So the secularly of genealogy has recently attracted considerable
amounts of attention. It ostensibly develops on
account of the origins of the feeling of guilt
which is marled by at least the appearance of
tight conceptual coherence.
The first essay begins with analysis of
the concept of conscience proceeds to an examination of
bad conscience and concludes with a view of
more bad conscience or guilt itself with an emphasis
throughout the essay on the crucial influence of
socialization on the development of all these phenomenon.
Now there remains much disagreement among scholars
over the precise structure of Nietzsche's account and
indeed over the precise nature of the feeling of guilt
which is its proponent object. This subject is
what I shall call ‘Christian Guilt' or the feeling of
guilt as it operates and is understood
in the Christian moral order.
This much we can gather not only from
the role played by Christianity in Nietzsche's
account but also by the emphasis he places on
the Christian view of conscience in the brief review of
the second essay (German Words). The quote,
this is the first quote we hand out. The second inquiry,
he writes, offers the psychology of conscience
which is now as people may believe the voice of
God in man. Though in contrast to a wide spread line of
interpretation I would arguer that Nietzsche's
objective in the second essay is not at least not only
and perhaps not primarily to challenge then non naturalistic
account of the feeling of guilt promoted by
the Christian ideal, mainly guilt as a manifestation of
the voice of God in man but to show that the representation of
guilt is not so much an account of
the ordinary feeling of guilt, that is to say the diminishment
of self esteem we experience when we fall short of
our own normal life expectations as it is the product of
the exploitation of the human susceptive behavior to
that feeling as an instrument of self directed cruelty.
Christian guilt is therefore not a mourning motion
responsive to reasons but what I shall call and
I'll come back to that at the very end of the paper,
a rational passion by which I mean a passion to
which only a rational being is susceptible
because it essentially exploits it's responsiveness to
reasons and which unlike other passions not only
overrides or bypasses but actually corrupts
it's responsiveness to reason. Though I do not mean to
suggest however that Nietzsche has nothing of
particular interest to say about the ordinary feeling of guilt.
On the contrary his Genealogical account of guilt,
of Christian guilt, presupposes an intriguing view of
ordinary guilt which defers in important respects from
the view of ordinary guilt which is sanctioned by Christian
orders and I shall have to consider at least some aspects of it.
So let me begin and I'll start with conscience.
Since the feeling of guilt is a species of bad conscience
Nietzsche begins his investigation with an examination of
the concept of conscience. The concept of conscience
typically designates an inner voice, a famed voice of
conscience which reminds each of us of our obligations.
Nietzsche rejects the idea that it is the voice of God in man,
asks how as a matter of empirical fact such a structure
could have developed in the human psyche.
In so far as it is a voice reminding us of our obligations
and commitments conscience is
what he calls the will memory.
Now since undertaking an obligation or commitment is
like making a promise the position of a memory of the will
under rides what he calls the right to make promises.
For we do not have the right to make promises unless
we have the ability to keep them and this ability requires
of course that we be reminded of them.
Though Nietzsche observes that our minds are
naturally endowed with an active forgetfulness
by virtue of which it disposes of impressions
that would otherwise linger in and clutter our consciousness.
He infers that the wills memory is not part of
our innate natural endowment but constitutes
a capacity that has to be bred into us.
This is a quote, this is the second quote on the handout.
It is by no means a mere passive inability to
be rid of an impression once it has mad
it's impact nor is it just indigestion caused
by giving your word on some occasion and
finding that you cannot cope.
Instead it is an active desire not to let go.
A desire to keep on desiring what has been on
some occasion desired. Really it is the wills memory.
So that a world of strange new thing, circumstances
and even acts of will, may be placed quite safely
between the original I will, I shall do
and the actual discharge of the will,
its act without breaking this long chain of will.'
So by defining this memory of the will
as a matter of keeping or desiring what has been
on some occasion desired Nietzsche suggests that
it is more than the memory of the fact that I once desired it,
it is rather a perpuation of desire itself.
Nietzsche's use of the word desire in this context may
cause some confusion for a memory of the will is not
simply the perpuation of some wish or inclination I once had,
the will to be remembered here is an obligation
undertaken of a promise made. I will, I shall do.
To define this memory in terms of keeping or
perpetuated is the motivation itself not the awareness
that I was once so motivated.
It may be a promise I expressed the intention or
the desire in a full sense to do what I have promised
the wills memory simply is the perpetuation of this desire.
So much for conscience for now.
So Nietzsches inquiry then proceeds to an examination of
the concept of indebtedness because guilt and
indebtedness there accrues a (German Word) connection.
The German word for will (German Word) also
mean debt or indebtedness. Nietzsche takes this (German Word)
connection to suggest a conceptual one and concludes that
we stand to learn much about guilt from an analysis
of indebtedness. Though the feeling of indebtedness arises
in the context of contractual relationships which
are essentially relationships established by promising
and so it evolves apparatus designed to
make such promising possible particularly
the recourse to the infliction of pain.
This is number 3 on your hand out.
Precisely here promises are made;
precisely here the person making the promise has to
have a memory made for that. Precisely here
we can guess it's a repository of hard, cruel, painful things.
