Nietzsche Against Equality.

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
1

Equality means identicality with regard to natural or divine rights. For instance, a person who has only the natural or divine rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness would be equal to another person who also only has those rights.

Natural right is the obverse of positive right. “Positive right” means simply “posited right”, in the sense that the right in question is posited (created) and not natural (discovered). Divine right means a right posited by God. However, “positive right” typically means “right posited by human beings”. As God is the creator of the whole of nature, any rights he posits are by necessity natural rights.

Natural right depends on natural ends. To say that man has the natural right of liberty is to say that man’s liberty is an essential part of his nature, of his natural state. Thus in the Book of Genesis, God is recorded as saying “it is not right for man to be alone”. This means man’s being together is an essential part of his nature, of his natural state (in the Book of Genesis: his Paradisal state). Note that God first created him alone, yet this beginning is not his natural state; man only becomes natural when he reaches his natural state, his natural end (“end” in the sense of “goal”). But this means that even and especially when he has not reached it yet, he has the natural right to it—in this example, the natural right to be together.

Now the reason Nietzsche is against equality is that he disagrees with egalitarians’ conceptions of man’s natural end. Thus in the example of liberty, he completely disagrees with egalitarian conceptions of freedom:

“[W]hat is freedom! That one has the will to assume responsibility for oneself. That one maintains the distance which separates us. That one becomes more indifferent to difficulties, hardships, privation, even to life itself. That one is prepared to sacrifice human beings for one’s cause, not excluding oneself. Freedom means that the manly instincts which delight in war and victory dominate over other instincts, for example, over those of ‘happiness’. The human being who has become free—and how much more the spirit who has become free—spits on the contemptible type of well-being dreamed of by shopkeepers, Christians, cows, females, Englishmen, and other democrats. The free human being is a warrior.—” (Source: Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols, “Forays of an Untimely Man”, section 38.)

This is basically the same difference as between the Superman and the Last Man. Man’s natural end as dreamed of by egalitarians is the Last Man; man’s natural end as seen by Nietzsche is the Superman. But not everyman is capable of becoming a Superman. Rather to the contrary, only the fewest are capable of that. The right road for the rest does not consist in becoming Supermen themselves, but for example in becoming—biological or spiritual—fathers or forefathers to Supermen, or even in being “sacrificed” for the “cause” that is the Superman. And actually, not everyman is capable of becoming a Last Man, either! Thus Nietzsche’s Zarathustra says about the Last Men:

“No shepherd, and one herd! Everyone wanteth the same; everyone is equal: he who hath other sentiments goeth voluntarily into the madhouse [or, as Leo Strauss put it, to the psychiatrist].” (Source: Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra, “Zarathustra’s Prologue”, section 5.)

Not everyman is capable of having his head shrunk enough to fit in with the herd. And indeed, Nietzsche says:

“The criminal type is the type of the strong human being under unfavorable circumstances: a strong human being made sick. He lacks the wilderness, a somehow freer and more dangerous environment and form of existence, where everything that is weapons and armor in the instinct of the strong human being has its rightful place. His virtues are ostracized by society; the most vivid drives with which he is endowed soon grow together with the depressing affects—with suspicion, fear, and dishonor. Yet this is almost the recipe for physiological degeneration. Whoever must do secretly, with long suspense, caution, and cunning, what he can do best and would like most to do, becomes anemic; and because he always harvests only danger, persecution, and calamity from his instincts, his attitude to these instincts is reversed too, and he comes to experience them fatalistically. It is society, our tame, mediocre, emasculated society, in which a natural human being, who comes from the mountains or from the adventures of the sea, necessarily degenerates into a criminal. Or almost necessarily; for there are cases in which such a man proves stronger than society: the Corsican, Napoleon, is the most famous case.” (Source: Twilight of the Idols, ibid., section 45. Cf. section 13 of the first treatise of On the Genealogy of Morals: “birds of prey” are not free to become “lambs”.)

Now it’s also Napoleon whom Nietzsche uses as a “metaphorical” example of the Superman in section 48 (cf. section 57 of The Antichrist). Only the strongest have the “right”, i.e. the might, to enter man’s natural state:

“The customary understanding suggests that to enter the esoteric all that is needed is permission or instruction and one can walk on in. Nietzsche’s correction suggests that the esoteric view is unattainable or inaccessible to anyone who is not the kind for it: no one can be carried to the view from the height.” (Source: Laurence Lampert, Nietzsche’s Task, pp. 72-73.)

