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

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274 Ethics January 1997ture-like ours-which has internalized the norms against sufferingandfor pleasure will be a culture in which potential artists-and otherdoers of great things-will, intact, squander themselves in self-pityand the seeking of pleasure.In sum, for Nietzsche, the normative component of an MPS isharmful not because its specific prescriptions and proscriptions explicitlyrequire potentially excellent persons to forgo that which allowsthem to flourish-that is, Nietzsche's claim is not that a conscientiousapplication of the "theory" of MPS would be incompatible with theflourishing of higher men. Rather, Nietzsche's claim is that an MPSin practice simply does not make such fine distinctions: under a regimeof MPS values-and importantly because of MPS's embrace of theidea that one morality is appropriate for all-potentially higher menwill come to adopt such values as applicable to themselves as well.Thus, the normative component of an MPS is harmful because, inreality, it will have the effect of leading potentially excellent personsto value what is in fact not conducive to their flourishing and devaluewhat is in fact essential to it.By contrast, recent Anglo-American Morality Critics take as theirtarget what Wolf calls "a perfect master of a moral theory" (p. 435),whether that theory be consequentialist or deontological. Thus, theircritique is directed against the ability of moral theory to accommodatethe Good Life, while Nietzsche's is directed against the effects of amoral culture-one in which MPS norms prevail-on the ExtraordinaryLife. To Nietzsche's claim that a moral culture will, in practice,present obstacles to the flourishing of creative geniuses, it is simplyirrelevant that a suitably "objective" moral theory would not.53 TheMorality Critics, after all, are critics of moral theory, and theoreticalcomplaints invariably beget theoretical modifications to accommodatethem.54 But cultural criticism, of the sort Nietzsche mounts, requiresa very different sort of response. I will consider in the final section ofthis paper what some of those might be.53. Of course, the theorist might object that, even if Nietzsche were right, all thiswould show is that our cultural practices need correction by a suitable moral theory,one that will permit nascent Nietzsches to suffer and the like. I shall postpone thisworry for now and consider it, and several other objections to Nietzsche's position, inthe final section of this paper.54. Compare Lawrence Becker's observation that defenders of morality's commitmentto impartiality try to show that the "purported inadequacies [of impartiality] ...are not really attributable to a proper theoretical commitmento impartiality" ("Impartialityand Ethical Theory," Ethics 101 [1991]: 698-700, p. 700, emphasis added). See alsoStocker: "[The phenomenon of] admirable immorality ... show[s] how immorality anddefect can and must be allowed for in ethical theory" (Michael Stocker, Plural andConflicting Values [Oxford: Clarendon, 1990], p. 50).This content downloaded on Tue, 12 Mar 2013 14:02:16 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
Leiter Nietzsche and the Morality Critics 275Understand, however, that the claim here is not that Nietzschecould not be forced into the existing paradigms of critiques of moraltheory-for example, as Nagel's philosopher who thinks that livingwell always overrides doing right.55 My claim has been only that thiswas not really the heart of Nietzsche's critique. Nietzsche was not interestedin whether our moral theories could accommodate the GoodLife or the Extraordinary Life; Nietzsche was worried whether ourculture was making it impossible for anyone to live an ExtraordinaryLife anymore. It is one of the few themes that animated all Nietzsche'swritings from start to finish. In an early essay of the mid-1870s, "Schopenhaueras Educator" (U, III), Nietzsche speaks of "the goal of culture"as "the production of genius" (sec. 6), though there he worriesnot primarily about the deleterious effect of morality on culture butabout "the crudest and most evil forces, the egoism of the moneymakersand the military despots" (p. 4), as well as "the greed of thestate" (p. 6). His major work of the early 1880s, Thus Spoke Zarathustra,begins with Zarathustra's image of a world in which all human excellenceand creativity is gone, in which all that will remain is the "lastman":Alas, the time of the most despicable man is coming, he that isno longer able to despise himself. Behold, I show you the last man."What is love? What is creation? What is longing? What isa star?" thus asks the last man, and he blinks.The earth has become small, and on it hops the last man,who makes everything small...."We have invented happiness," say the last men, and theyblink. They have left the regions where it was hard to live, forone needs warmth. One still loves one's neighbor and rubs againsthim, for one needs warmth....No shepherd and one herd! Everybody wants the same,everybody is the same: whoever feels different goes voluntarilyinto a madhouse."Formerly, all the world was mad," say the most refined, andthey blink.One is clever and knows everything that has ever happened:so there is no end of derision. One still quarrels, but one is soonreconciled-else it might spoil the digestion...."We have invented happiness," say the last men, and theyblink. (Z, prologue, sec. 5)55. Indeed, one might pick out various points where the Morality Critics seem toecho Nietzsche. Compare Wolf: "A moral saint will have to be very, very nice. It isimportant that he not be offensive. The worry is that, as a result, he will have to bedull-witted or humorless or bland" (p. 422); cf. BGE, 260: "the good human being[according to slave morality] has to be undangerous ... : he is good-natured, easy todeceive, a little stupid perhaps, un bonhomme. Wherever slave morality becomes preponderant,language tends to bring the words 'good' and 'stupid' closer together."This content downloaded on Tue, 12 Mar 2013 14:02:16 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
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