The debtor in order to inspire confidence that
the promise of repayment will be honored
in order to give a guarantee of the solemnity and
sanctity of this promise and in order to etch the duty
and obligation of repayment into his conscience pawns
something to the creditor by means of the contract
in case he does not pay, something which is
in the bosses control, his body, his wife,
his freedom or his life. Now, a contractual relationship is
established between 2 parties when one, the debtor,
promises to repay the other, the creditor,
in some fashion with something such as a monetary load,
some kind of service and the creditor agrees to provide.
If the debtor fails to keep his promise in repaying
his debt in kind he is liable to some form of honored
punishment but Nietzsche emphasizes that punishment
in this context is at any rate a practice that looks
like punishment like inflicting pain on the delinquent debtor.
It's not an expression of disapproval or otherwise it involves
no judgment on the part of either party that the delinquent
debtor has acted in an evil or reprehensible way
which makes him deserving of that punishment.
It is merely an alternative form of repayment
by the debtor for the debt he contracted.
Now Nietzsche observes that far and away the preferred form of
alternative compensation in cases of delinquency is
the infliction of pain. The compensation, he writes,
consists in a warrant form entitled to cruelty and
he marvels at the strength of this idea.
This is number 4 which I'm not going to read.
It turns out that 2 strange features in
this conception of punishment. First the idea that every injury,
the loss of possessions of a loved one and the like
has it's equivalent in a specifiable amount of pleasure.
The other strange feature of cruelty is the idea that,
quote: ‘to make someone suffer is pleasure
in its highest form.'
Though the conjecture that Nietzsche offers to
explain the later strange feature of cruelty is that
it's pleasurable because it gratifies the will to power.
Though either idea tells where that the will to power is
a desire to engage in the activity of confronting
and overcoming resistance. Cruelty, making someone
suffer is a part egmatic manifestation of the will to
power in the following way: the prospect of suffering
necessarily creates resistance in its intended victim
which the cruel individual simply overcomes by
managing to make his victim suffer. So when
Nietzsche knows that, this is a quote: through punishment
of the debtor the creditor takes part in the rights of
the master it indicates that what the creditor enjoys is not
the suffering of the debtor as such but the overcoming
of the resistance which the prospect of the suffering
bound to arose in the debtor by the very fact that he
is made to suffer.
Now it is crucial to note that original contractual relationships
for Nietzsche are not relationships of trust between
individuals who already process the right
to make promises, this is why the individual
who contracted that, quote: has to have a memory
made for him through the threat of cold, hard, cruel,
painful things. The purpose of which is to, quote:
etch the duty and obligation of repayment into his conscience.
So the original debtors' motivation for keeping his promises
is the dread of the creditor and his power. He does not
consider that his worth or standing is at stake in the keeping
of his promises and therefore he does not regard
his failure to do so as wrong doing and his punishment
as deserved. The fear of the unpleasant consequences
of his promise breaking which constitutes
the original feeling of indebtedness is therefore not
a feeling of guilt, precisely because it does not
involve a diminishment of his self esteem.
So Nietzsche observes that if a delinquent debtor
does not already feel guilty for indebtedness
the punishment exacted cannot allow such a feeling
for 2 reasons. The first of course is the debtor sees that
what he did is being brought to hand and so is
being brought to him with a good conscience
where it's approved of which means that he cannot
as Nietzsche puts it regards what he did as reprehensible
as such. But second he could not regard punishment
as anything more than a stroke of bad luck or
the unfortunate consequence of miscalculation.
This is now number 5 on your hand out.
I'm going to read only part of it. For millennia
wrong doers over taken by punishment have felt
something has gone unexpectedly wrong,
not I ought not to have done that.
You submitted to punishment as you submit to
illness or misfortune or death. If in those days there was
any criticism of cruelty it came from intelligence.
We must certainly seek the actual effect of punishment,
primarily in the sharpening of intelligence
in the lengthening of memory, the will to
be more cautious, less trusting, to go about things
more circumspectly from now on.
So the crucial implication of this view is that guilt
cannot consist of a fear of punishment for if
the fact of punishment carries around the feeling of
guilt in those who do not already regard
what they did as wrong and can only make
them more cautious in circumspect in continuing to
do what they did then the prospect of punishment will
not arouse guilt feelings either and will amount to
nothing more than the apprehension of the unpleasant
consequences of further imprudence or miscalculation.
Now one way to bring out this contrast is to point out
that if a delinquent debtor came to believe that he had
gotten away with it and will escape punishment no pangs
of conscience would remain. By contrast if he felt guilty
the conviction that he would escape punishment for
his wrong doing would not make him feel any less guilt.
And so guilt cannot be a fear of punishment.
So now bad conscience. Nietzsche describes the origin of
bad conscience. Now I'm going to read 2 fairly long passages
because they are very important. The first is this: I look on
bad conscience as a serious illness to which man
was forged to succumb by the pressure of the most fundamental
of all changes which he experienced. That Change whereby
he finally found himself imprisoned within the confines of
society and peace. It must have been no different for
this semi animal happily adapted to the wilderness or
the wandering life and adventure than it was for
the sea animals when they were forced to either
become land animals or perish. At one group all instincts
become devalued and suspended. They felt they were
clumsy at performing the simplest tasks. They didn't have
the family guide any more for this new unknown world.
