Spring 2000 Cyberseminar in Objectivist Studies
Nietzsche and Objectivism

Unit One: January 31 - February 20

Diana Mertz Hsieh's Review Essay:
"Birds of Prey"
Freedom of the Will and the Value of Genealogy
In Friedrich Nietzsche's
Geneology of Morals and Beyond Good and Evil

Sent: Monday, February 14, 2000 10:32 PM

Subject: Cyberseminar: Diana Hsieh Pt. 1 Review: Birds of Prey

[From: Diana Mertz Hsieh ]

Birds of Prey

[Abstract:]

I will be addressing two issues in this review essay: freedom of the
will and the value of genealogy.

Freedom of the Will
-------------------

In _On the Genealogy of Morals_ Nietzsche explains the basic
relationship between adherents of master and slave morality using an
analogous relationship between birds of prey and tasty little lambs.
What is so intriguing -- and troubling -- about this analogy is that
it spotlights Nietzsche's rejection of free will. How is any
discussion of morality to proceed without that premise of freedom of
will?

The analogy (found in Essay I, Section 13) describes a predatory
relationship between the birds of prey (the masters) and and the lambs
(the slaves). Acting in accordance with their natures, the birds of
prey consume the terrified and tasty little lambs. The birds of prey
are strong, exploiting the lambs as they see fit. The lambs, on the
other hand, are weak and unable to physically defend themselves
against the birds of prey in a contest of strength. And so the lambs
use what power they have: they decry the birds of prey as evil, as
capable of choosing to be lambs instead, and therefore as responsible
for their plunder. But how ridiculous it is to demand that birds of
prey be lambs! One animal cannot change to become another.

It is just as ridiculous, in Nietzsche's view, to demand that masters
ought to be slaves. Their nature is to be masters -- to dominate, to
exploit, to expand their power. If the slaves are unhappy being
dominated and exploited, then tough luck, as such is their lot in life
as the weaker beings.

The troubling part of this analogy is that it requires us to discard
our common conceptions of freedom of will. Nietzsche argues in this
section that the "seduction of language" has given rise to an
inappropriate emphasis on *doers* rather than on the *deed*. The
slaves "exploit this belief for their own ends" and thereby ardently
hold that "the strong man is free to be weak and the bird of prey to
be a lamb" (BGE, I 13). As a result, the slaves "gain the right to
make the bird of prey *accountable* for being a bird of prey" (BGE, I
13).

Despite this challenge to free will, it would be overly simplistic to
call Nietzsche a determinist. He is just as opposed to the concept of
an "unfree will" as he is to a "free will" (BGE 21). Rather,
Nietzsche is opposed to free will in the "metaphysically superlative
sense" in which one is "causa sui... [able] to pull oneself into
existence out of the swamp of nothingness by one's own hair" (BGE 21).
According to Nietzsche, there are dark drives and unknown impulses
that influence our actions, perhaps more than our own conscious
purposes do. He writes:

"People are accustomed to consider the goal (purposes, volitions,
etc.) as the *driving force*, in keeping with a very ancient
error; but it is merely the *directing force* -- one has mistaken
the helmsman for the stream. And not even always the helmsman,
the directing force" (GS 360).

The stream (our unconscious drives) takes us in one direction rather
than another; it pulls us faster or slower. The helmsman (conscious
purposes) merely guide us within the confines set by the stream. For
Nietzsche, it is hubris for us to pretend that the stream does not
exist or that the helmsman could go upriver if he wanted to.

There are two limited aspects of Nietzsche's views here that I can
support. First, the view of free will that Nietzsche is attacking is
one unaffected by one's past or outside forces. Second, the analogy
of the helmsman on the stream fairly accurately describes someone who
is choosing to keep the light in the consciousness dim.

First: Nietzsche seems to be attacking a Kantian notion of freedom of
the will, one in which the "thing in itself," unconnected to the world
of experience, is doing the choosing. The Objectivist view of free
will, on the other hand, recognizes that our choice to think is
influenced by the incentives provided by our history and the external
world. Rand argued:

"A social environment can neither force a man to think not prevent
him from thinking. But a social environment can offer incentives
or impediments; it can make the exercise of one's rational faculty
easier or harder; it can encourage thinking and penalize evasion
or vice versa" (Rand, TO, Apr 1966, 2).

In other words, although we are, in the end, making the choice to
think or not ourselves, that choice is not occurring in some higher
realm, insulated from the influences of experience.

Second: The Objectivist view of free will recognizes that when people
choose not to think, when the light in their consciousness grows dim,
their choices are then influenced by the "stream" of unconscious
drives and external forces that Nietzsche described. A person
choosing not to think is like a sleepy helmsman, barely able to keep
the boat from crashing into the bank.