Both for Nietzsche and for modern egalitarians, everyman has permission to enter man’s natural state; in other words, everyman has the opportunity. But not everyman has the means. The egalitarian dream is that everyman can gain “Paradise” if he only puts himself to it. Nietzsche shatters that dream by pointing out the evident fact that people differ drastically with regard to potential and thereby to value—not just economically (Adam Smith), but in the overall competition that is life.

“In old Russia, the Czar, each year, granted—out of the shrewdness of his own soul or one of his advisors’—a week’s freedom for one convict in each of his prisons. The choice was left to the prisoners themselves and it was determined in several ways. Sometimes by vote, sometimes by lot, often by force. It was apparent that the chosen must be a man of magic, virility, experience, perhaps narrative skill, a man of possibility, in short, a hero. Impossible situation at the moment of freedom, impossible selection, defining our world in its percussions.” (Source: Jim Morrison, The Lords.)

2

It’s really a quite inspiring read. You’ve told this story many times, but it keeps entertaining, if nothing else.

3

You can not learn Nietzsche through Nietzsche. You need Vollgraff above all to start thinking about his thinking. This could speed anybody up: toward understanding or toward giving up.

4

Nietzsche was a babblehead, i find it irrational to waste time with him, it serves no logica purpose.

5

For the first time, i find myself closer to agreeing with my dear friend Drusuz, though, not exactly still.

N is an extremely analytical observer and intelligent thinker as well. The only quality he is lacking is wisdom as, more often than not, he misuses both his intelligence and knowledge.

with love,
sanjay

6

Hello Sauwelios,

— Now the reason Nietzsche is against equality is that he disagrees with egalitarians’ conceptions of man’s natural end. Thus in the example of liberty, he completely disagrees with egalitarian conceptions of freedom:

“[W]hat is freedom! That one has the will to assume responsibility for oneself. That one maintains the distance which separates us. That one becomes more indifferent to difficulties, hardships, privation, even to life itself. That one is prepared to sacrifice human beings for one’s cause, not excluding oneself. Freedom means that the manly instincts which delight in war and victory dominate over other instincts, for example, over those of ‘happiness’. The human being who has become free—and how much more the spirit who has become free—spits on the contemptible type of well-being dreamed of by shopkeepers, Christians, cows, females, Englishmen, and other democrats. The free human being is a warrior.—” (Source: Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols, “Forays of an Untimely Man”, section 38.)

Yet in The Four Great Errors, section 8 he denies that any man could assume responsibility for one self. That one has the “will”, to assume this freedom, is only an effect of causes that are not willed, for which we were not free.
In this type, the noble, the subject insists on the distance between him and some men, conceding to just a few the grade of “equal”. He is not so much against equality, but against false equality. He concedes that there are equals, but that these are few and in between and that it is wrong to declare what is unequal as equal. Not all men are equal; some stand above and others below, such is the fact of nature. Democrats do away with such facts and posit equal rights to unequal individuals.

I don’t think that this is necessarily the case, or as indefensible as he puts it. For example, in America you have documents declaring that all men are created equal- yet the writers held slaves. These men were not addressing differences in their natural state. I think they were quite comfortable establishing rank, even Englishmen (see Hume). The equality they claimed did not dawn from the physical facts of people, but from spiritual “facts”. Perhaps this can be updated after the death of God?
Put it this way: No one denies that people are born different, but that birth alone is not the whole story and that there are other factors, virtues, which create rank. In the democratic ideal, the state is ignorant of a person’s fate; a person is not condemned at birth to a destiny, to a fate, as Nietzsche would have it. Instead the state let’s the facts reveal themselves. Legal equality does not impede the manifestation of rank. No one holds a victim of the state to the same height as the doctor who pays for their subsistence. The Protestant ideal, not unlike Nietzsche’s, stipulates rank (by Grace) which is manifested in success. Likewise, after Grace is done with, one can still maintain that egalitarian means simply posits that excellence, or lack thereof are not evident at birth. So rather than assign rank at birth, granting rights to some and not others based only on race, or some other measure already available at birth, egalitarians withhold the assignment of rank to a later time in life when the individual, assisted or not by the state, succeeds in his/her “calling” or destiny, in Nietzsche’s conception.