Thos regulating impulses which unconsciously
led them to safety. The poor things were reduced to
relying on thinking, inference, intuition and the connecting of
use cause with effects.
Now it's very important to note by the way that Nietzsches'
conception of the state of nature prior to socialization is not as
it is Freud the helpless and dreadful state of
individuals ill suited for solitary life in nature.
Nietzsche's pre social individual by contrast is
happily adapted to the wilderness. Nietzsche therefore
assumes that it must have taken an act of violence to
tear him away from this happily adapted state and
he attributes this initial act of violence to a small
group of strong individuals. Some pack of blonde
beasts of prey. A conqueror and master race
as he puts it that are bent on exercising their will
to power in the, quote: shaping of a population
which had up to now been unrestrained
and shapeless into a fixed form.
Now what Nietzsche's most interested in here is
one particular effect of this forced socialization namely
a change in the individual's relationship to his instincts.
As he puts is: at one goal all instincts become devaluated
and suspended. Though the very instincts of
regulated impulses which were once reliable guides
to safety become in the new social conditions of
existence and come to be seen as dangerous liabilities.
I can no longer trust that the pursuit of an impulse
I feel in a given circumstance will be in my best interests
and I must instead rely on thinking, inference, calculation
and the connection of cause with effect. Now
this first problem caused by socialization that
the old instincts could no longer be trusted in compounded
by another which Nietzsche describes as follows,
this is number 7 in your handout: meanwhile, he says,
the old instincts that now suddenly ceased to make
their demands but it was difficult and seldom possible
to give in to them. They mainly had to seek new and
as it were underground gratifications. All instincts
which are not discharged outwardly turned inwards.
This is what I call the internalization of man.
All those instincts of the wild, free, moving man
would turn backwards against man himself. Animosity,
cruelty, the pleasure of pursuing, raiding, changing
and destroying. All this pitted against the person who
had such instincts, that is the origin of bad conscience.
So the origin of bad conscience lies in what Nietzsche
calls the internalization of man. I have already noted
one aspect of this process of this internalization;
the emergence of what Nietzsche calls this really
dismal thing called reflection by which the old instincts
become objects of reflective awareness. So you can
imagine that the picture goes like this: prior to forced
socialization the individuals' point of view is
directed outward.
His instincts frame this point of view but are not
it's focus since he is happily adapted to life in the wilderness
he never has to reflect on let alone question those instincts
and when they are frustrated as they are bound to be
from time to time he is prone to think that the problem is
with the outer world, always his calculations are wrong,
not with those instincts themselves. And the conditions
of forced socialization by contrast the frustration of
the old instincts become systematic and this prompts
a reorientation of the individuals' point of view which is
now directed inward. His old instincts become objects of
reflective awareness and criticisms after all they
could be the problem. Not to be trusted anymore
they cease to shape the point of view from
which he thinks about and evaluates the world and
become objects to which his thought and
evaluation are directed.
Now the remarkable fact which captures
Nietzsche intention is that this internalization of
man does not seem pre consistent of
such a reflective reorientation of his point of view
toward the of existence, it also involves what
Nietzsche calls a declaration of war against
the old instincts or a devaluation of them.
Though it's no doubt true that given
Nietzsches' supposition of an original
state of happy adaptation the individual
could only be induced to reflect on his instincts
when they become problems or liabilities
as they are of course in conditions under
which they're pursued has become
a source of systematic torment and frustration.
But it remains to be seen why their frustration
actually prompts a condemnation of
these old instincts themselves rather than of
the new external conditions that make
their satisfaction impossible. And the explanation of
this remarkable fact according to Nietzsche is that,
quote: the old instincts had not suddenly ceased to
make their demands but since they can no longer be
discharged outwardly they turn inwards up
against themselves. Now since as I know that
Nietzsche singles out cruelty as a paradigmatic
instance of the instinct for freedom he describes
bad conscience as, quote: cruelty turned against itself.
Though it's true that Nietzsche sometimes describes
bad conscience as cruelty the individual directs
against themselves but he means against himself
insofar as he harbors cruel impulses so
in other words bad conscience is not any kind
of instinctual deprivation but only an attack
on the instincts of freedom.
So this is a quote, this is the next quote, number 8:
the instinct of freedom forcibly made latent,
the instinct of freedom forced back, repressed,
incarcerating within itself and finally able to
discharge and unleash itself only against itself
that and that alone is bad conscience in its beginnings.
Now Nietzsche suggests 2 ways of explaining
why the instinct of freedom can discharge itself
only against itself in this plan. First since
under conditions of forced socialization
the instinct needs both to be suppressed and
to be discharged it makes good economic sense
to borrow a Freudian phrase to make its
own suppression an occasion for discharge.
Secondly Nietzsche also suggests under
conditions of forced socialization
the indiscriminate suppression by the individual
of any or all of his instincts could well threaten
the coherence and survival of the social organization
and is therefore actively inhibited.
And you need some instinctual gratification
or you need some instincts to operate well to
make life in society possible.
Now bad conscience is obviously an unpleasant feeling.
Nietzsche knows that we speak of the pang or
the sting of conscience and the individual with
a bad conscience feels bad not because he's
old instincts are not in answer of function he feels bad
for having them in the first place.
