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

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280 Ethics January 1997response made on Nietzsche's behalf: even if moral theory might accommodatethe Extraordinary Life, this does not seem responsive tothe worry that our actual moral culture does not.2. A second reaction one might have, however, is that theNietzschean critique is simply hyperbolic, for surely if there is a cultureof mediocrity and banality in ascendance, it is not primarily the workof morality, but perhaps of economics-for example, the free market,the leveling effects of which have been described by sociologists, historians,and philosophers. Indeed, the right model for culture critique,one might want to say, is not the "idealistic"-sounding Nietzsche describedhere but rather the materialist Adorno of Minima Moralia, whotraces cultural mediocrity to its capitalist roots.Now, while the early Nietzsche of "Schopenhauer as Educator"did, as we saw, worry about the effects of capitalism, militaristic nationalism,and protofascism on the cultural conditions for the productionof genius, the later Nietzsche seems all too ready to lay the blame forall cultural decline at the doorstep of what I have been calling MPS.63Nietzsche's challenge may be a novel and important one, but no onewho reads his repeated denunciations of morality can escape the feelingthat he suffered from a certain explanatory tunnel vision, withthe result that, in some measure, his case against morality seemsoverstated.3. On further reflection, however, one might want to say somethingmuch stronger: Nietzsche's point is not just hyperbolic, butperversely backward. For surely it is the lack of morality in social policyand public institutions-a lack which permits widespread poverty anddespair to persist generation upon generation, that allows daily economicstruggle and uncertainty to define the basic character of mostpeople's lives-that is most responsible for a lack of human flourishing.Surely in a more moral society, with a genuine commitmentto social justice and human equality, there would be far more Goethes,far more creativity and admirable human achievement. As PhilippaFoot has sharply put it, "How could one see the present dangers thatthe world is in as showing that there is too much pity and too littleegoism around?"64Here again, though, we must be careful in how we construe theNietzschean point. Consider the Nietzsche who asks, "Where has thelast feeling of decency and self-respect gone when even our statesmen,an otherwise quite unembarrassed type of man, anti-Christiansthrough and through in their deeds, still call themselves Christians63. Nietzsche also often blames "Christianity," but we must remember that forNietzsche Christianity was simply "the most prodigal elaboration of the moral themeto which humanity has ever been subjected" (BT, pref. 5).64. Foot, "Nietzsche: The Revaluation of Values," p. 168.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 281today and attend communion?" (A, 38). Clearly this Nietzsche is underno illusions about the extent to which public actors do not act morally.Indeed, Nietzsche continues in even more explicit terms: "Every practiceof every moment, every instinct, every valuation that is translatedinto action is today anti-Christian: what a miscarriage offalseness mustmodern man be, that he is not ashamed to be called a Christian in spiteof all this!" (A, 38). What, then, is going on here? If Nietzsche is not,contrary to Foot's suggestion, embracing the absurd view that thereis too much pity and altruism in the world, what exactly is his criticalpoint?Nietzsche's paradigmatic worry seems to be the following: that anascent creative genius will come to take the norms of MPS so seriouslythat he will fail to realize his genius. Rather than tolerate (even welcome)suffering, he will seek relief from hardship and devote himselfto the pursuit of pleasure; rather than practice what Nietzsche calls"severe self-love" and attend to himself in the ways requisite for productivecreative work, he will embrace the, ideology of altruism andreject "self-love" as improper; rather than learn how to look down onhimself, to desire to overcome his present self and become somethingbetter, he will embrace the prevailing rhetoric of equality-capturednicely in the pop psychology slogan "I'm OK, you're OK"-and thusnever learn to feel the contempt for self that might lead one to strivefor something more. It is not, then, that Nietzsche thinks people practicetoo much altruism-after all, it is Nietzsche who notes that egoisticactions "have hitherto been by far the most frequent actions" (D,148)-but rather that they believe too much in the value of altruism,equality, happiness, and the other norms of MPS. It is the prevalenceof the MPS ideology that worries Nietzsche, for, even if there is neithermuch altruism nor equality in the world, there is almost universalendorsement of the value of altruism and equality-even, notoriously(and as Nietzsche seemed well aware), by those who are its worstenemies in practice. Nietzsche's claim is that a culture which embracesthe ideology of MPS, even if it does not act in accordance with thisideology, presents the real threat to the realization of human excellence,because it teaches potential higher types to disvalue what wouldbe most conducive to their creativity and value what is irrelevant orperhaps even hostile to it.Nietzsche's point here is, I think, a subtle one, for surely it makessense that individuals of great creativity, and sensitivity are far morelikely to take seriously the ideology of MPS than the politicians whosehypocrisy Nietzsche derides in the remark quoted earlier.65 As65. To say that they take the demands of MPS "seriously" is not to say that theyunderstand them in the way a philosophical theory would; it is only to say that theyThis content downloaded on Tue, 12 Mar 2013 14:02:16 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
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