions and our values before we can even reason our way through them. In effect, our instincts dictate our philosophical predispositions. They are our hidden masters, steering us through our lives as we desperately struggle to rationalize the decisions of these dark masters in order to cling to some sense of autonomy or control or free will. To put it another way, we travel on the Ship of Biological Instinct, and our rational mind (our "Reason") travels in its wake shouting explanations and rationalizations for the ship's erratic and unpredictable movements in order to comfort us and shield us from the utter lack of conscious control we have over this Ship of Biological Instinct.
Imagine you are presented with a choice between two equally enticing options. You may imagine that as you consider the options, the one most appealing - the most logical or beneficial to you - will make its case through a process of careful consideration, and you will then decide to choose one of the options or the other. But in actuality, your instincts decided for you your course of action long before you were consciously aware of the decision. This is Nietzsche's claim. Instincts do not respond to reason. Rather, instincts precede reason. We do not reason our way through complex ideas and then decide the best course of action based on conclusions of our logic. Instead, we are led forward by deep, uncontrollable instincts which decide our actions for us prior to the application of reason. Our rational mind, traveling in the wake of these instincts then rationalizes them AFTER THE FACT. These rationalizations allow us to believe that we actually thought through our options and then acted, when we actually acted on instinct and then justified our behavior with mental gymnastics.
“I did this because it was good for me.”
“I did that because it was the right thing to do.”
No.
You did what you did, Nietzsche says, because you followed some obscure instinct over which you exercise no control - an instinct under which all of your behavior is constantly operating and which constantly seeks a a fulfillment of itself. Along the way, as you were being led by the nose, you might have considered your own forward movement, and you might have analyzed it (perhaps deeply), but you were never in control of it. Instead your instincts were in control, and all you could do ultimately was justify the whims of those instincts. If this is true, then Philosophy, which is the pursuance of rational thought wherever it may lead, can be thought of as an extended practice of justifying instincts. Assuming this is true, let us agree for the moment that Philosophy can be referred to more accurately as “Biological Philosophy” - that is, philosophy as a necessity for rationalizing biological drives. Philosophy as an extension of the pursuit of our instincts.
The Cuckoo and Humans
Notice the primacy of the role of instinct (and thus, biology) to all of human action under this perspective. We are compelled by biological forces to behave in all sorts of ways which are essentially out of our control, and so our behavior can be thought of as fundamentally irrational. What is the rationality of telling the truth or being honest? Honesty and Truth are highly valuable, perhaps, but only as they pertain to us. There is no value placed on Honesty in the animal kingdom.
Cuckoo birds, for example, are cheats. Technically speaking, they are “parasitic brooders,” laying their eggs in the nests of other birds. In order to secure a place for their own eggs they even go so far as to push already-laid eggs out of the nest. Is this not murder? Is this not cheating? Not only has the Cuckoo played a cruel trick by forcing the other bird to raise hatchlings which are not its own, but the Cuckoo has killed (or at least aborted) the other bird’s offspring in the process. This duped bird will go on to rear the Cuckoo’s young entirely unaware of what has occurred. And should it afterward face an untimely end, its genetic lineage will be lost to history.
This is a cruel trick to play on any organism, and yet we do not call it murder or cheating. We invoke evolution and refer to it instead as an adaptive strategy. We recognize that the Cuckoo is merely employing what has proven to be a successful reproductive scheme. So, in fact, do we humans in our everyday endeavors employ such schemes to ensure our survival and reproductive success. We are here because our ancestors survived. We are the product and the heirs to the various means employed in our evolutionary past which granted us a better chance of surviving OVER others, and it is these successful methods to which we have over time ascribed value: bravery, honesty, strength, loyalty.
Yet these are not valuable in and of themselves anymore than a Cuckoo’s evolutionary adaptation is cruel. The Cuckoo's stratagem is not murder because it is actually an evolutionary adaptation. Evolution is concerned only with what works, and so it makes no judgments of its morality or "true value." If what we humans value is valued by us only because Evolution deemed it successful, then those things we value as human may hold no inherent value itself.
Ouroboros
If one accepts that we are led primarily by instincts, and then philosophy is the rationalization of the pursuit of these instincts, then this in fact implicitly suggests that our general philosophical tradition is actually sound in its assertions. Although Nietzsche’s logic so far has shown us that the values we ascribe to ideas are essentially arbitrary - akin to medals of honor bestowed upon successful biological strategies - it has also confined us to an existence wherein philosophies must resonate, or harmonize, with our biology.
Nietzsche suggests that our philosophy is nothing more than the rationalization of our instincts, but if our instincts are unavoidable, then this suggests that philosophy can't be anything more than an argument in favor of our instinctual urges. Observation and close examination might be able to lay open for critique our behavior, but the development of an individual’s personal philosophy can only be an argument for the behavior that arises from that individual’s set of instincts. It can never be proven true, or confirmed. This is because the nature of the argument is something like “my behavior can be successful.” But since behavior is the unconscious acting out of instincts, and instincts are not precisely true or false, then philosophical expositions can never be true or false. They are arguments for the way in which one's instincts direct one to behave, and not as discoveries of truths.
The philosopher in this view is nothing more than a careful proponent of one set of instincts over another set of instincts. He is not a bringer of truth, but an advocate for one evolutionary toolkit over another. It might be unkind to refer to him as a salesman, because a real philosopher is often making honest attempts to illuminate the morass of ideas which have not yet been properly articulated. Nonetheless, this morass will not bring truth to light, but will only argue for the instincts which drive the philosopher. This dark morass which he is exploring is himself, and he is arguing for himself, and for the legitimacy of his existence. He is a proponent for all of the instincts which make him who he is but there is no inherent truth to his claims.
At this point the reader will notice something strange. If we are so constrained by deep biological drives that we can hardly philosophize (that is, think) beyond what our biology demands of us, then we have the key to determining which philosophical system will function best and will benefit us most. If no philosophical system will function if it is not artfully tailored to our specific biological nature, and if philosophy only unearths arguments for our biological drives, then only the philosophy which most accurately arrives at premises that complement our biological nature will survive. That is, the philosophy best adapted to our nature will survive in the arena of ideas. Evolution will weed out unsuccessful and untenable philosophies.
It does not matter that our values are only illusions, because though we can accept that they are illusions, we cannot develop additional values to the ones granted to us by our specific biology. This means that if we attempt to become the architects of a philosophy that transcends what we truly are, this philosophy will make no sense to us. It will cause a mismatch between the philosophy that we develop and our own biology. Furthermore, if what we value is arbitrarily "true," then to develop a transcendent philosophy must entail creating new illusions which we will then call truth. It would make more sense once we admit that our values are arbitrary, that it is the refinement of these values to which we must be committed.
We can admit that perhaps life is not inherently meaningful, but we cannot construct a philosophy that accepts this, because our biological drives tell us that we are meaningful. It tells us that our existence, and the furtherance of our existence, is important. And in fact, it is the pursuit of this which has driven all past civilizations, and which drives us even now.
Fernando Nava