But if you think about it one can feel bad for having
certain instincts in all sorts of ways. Let me
give you some examples. The individual forced into
society might regret having cruel instincts which by
now being denied satisfaction have become
a source of perpetual torment. Or the individual
who subscribes to (German Word) conception of
happiness in terms of peace and contentment will
deplore his cruel instincts because he deplores
having any instincts at all since their presence proves
to be the main obstacle to his happiness. He feels bad
about having them much in the way a prisoner who
aspires to freedom feels bad about his shackles.
Finally the Christian deplores his cruel instincts
because he believes that having them diminishes
his worth as a person. He feels bad about having them
in the way the sinner feels bad about his sinful proclivities.
But clearly the devaluation of instincts in the first 2 cases
in going to be prudential, cruel instincts make one unable to
achieve happiness whereas in the last case it is more.
Cruel instincts make one undeserving of happiness.
Now the individual who regrets or deplores his instincts
on prudential grounds by re-compromising in them
obstacles to his happiness is not motivated
by self directed cruelty. His purpose in condemning
his instincts is not to make himself suffer though
it is true like the (German Word) he might deliberately
and systematically deny his instincts satisfaction
but it is to the end of liberating them from them by
becoming indifferent to the suffering caused
by their frustration.
In this case he will see the war he wages against
his instincts not as only a mean to his eventual
liberation from them. When the war the individual
wages against his instincts is motivated by self directed
cruelty by contrast it becomes a land. He denies
his instincts satisfaction not to liberate himself from
them but in order to enjoy the various suffering
their frustration causes which might incidentally
and perversely enough require him to
keep them alive and well.
Though still there remains a difference between
the deliberate masochistic frustration of ones
cruel impulses, what Nietzsche calls the animal
bad conscience and the combination of those impulses
as evil which makes one feel guilty for having them
or moral bad conscience. Changing the direction of cruelty,
turning it inwards, does not necessarily take the form of
a moral condemnation of it. So although the feeling of
guilt may well be a form of bad conscience it is self
directed cruelty manifested as moral self reproach.
The analysis of bad conscience has not yet supplied
an analysis of guilt.
Ok, so now let's turn to the phenomenon which
Nietzsche calls the moralization of indebtedness.
Nietzsche acknowledges that his inquiries
into indebtedness and contractual obligation have so far
ignored the moralization of these concepts.
Though the question and this is important,
the question on which commentators are deeply
divided concerns the nature of this
quote unquote moralization. This is where
I'm going to take a stance. There are 2 ways of looking at it.
Is it on one hand the process whereby the
non moral concepts of indebtedness and contractual
obligation become the moral concepts of guilt
and duty or is it a different process whereby the concepts
of guilt and obligation already understood in
the generic moral sense are involved in
the service of the aims of morality understood
now in a specific sense. Namely as slave marketing
or as one bright writer morality in the picture
of it's sense. Let's see.
Nietzsche describes the moralization of
the word should inflict which are ambiguous
between the moral and pre moral sense.
He defines it as, quote, this is on your hand out,
this is an important quote, this is number 11:
as the way they are pushed back into conscience
more precisely the way bad conscience is
woven together with the concept of God or
it is their relegation to bad conscience.
Though this definition is less than ideally clear
it suggests that the moralized feeling of
guilt results from the combination of indebtedness
with bad conscience or more precisely of
the use of indebtedness as in instrument
of self directed cruelty and it also suggests
that the possibility of a moralized feeling of
guilt requires not just the notion of indebtedness
but of indebtedness towards God.
Now I wish to consider briefly 2 contrasting lines
of interpretation of this passage that are followed in
the literature. The fundamental premise of
the first interpretation is that the feeling of
indebtedness is not yet a feeling of guilt
but becomes so though its association
with bad conscience. I'm going to quote Mattias Gissard
here but of course this is a view that has
been defended by others as well Erwin Ridley and others.
So as Mattias Gissard puts it, quote:
failing to pay ones debts by no means decreases
ones worth as a person simply because
there's no part of you from which ones
overall worth as a person is assessed.
Now the implication of this passage is
the feeling of guilt is the feeling of
indebtedness when ones worth as a person
is at stake in the repayment of the debt.
The failure repay my debt concerns me only
because of the unpleasant consequences
my delinquency might bring upon me and
not because it decreases my worth as a person.
My failure to fulfill a contractual obligation
will involve a feeling of guilt only if I take this
obligation to possess a special character.
It is an obligation in the fulfillment of
which my worth as a person is somehow at stake.
And to give it a name I propose to call
it a categorical obligation in order to distinguish it
from the purely prudential obligation involved in
pre moral contractual relationships.
Nietzsche remarks that when my failure to
repay my debts is the consequence of negligence
or miscalculation I may criticize myself for
imprudence or my incompetence but feeling
incompetent, stupid or small even if I believe
that I have no one to blame for it but myself
is yet feeling guilty.
Only my worth as a competent, proficient,
capable agent is at stake not my worth as a person.
For my prudence matters to me only if the
determinate incident enables me to realize matter
to me in the first place. Of course I may under
certain circumstances deplore my ignorance
not just because of the unpleasant consequences
it brings upon me but also because of
what it tells about me as a person.
In this case our worth, our regard being prudent
if only implicitly as a catagoric obligation.