Additionally, I should mention that Nietzsche might not see the
"stream" in this analogy as something we are placed upon without our
consent. For Nietzsche, the instincts that unconsciously govern our
actions are not necessarily biological ones; we can create our own
instincts by forgetting the conscious purposes that drive our actions
(GM II:2). In this sense, instincts for Nietzsche are similar to
Aristotelian moral dispositions. Thus, the nature of the stream could
be governed by the past choices we've made and the instincts we've
developed. (I wrote about this subject at greater length in my honors
thesis at WashU, available at the olist.com site at:
<http://www.olist.com/essays/text/hsieh/thesis/>. I do have some
misgivings about how much meaning I had to extract from the scant
material from Nietzsche.)

Nietzsche's views on free will and causality are extremely complex,
perhaps somewhat unintelligible. Nevertheless, he ought not be
dismissed as a determinist. Not only do his explicit writings on the
subject disavow such a position, but also, in general, his writings on
morality largely indicate some freedom of the will.

The Value of Genealogy
----------------------

Nietzsche, particularly in _Beyond Good and Evil_, relies upon
genealogy as a method of philosophical analysis in order to undercut
the altruist ethic. In his Feb 5th review essay, Jason summarized the
value of genealogy as follows:

"Nietzsche's genealogy serves, first, to separate the content of
morality from the subject itself, by showing the actual,
historical development of different and indeed opposite
conceptions of morality in history. The second purpose is to show
the historical contingency of "moral" valuations altogether; that,
is, Nietzsche hopes to dispel the aura of morality "in itself" and
any intuitive morality of altruism by showing the purposes for
which morality has been used, and by showing that morality
originated in pursuit on values."

The method of genealogy, however, does not seem like the best tool
with which to accomplish these two goals. Additionally, I have
serious reservations about a philosophical method in which the truth
is apparently irrelevant, as Jason indicated.

The first goal, separating the content of morality from the subject,
largely requires avoiding the most common method of moral theorizing:
starting from presumptions about what constitutes moral behavior and
then building a theory around those presumptions. As for what
positive method should be used, we ought to start with fundamental
questions, ones that do not presuppose moral content, namely "What are
values? Why does man need them?" (Rand, VOS 15). Hoping to separate
subject from content by historical investigation is much less likely
to be fruitful. For example, just about every moral theory has
presupposed fundamental conflicts of interests between individuals. A
historical investigation will fail to reveal that this premise is
questionable. The fact that Nietzsche's own moral theorizing fails to
uproot or even question this basic presupposition indicates a failure
of the genealogical method.

The second goal, of dispelling the "aura of morality 'in itself'",
could well be useful as a rhetorical tool, for those who believe in
the holy sanctity of their moral principles. But given the lack of
proof for the results of Nietzsche's genealogical theorizing, probably
mostly the young and naive would be seriously shaken by the arguments.
Nevertheless, it is clear that Nietzsche views his genealogical method
as more than mere rhetoric. He presents the "just-so" story of the
origins of master and slave morality as an actual theory (although not
necessarily fact), not mere supposing based on weak evidence. For
Objectivists, this is fairly problematic; a philosophical method
simply cannot be impervious to the truth.

The real question here for Objectivists is whether Nietzsche's
genealogical method into the master and slave moralities bears any
resemblance to Rand's investigation into the basic questions of of
ethics. As with Eyal, I think the connection is superficial at best.
Rand's questions were not designed, as were Nietzsche's, to demystify
altruistic ethics. Rather, the goal was to start at the beginning, to
examine all premises, so that correct conclusions could be reached.
Rand's method was to use truth to dislodge false ideas about the bond
between altruism and morality; Nietzsche's method is essentially to
use unproven (and perhaps unprovable) allegations to attempt to do the
same.

Conclusion
----------

Nietzsche has always been a great favorite of mine, but as the years
go by, I find myself more and more disturbed by the incoherence of his
philosophical writings. Nietzsche was obviously not interested in
"system-building" in the ways that Aristotelians, Kantians, and
Objectivists are. Nevertheless, even without a system, my brain
craves some kind of consistency and regularity from his writings.
Perhaps in my old age, I am becoming more regular and predictable, and
more like a slave. :-)

FYI, Richard Schacht's book _Nietzsche_ is an excellent and very
comprehensible overview of Nietzsche's thought, although perhaps

too comprehensible of an overview. I worry that it tends to take the

principle of charity too far; it makes Nietzsche out to be somewhat

more reasonable and systematic than he is, in my view.

-------------------------------------------
Diana Mertz Hsieh -

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Spring 2000 Cyberseminar in Objectivist Studies
cybersem@objectivistcenter.org

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