“All men are created equal…” has a better tone to a religious audience. One cannot overstate how powerful religion is in the organization of society. Could it be said differently, without adding a falsehood? Sure, but why? And would not the effect be detrimental to the organization of society? The compelling point is that men are created equal but do not remain equal and each is entitle to the fruits of the difference that they fight for. I am in favor of such humility in judgment. It is not because I deny that nature produces different individuals with different capacities, but that talent is not enough, nor self-evident at birth, and one could argue even still at later stages of a life.
What are we? We are what we do. Having the capacity for intellectual brilliance is different from being a genius. If that person settles as a bum on the street, what evidence is there of his type facts? Nobles have been notoriously bad at gauging excellence. They accept it as a fact, but cannot tell who is what. The modern egalitarian can defend the legal rights of all because he simply no longer wishes to decide who is what. Better said: He no longer feels that the state should form a judgment, but let nature takes it’s own course. That is the effect of egalitarianism; that distinction is discerned in competition. Equality is no different than a starting point in a race. The line places all the contestant at a level point. Doesn’t matter that we know that they are endowed differently. But that is decided by the race and not by the placement of the line, the unequal placement of the competitors at the start. Their equal placement at the start does not mean that the egalitarian believes that they will cross the line at equal times, but that the state should not interfere with the final positions of the competitors.
At least that is how I understand it.

7

There’s a difference between being against equality, and simply stating that equality doesn’t exist.

If we could all equally reach a high level of development and life, that would be good.
But life doesn’t work that way.

8

The argument he presents is not that equality doesn’t exist, but that it does not exist universally. There are valleys and there are mountains. There is rank. There are those that belong to the same rank, the noble, the rabble, because, in some sense, they are equal to those in their rank, be it excellence or mediocrity. My point is simply that the rank of man is not evident at birth, nor even later with any exactitude, so rights and duties should reflect this ignorance. Though we know that men are endowed differently, we should proceed as if they were equal, because, in a way, from a perspective, men, as “men”, stand as equal.
Until the day that “Brave New World” becomes a reality…

9

Dear Omar,

I definitely have problems with a couple of the things you say. You say:

Supposing that I agree with this, and evaluate a person by his actions, by what should we evaluate his actions? To use the distinction Nietzsche makes in section 32 of Beyond Good and Evil, should we evaluate actions by their consequences, by the intentions behind them, or by what is unintentional about them? On the latter, see this very recent post of mine: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AtIbZC_QHXv5H.u1Ih.AKMXty6IX;_ylv=3?qid=20130626212122AA8k7tT

You also say:

This could only work in something even more radical than Plato’s ideal state: namely, in a state in which children would not be taken from their parents at the age of seven but already at birth. After all, allowing a child to be raised in a rich family would already be giving it an advantage to a child raised in a poor family. So those who raise the children—who can of course not themselves be children—must then be equal.

10

How do men attain great strength and a great task?
According to N “all the virtues and efficiency of body and soul are acquired laboriously”. How is acquired strength of the body, or of the soul passed on to one’s offspring? By what mechanism?
“But there are men who are heirs and masters of this slowly acquired manifold treasure”.
I can understand that fortunate marriages and accidents may ensure that the fruits of the talents of the previous generation is not squandered. But talents themselves? My question is about the role the state should have if any. Should the state act as you say and snatch babies at birth to eliminate the advantage of birth into an affluent family, versus being born into a poor family? That’s rational but excessive. For it does not take into consideration other “gifts”, beside money, available to babies, like loving families. A state-run foster program may, just may, deny them significant personal relationships. Many rich kids turn out badly while many poor kids turn out exemplary, so money alone is not an indicator.
The involvement of the state should be a minimum not a maximum. So it should offer a minimum level of education, subsidy, perhaps, a minimum standard of living. Of course, this means that the state does not set a true level playing field. True. But it reduces the gap to where the odds are not so disparate.

As for distinctions: whomever will judge the actions of men should keep in mind all of these distinctions. Your intentions may have been good, but isn’t murder inherently wrong simply by its consequence? But maybe your actions were a reaction to an unintentional state? A judge should be open to all these possibilities, not just a tasty oversimplification. I doubt that we can know with certainty the causal chains of human action, but all three distinctions should enter the debate. The accused should have the right to argue any of these narratives as explanation. If society says:“You did something bad”. You should be able to say:

  1. “well, I meant well”
  2. “but the end was good”
  3. “but I’m insane”.
11

Sauwelios, would you agree that with the third phase, the extra-moral, we end up with something akin to virtue-ethics?