Though it's important to note because
there's a lot of confusion about this that in
it's pre modern form the feeling of indebtedness
can already be pushed back into the bad conscience
and used as an instrument of self directed cruelty
so I could imagine that harboring cruel impulses
as I do is a breach of contract and torture myself
with thoughts of terrific punishments for
harboring them.
But if the feeling of indebtedness produces
no diminishment in the delinquent debtors
self esteem it is hard to see how it could be
marshaled to produce more bad conscience
or feeling of guilt. New research acknowledges
this difficulty and goes on to suggest that
Christianity proposes or provides a solution for
it by introducing the notion of indebtedness
towards God which, and this is research again,
turns it into a deep sadness of being a complete
failure with respect to what one is first and more
foremost namely God's creature.
Now the problem with this is that is as research
argues the feeling of indebtedness itself
by no means decreases ones worth as a person,
it's very hard to see how making it indebtedness
towards God would have this effect. If indebtedness
is to affect self esteem it must be in virtue of its
character as indebtedness not in virtue of
whom one is indebted to.
It must be being the delinquent debtor as such
that decreases ones worth as a person.
But in that case the feeling of indebtedness will
already be a feeling of guilt and indebtedness
towards God would only intensify the feeling
of guilt. Now there might be ways to improve
Reece's proposal in an attempt to circumvent
his difficulties so for instance you might think
that God expects us the Christian God expects us to
not only follow his commandments but to treat
them as catagoric obligations but besides
very uncertain prospects of success the required
emendations would involve the addition of
essential details such as what I just mentioned
which neither Reece nor Nietzsche for
that matter take the pain to specify.
So this difficulty with Reece's proposal
invites an alternative line of interpretation
according to which the feeling of indebtedness
would involve prior to its moralization
a genuine commitment to the categorical
authority of the obligations one has undertaken
such that the failure to discharge these obligations
would cause a decrease of ones worth as a person.
On this view which is proposed by Simon May,
the feeling of indebtedness would already be a feeling
of guilt and I quote May here, he says, number 11
in your handout: the debtor / creditor relationship
successfully models again only because it
already contains the latter's key presupposition
namely of personal accountability which he
specifies as being a strong sense that ones
obligations are justified.
I take it, Simon may not agree with me about
this I will assume he means categorically justified.
The chief advantage of this proposal is that by taking
the feeling of indebtedness to involve a decrease in
ones worth as a person it manages to explain
how pushing back indebtedness into bad conscience
we produce a distinctively moral bad conscience
or feeling of guilt.
Moral bad conscience as you will recall is
self directed cruelty manifested under the guise
of moral self reproach or reproach of ones self
as a person. Self directed cruelty could assume
this guise by representing an individuals continuing
to harbor cruel instincts as the violation of
a contractual obligation. Given that such
a violation decreases your worth as a person.
Now the obvious problem we are left with
by May's proposal is that if the feeling of
indebtedness is already a feeling of guilt
it becomes unclear when the moralization
of the concepts of guilt and duty could accomplish.
May himself suggests that the moralization of guilt is,
quote: defined by the idea that once human nature is
essentially and un-dischargeably guilty hence the effect.
Now I think there's a suggestion here and
I want to develop. We may develop this suggestion
by recalling first, this is important, it is not always
noted that Nietzsche emphasizes the fact, twice,
that as a consequence of the moralization
the concepts of guilt and duty become
the exclusive propriety of bad conscience.
This indicates that moralized guilt and duty can
one involve a diminished self esteem in the agent
who experiences that. And of course it's easy to
see how association of bad conscience
with the concept of God partly can lead
the notion of indebted towards God could achieve this.
The notion of indebtedness towards God is
in effect a notion of an inexpiable guilt and
the contractual obligation that cannot be
fulfilled therefore represents a normal
expectation of duty that is designed only to
leave man quote: palpably convinced of his own
absolute unworthiness.
So let me now develop this interpretation of
the moralization of guilt.
According to the interpretation I'm proposing here,
Nietzsche takes the Christian representation of
guilt to be not a particular account of the ordinary
feeling of guilt but a perversion of the human
susceptibility of that feeling. This in turn supposes
that he has an account of this ordinary feeling of
guilt and I believe that he does, and that this account
defers in significant respects from the account
that is officially sanctioned by the Christian order.
In particular Nietzsche argues that the ordinary
feeling of guilt is not an innate disposition
who's explanation requires the invocation
of non natural entities such as God, it is
on the contrary a quiet disposition that develops
under the cause or pressure of largely natural forces.
His own account, this is important, begins
with the surmise that the susceptibility to
the feeling of guilt emerges from the
original legal practice of making contracts.
Contracts, this is number 12. In this fear of legal
obligations then we find the breeding ground of
the moral conceptual world of guilt, conscience,
duty, sacred duty. Since Nietzsche insists that
the original feeling of indebtedness it not tantamount
to the feeling of guilt we much ask all the latter
could emerge from the forge. Now as Nietzsche
understands feeling indebted in way that decreases
ones worth as a person. What requires explanation
is therefore what ones worth as a person amounts
to and how it could have come to be at stake
in the fulfillment of ones contractual obligations.
Now the need for contractual obligationships
motivates the enterprise as you may recall of
breeding an animal with the right to make
promises or with a conscience. And this
Nietzsche observes and this is a quote:
is precisely what constitutes the long history
of the origins of responsibility.
