Nietzsche and the Morality Critics - The University of Texas at Austin

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Nietzsche and the Morality Critics*Brian LeiterI. INTRODUCTIONNietzsche has long been one of the dominant figures in twentiethcenturyintellectual life. Yet it is only recently that he has come intohis own in Anglo-American philosophy, thanks to a renewed interestin his critical work in ethics.' This new appreciation of Nietzsche is* For helpful comments on earlier versions of some or all of this material, I amgrateful to Elizabeth Anderson, Frithjof Bergmann, Maudemarie Clark, Stephen Darwall,Ken Gemes, David Hills, Thomas Pogge, and, especially, Peter Railton. I have alsobenefited from the comments and questions of philosophical audiences at RutgersUniversity (New Brunswick), and the Universities of Arizona (Tucson), California (SanDiego), and Texas (Austin). Finally, I thank the editors and anonymous referees forEthics for their useful comments on the penultimate draft.1. A very different Nietzsche has engaged thinkers elsewhere, notably on theEuropean continent and in literature departments in the United States. There the keythemes have been perspectivism, the primacy of interpretation (and, at the same time,its indeterminacy), and the impossibility of truth. This Nietzsche is well represented byPaul de Man, in Allegories of Reading (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1979),esp. chaps. 5 and 6, and by many of the essays in D. Allison, ed., The New Nietzsche(New York: Delta, 1977); it has received its most sophisticated articulation, however, inAlexander Nehamas, Nietzsche: Life as Literature (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard UniversityPress, 1985), a book which, accordingly, gives only cursory attention to Nietzsche'smoral philosophy. The problems with this reading of Nietzsche-which are, I think,many-are discussed in my "Nietzsche and Aestheticism,"Journal of the History of Philosophy30 (1992): 275-90, and my "Perspectivism in Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morals," inNietzsche, Genealogy, Morality, ed. R. Schacht (Berkeley: University of California Press,1994). Compare Maudemarie Clark, Nietzsche on Truth and Philosophy (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1990), chaps. 1-4. Interestingly, the last explosion of Anglo-American philosophical interest in Nietzsche-roughly, from 1900 until the end ofWorld War I-was also driven by an interest in his ethics (and esp. its connection toevolutionary theory and positivism). See, e.g., Maurice Adams, "The Ethics of Tolstoyand Nietzsche," Ethics 11 (1900): 82 - 105; Alfred W. Benn, "The Morals of an Immoralist-Friedrich Nietzsche," Ethics 19 (1908-9): 1 -23, 192-211; A. K. Rogers, "Nietzscheand Democracy," Philosophical Review 21 (1912): 32-50; William M. Salter, "Nietzsche'sMoral Aim," Ethics 25 (1915): 226-51, 372-403; Bertram Laing, "The Metaphysics ofNietzsche's Immoralism," Philosophical Review 24 (1915): 386-418. One may hope thatno philosopher today would write, as one dissenter from the Nietzsche revival did then,that "nothing ... quite so worthless as 'Thus Spoke Zarathustra' or 'Beyond Good andEvil' has ever attracted so much attention from serious students of the philosophyEthics 107 (January 1997): 250-285? 1997 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved. 0014-1704197/0702-0003$01.00250This content downloaded on Tue, 12 Mar 2013 14:02:16 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
Leiter Nietzsche and the Morality Critics 251reflected in the work of many philosophers. For Alasdair MacIntyre,for example, Nietzsche is the first to diagnose the failure of the projectof post-Enlightenment moral theory-even though, according to Mac-Intyre, Nietzsche wrongly thinks that such theory is the last hope formoral objectivity.2 For Annette Baier, he is one of those "great moralphilosophers" who show us an alternative to the dominant traditionsin modern moral theory, an alternative in which we "reflect on theactual phenomenon of morality, see what it is, how it is transmitted,what difference it makes."3 For Susan Wolf, he represents an "approachto moral philosophy" in which the sphere of the "moral" comesto encompass those personal excellencies that Utilitarian and Kantianmoral theories seem to preclude.4 For other recent writers, he figuresas the exemplar of a philosophical approach to morality that thesewriters either endorse (e.g., Philippa Foot) or reject (e.g., ThomasNagel, Michael Slote).5 Indeed, in looking at the claim common tocritics of morality like Slote, Foot, Wolf, and Bernard Williams-that"moral considerations are not always the most important considerations"-RobertLouden has recently asked, "Have Nietzsche's 'newphilosophers' finally arrived on the scene: 'spirits strong and originalenough to provide the stimuli for opposite valuations and to revalueand invert "eternal values"'?" (BGE, 203)6In this paper, I propose to investigate and delineate more preciselythe real similarities and differences between Nietzsche "the immoral-of morals" (Herbert Stewart, "Some Criticisms on the Nietzsche Revival," Ethics 19[1909]: 427-28).2. Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre DamePress, 1981), esp. pp. 107-11.3. Annette Baier, "Theory and Reflective Practices," in Postures of the Mind (London:Methuen, 1985), pp. 207-27, p. 224.4. Susan Wolf, "Moral Saints,"Journal of Philosophy 79 (1982): 419-39, p. 433.5. See, e.g., Michael Slote, Goods and Virtues (Oxford: Clarendon, 1983), p. 79;Thomas Nagel, The View from Nowhere (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), p.196; Philippa Foot, "Nietzsche: The Revaluation of Values," in Nietzsche: A Collectionof Critical Essays, ed. R. Solomon (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press,1973), esp. p. 163; see also her "Morality as a System of Hypothetical Imperatives?"reprinted in her Virtues and Vices (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978).6. Robert Louden, "Can We Be Too Moral?" Ethics 98 (1988): 361-80, p. 361.Louden begins his essay by quoting Nietzsche's call for "a critique of moral values, thevalue of these values themselves mustfirst be called in question" (GM, pref.). A note on citations:I cite Nietzsche's texts using the standard English-language acronyms: The Birth ofTragedy (BT), Untimely Meditations (U), Dawn (D), The Gay Science (GS), Thus Spoke Zarathustra(Z), Beyond Good and Evil (BGE), On the Genealogy of Morality (GM), Twilight of theIdols (TI), The Antichrist (A), Ecce Homo (EH), Nietzsche Contra Wagner (NCW), and TheWill to Power (WP). Roman numerals refer to major divisions or chapters; arabic numeralsrefer to sections, not pages. Translations, with occasional minor emendations, areby Walter Kaufmann and/or R. J. Hollingdale; for purposes of making emendations, Irely upon the Samtliche Werke in 15 Banden, ed. G. Colli and M. Mottinari (Berlin: deGruyter, 1980).This content downloaded on Tue, 12 Mar 2013 14:02:16 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
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