So the possession of a conscience according to
Nietzsche is what makes me be a responsible agent.
Now it is crucial to understand what Nietzsche
means by responsibility in this context.
Calling someone responsible might first denote
the fact that he is free and as Nietzsche puts it,
could have done other words so that this action is
imputable to him rather than merely to some part of
him or to some even all together external to him.
But in the second place calling someone
responsible might also refer to the fact that
he can be trusted or relied upon. That he is
someone who truly has the right to make promises
because his word once given is good and secure.
Now Nietzsche is interested primarily
in the second sense of responsibility.
A responsible agent is one who can
be trusted or relied upon. He calls the individual
who has become fully responsible in this sense
as suffering. So now I go back to the other part
of the essay because it provides a clue to
Nietzsche's account of the feeling of guilt.
We gain a more precise understanding of
the character of the sovereign individual
by examining the process through which he is produced.
Nietzsche claims that conscience or the wills
memory is bred through pain which he dubs
the most powerful aid to mnemonics.
It is the prospect of the pain in turn for
breaking ones promises that ensures
the perpetuation of the motivation to keep that.
However, it is crucial to note that the fear of pain
plays a merely enabling role in the development
of conscience but is not constitutive of it.
For the fear of pain which initially motivates
the individual to control those among
these intervening desires and emotions
that conflict with this promise and eventually
become replaced by what Nietzsche describes
as a feeling of power, of freedom.
The frustration of conflicting intervening
desires in order to fulfill a promise is of course
itself a source of pain and the individual
who learns to overcome this pain in this manner,
that is to say learns to overcome the resistance
that is opposed by those conflicting desires
comes to the arrive, can come to the arrive of
feeling of power and freedom for this overcoming.
It is at the end of this process when the feeling of
freedom and power has replaced the fear of pain ad
the motivation of promise keeping that we find
a sovereign individual, quote, number 13, I'll read
only part of it: the free man, the possessor of durable,
unbreakable will thus has his own standard of value
in the possession of such will. Viewing others from
his own stand point he respects or despises,
he confers an honor when he places his trust,
gives his words in something that can be relied
on because he is strong enough to remain
upright in the face of mishap or even in the face of failure.
The proud realization of the extraordinary
privilege of responsibility, the awareness of
this rare freedom and power over himself and
his destiny has penetrated him to the depths and
becomes an instinct, his dominion.
This sovereign man calls it his conscience.
So the conscience of the sovereign individual is not,
quote: an actual awareness of power in freedom.
The driving forces in other words behind
the sovereign individual is not the fear of pain
but the enjoyment of the feeling of power.
Now Nietzsche doesn't explain why an agent
becomes responsible. Only when the feeling of power is
substituted for the fear of pain in motivating his promise
keeping but we might often following surmise note
first of all that we don't call responsible anyone on
whom we can depend to do what he has promised
to do for instance we will not just judge trustworthy
or responsible an agent who keeps his promises
only because he fears the unpleasant consequences
of breaking them and one possible motivate for
attitude is in this case, is the condition that
the agent does not care about keeping his promises
as such and would break them the moment
the unpleasant consequences would be
either avoidable or outweighed by the pleasures
for the sake of which he would break his promises.
This would suggest that we consider an agent
trustworthy or responsible only if he finds a positive
satisfaction in promise keeping as such.
Now an agent who derives a feeling of power
or of freedom from his promise keeping thereby
finds some positive satisfaction in it, it gratifies
his will to power. But of course the pleasure
derived from satisfying the will to power
could considerably still be outweighed
by the pleasure afforded by the gratification
of other stronger impulses. So Nietzsche
concludes that we consider truly responsible
only or sovereignty only the individual in
who the instinct for freedom, the
will to power has become as he puts it:
the dominant instinct.
Now, and this is a move that is unmotivated for
Nietzsche but very important involved with God.
Nietzsche goes one significant step further.
Promise keeping and the self mastery it requires is
a source not only of pleasure but also, as he puts it,
of pride, of self esteem. The possession of a durable,
reliable will is for the sovereign individual a standard
of value in terms of which he determines what is
respectable, honorable or contemptible.
Being responsible is therefore not just
a pleasant state in which his desire for power
is gratified it is a standard or status in which
the value of power of freedom in instantiated.
Being responsible makes him honorable
and worthy of respect.
The notion of responsibility possibly frames
now the concept of personal worth as a standing
that warrants respect. Nietzsche appears
to suppose that it is some endearing legal framework
which constitutes the conceptual breeding ground
for the feeling of guilt and his concept of
responsibility understood as the ability to
govern ones behavior in accordance with
obligations or commitments bears
a close resemblance to the notion of rationality
which has long been thought to distinguish human beings
from animals and indeed, says Nietzsche,
constitutes mans sense of superiority over the animals.
Though on the view I'm attributing to
Nietzsche then ones right to make promises becomes, quote:
the power to realization of a privilege or
evidence of status or standing. The breaking of
a promise will in and of itself decrease ones
worth as a person in the way that's characteristic
of ordinary guilt since it puts the individuals
standing as a responsible agent into question.
Now there's one feature of the ordinary conception
of guilt that I think that this particular quote eliminates
and the feature that intrigues Nietzsche himself
and it is the connection between guilt and punishment.
So according to Nietzsche the legal backdrop of
contractual relationships is also supposed to
eliminate the connection between guilt and punishment
and suffering and this is number 14: in the same way
it was here that the uncanny and perhaps inextricable link
between the ideas guilt and suffering was
first questioned together.
Now the 2 possible questions you may ask, ok,
you may ask how does the victim of
a wrong experience the punishment of
the perpetrator or you may ask how
does the guilty experience this punishment.
Since I'm interested in the psychology of guilt
I'm going to focus on the latter question.
Now what's characteristic of the guilty's
relationship to his punishment. Now first of
all the guilty not only accepts his punishment
which he regards as deserved but he also welcomes
it as a way of expediting his guilt. Now it is
very tempting to suppose of course that punishment
expedites his guilt by providing reparation
for his wrong doing but this reparative view
of punishment faces some significant difficulties.
In the first place and this is something that
Nietzsche observes himself, punishment is
often of such a nature, you know various kinds
of suffering and deprivation inflicted upon
the perpetrator that it can hardly be considered
a reparation for the harm done. How can
depriving a thief of his freedom compensate
his victims for the loss of their wealth?
I mean you can ask the people who invested
with Bernard Maynoff for example.
Though confronted with this problem
Nietzsche suggests as we know that the suffering
of the guilty provides the victim of this wrong
doing a certain pleasure, the pleasure of cruelty,
which compensates him for the wrong done to him.
But the deepest difficulty is the reparative view
of punishment however lies in the supposition
that the guilty welcomes his punishment
because he wishes before all to repair
the particular damage caused by his wrong doing
but this, as Gabrielle Taylor has argued, is not the case.
This is a quote from Taylor, number 15:
the important feature of guilt is that the
fault of the guilty concentrates on herself
as the doer of the deed. Having brought about
what is forbidden she has harmed herself.
She has put herself in the position
where repayment from her is due but
the point of the payment is not always on
the incidentally the moral ground should be righted.
This is the righting of a moral wrong may well be
the form that the repayment takes but from
the point of view of the guilty person this is
only a means towards the end that she should
be rid of the burden, that she should be
able again to live with herself.
The painfulness of the guilt feeling is therefore
explained by the uneasiness of the person concerned,
the person concerned feels about herself.
What matters to the guilty in other words is
the fact that by violating her obligations
she has diminished her standing or
her worth as a person and not primarily
at least the fact that she has caused harm
in doing so. Accordingly the point of
enduring punishment is to restore
the punished standing not to repair
the harm she has caused even if the punishment
provides her reparation as her infliction always does.
Now Nietzsche's account I think helps us to
see how punishment could have assumed
this particular significance for the guilty and
as you will remember the feeling of guilt is
a consequence of the breaking of a promise.
Now he observes that even in the
pre moral legal contractual framework,
out of which the concept of guilt was supposed to
emerge, the breaking of a promise is already known
in 2 different respects. There's of course
the immediate damage done by the agent breaking
of some particular promise and there's the loss
of his standing as a responsible agent that has
the right to make promises. This is a part of
the quote number 16, the sentence in the middle:
the immediate damage done by the offender is what
we are talking about least. Quite apart from
this the law breaker is a breaker, somebody who
has broken his contract and his worth.
So in this paper on contractual context
Nietzsche suggests the standing lost is
simply that of a trustworthy, reliable
promise keeper which presumable matters
to the agent on essentially prudential grounds.
In losing that standing he deprives himself
of the benefits of contractual relationships particularly
those that bind him to a community.
The purpose of punishment in this case
is not simply to repair the immediate
damage he has done but to attempt to
restore his status as a reliable promise keeper.
Likewise in the context of moralized indebtedness
the wrong doer's violation of his obligation
affects his self esteem by putting his worth
as a person into question. What he wants comes
in punishment is not the possibility to
repair the immediate damage his transgression
has caused but a possibility to restore his
standing as a responsible agent, that is to say,
not just somebody who is reliable and trustworthy
contractibility as of others but somebody who is
a sovereign individual, one who masters
his desires and emotions and is so able to
conduct his life in accordance to
the commitments he has undertaken.
So to restore his standing the promise
breaker would have first to accept
punishment or regard it as deserved,
such acceptance would indicate that
he recognizes the nominatively
binding character of his contractual obligations,
what Nietzsche calls the solemnity and sanctity of promise.
And he acknowledges that he was wrong in violating it.
But this alone of course doesn't suffice to qualify
his as a responsible agent who has the right to
make promises, to have this right he must also
have acquired a memory of the will. That is
to say the ability to maintain his motivation to
fulfill his promises regardless of intervening events
and desires. In other words to merit the standing of
a responsible agent he must not only sincerely believe
that he ought to keep his promises he must also
prove capable of doing so. His ability to
endure the punishment would aim to
provide precisely such a proof.
Keeping ones promises requires
the capacity to withstand the suffering
caused by the deliberate frustration of
conflicting desires and emotions.
By welcoming and withstanding
this punishment the wrong doer
would seek to demonstrate that he
still possesses this capacity contrary to
what his present wrongdoing may suggest.
This may also be why it is not untypical
of the wrong doer who seeks to restore
his responsible standing to find mirror
compensation for the particular wrong
he has done insufficient and to insist on
over compensation, what might look
like excessive punishment, in order to
provide a firmer proof of his responsibility.
So it's not always the case, well,
so let me conclude now.
Let me come to this view to which I
(Inaudible)
Christian guilt for Nietzsche in fact is a rational part.
In the interpretation of proposing Nietzsche's
genealogy of Christian guilt exposes it as a rational
partion. Rational partions are partions to
which only a rational being is susceptible
because they essentially exploit his responsiveness
to reasons. But I cannot like any other partion however;
rational partions are not themselves responsive
to such reasons. But, and this is important,
it is a distinctive trait of rational partions
that their gratification requires at least the
appearance of reason responsiveness.
It follows that whereas ordinary partions typically
override or bypass reason there will be no
pretense to being responsive to reason.
Rational partions who needs such pretense will
often end up corrupting in responsiveness for reason.
Let me give you an example. An example that
Nietzsche quite likes: the narcissistic partion
for thinking well of oneself in an instance
of a rational partion. To be susceptible to
such a partion the narcissist would be responsive
to norms and a self assessment been confirmed.
But in order to ensure its own gratification
this partion might also lead him to corrupt
his norms so as to ensure a favorable self assessment.
Now what I want to suggest is that the
Christians guilt is another instance of
a rational partion for Nietzsche.
It is the partion for thinking ill of oneself or
as v puts it, this is a quote: the will to find himself
guilty and condemned without hope of reprieve.
Nietzsche argues that Christian guilt operates
nominative expectations that they have been
stolen by his partion for self debasement.
As he conceives of it guilt, Christian guilt,
is indebtedness towards God which is
the most extreme development particular
form of indebtedness or indebtedness towards
the incestuous. The individual is justified in
feeling indebted only if believes that
God or the ancestors has in fact delivered
the goods for the possession for which
he feels indebted to him. Now the distinctive
feature of Christian guilt is that it is inexpiable.
It is inexpiable because God's gift itself is of
such transcendence and holiness that it cannot
be paid off by finite animal beings such as we are.
As Nietzsche indicates the problem is not
just that the debts have not been paid off but
that the guilt is inexpiable, that is to say it's not
just that the Christian cannot compensate
God but that he cannot reclaim his standing
as a responsible agent. Indeed in so far as
he was never able to fulfill his obligations to
God he could never even claim that standing
in the first place. Now here's the thing,
if Christian guilt was responsive to the normal logic
of indebtedness we would expect a loss of belief in
the existence and power of God to result in
the loss of guilt as Nietzsche puts it, this is number 18:
we should be justified in deducing with
no little probability that from the unstoppable
decline in the faith in the Christian
God there is even now a considerable
decline in the consciousness of guilt but
Nietzsche observes this is precisely not what happens.
The facts diverge from this in a terrible way
with the moralization of the concepts guilt
and duty and their relegation to bad conscience
we have in reality an attempt to reverse
the direction of the development I have
described or at least to halt it's movement.
Now the prospect for once and for all
payment is to be for closed. This of course leads
Nietzsche to surmise that what is at work in
Christian guilt is not answerability to
existing norms of self assessment but
their corruption now of self directed cruelty, quote:
you will already have guessed what has really
gone on with all this, behind all this that will
torment oneself, that suppressed cruelty of animal
man that has been frightened back into himself
and given an inner life. We have here a sort of
madness of the will showing itself in mental
cruelty which is on parallel to mans will to
find himself guilty and condemned without hope
of reprieve is will to think of himself as punished
without the punishment ever measuring up
to the crime. This will to set up an idea of
the holy God in order to be palpably convinced
of his absolute worthlessness in the face of this ideal.
It is not in other words because he happens to
believe in a transcendent God to whom
he owes more than he can repay that Christian
feels guilty, it is rather because of his will to
find himself guilty that he believes in such a God.
So in Nietzsche's view then Christianity
did not invent the ordinary concept of guilt
but under the sway of animal bad conscience
transformed it into a perfect instrument of
self directed cruelty by introducing the notion
of guilt towards God, quote: this man of bad conscience,
Nietzsche writes, has seized on religious precept
in order to provide this self torture with it's
most horrific hardness and sharpness.
Guilt towards God this tool becomes
and instrument of torture.
Though it is self directed cruelty
in the first place insofar as this precisely
in virtue of harboring animal instincts
such as cruelty that man fails to fulfill
this obligation towards a holy God, quote:
in God he seizes upon the ultimate antithesis
he can find to his real and irredeemable
animal instincts he reinterprets these self
same animal instincts a guilt before God
and it is also a perfect form of self directed
cruelty insofar as it represents guilt as inexpiable.
Prior to it's Christian reinterpretation
the distinctive feeling of diminished
self esteem experienced by the guilty
could only be an imperfect instrument of
self torture because guilt could always
in principle be expiated. One only had to
undergo punishment to restore ones worth
as a person. Once it is conceived as inexpiable
guilt towards God however the loss of
worth of this person becomes absolute.
A los for which nothing can redeem short
of a radical self denial, a total reprediation of
ones animal nature which of course leads us
Acetic aspiration, quote: aspiration to a quite
different kind of existence and this of course is
a story for another time. Thank you.