12

That is part of what I called “Nietzsche’s rather Lamarckian views on heredity”, and is thereby not pertinent to my post.

The rich and poor distinction was just an example. All families should also be equally loving for your idea to work. Or do you assume that all families are naturally equally “gifted”?

And what, may I ask, is the criterion for that minimum? Why not set it at zero?

Who is to say all three are equally important, or even at all important? You use the word “should” a lot, but what do you base it on?

All actions are reactions to unintentional states: the existence of intention must ultimately be unintended (as you yourself said in your first post, “That one has the ‘will’, to assume this freedom, is only an effect of causes that are not willed, for which we were not free”).

I don’t think murder is inherently wrong simply by its consequence, by the way.

13

I suppose, but the only virtue is then what Nietzsche’s Zarathustra at one point calls “the bestowing virtue” (see Thus Spake Zarathustra, “The Bestowing Virtue” and “The Three Evils”). The origin of good actions is then this and this alone:

“the high body […], the handsome, triumphing, refreshing body, around which everything becometh a mirror:
—The pliant, persuasive body, the dancer, whose symbol and epitome is the self-enjoying soul.” (Source: op.cit., “The Three Evils”. Cf. ibid., “The Despisers of the Body”.)

Two formally identical actions can then have two distinct origins and thereby two distinct values:

“Verily, I divine you well, my disciples: ye strive like me for the bestowing virtue. What should ye have in common with cats and wolves?
It is your thirst to become sacrifices and gifts yourselves: and therefore have ye the thirst to accumulate all riches in your soul.
Insatiably striveth your soul for treasures and jewels, because your virtue is insatiable in desiring to bestow.
Ye constrain all things to flow towards you and into you, so that they shall flow back again out of your fountain as the gifts of your love.
Verily, an appropriator of all values must such bestowing love become; but healthy and holy, call I this selfishness.
Another selfishness is there, an all-too-poor and hungry kind, which would always steal—the selfishness of the sick, the sickly selfishness.
With the eye of the thief it looketh upon all that is lustrous; with the craving of hunger it measureth him who hath abundance; and ever doth it prowl round the tables of bestowers.
Sickness speaketh in such craving, and invisible degeneration; of a sickly body, speaketh the larcenous craving of this selfishness.” (Source: ibid., “The Bestowing Virtue”.)

14

It does indeed seem that Nietzsche’s three phases correspond (roughly) to consequentialism, deontology, and virtue ethics.

15

Yes, that passage certainly is fitting.

So he says in BGE 32 that the intention is only superficial, and what is unintentional (what lies underneath that intention) is perhaps more important.

The problem with this account, it seemed to me, is that we would apparently have no control at all over our actions being valuable or not… unless there is a sense in which we could have cultivated some kind of charachter (which includes the unintentional) prior to the evaluated action. That’s why i thought it went in the direction of virtue-ethics.

16

Our actions are valuable if and only if we are valuable; we are not what we do, we do what we are.

“[W]hat comes by grace or chance came to be seen as needing correction; nature was viewed as niggardly or cruel or unfair. And it was precisely the order of rank of the natures that caused the deepest suffering: envy and self-hatred. These twin fountainheads of revenge were the moving force behind the human will to correct faulty nature. This disguised ‘second and more refined atheism,’ as Nietzsche called it (BGE 22), is hatred directed against anything favored by grace or chance; ‘neither God nor master’ is one of its rallying cries (BGE 22, 202).” (Source: Lampert, Leo Strauss and Nietzsche, pp. 105-06.)

Whether or how we cultivate our character already depends on our character, on our nature.

17

You usually provide several references, but I do not see one in this case. Yet this seems to me (one of) the key statement(-s) in your post.

I see that Nietzsche completely disagrees with the egalitarian conception of freedom, but I see no “natural ends”…
You mean that while egalitarians see equality as a natural/spontaneous condition among men, Nietzsche does not?
Else, would you explain how do you get to your thesis?

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Well seen.

I first encountered the notion of natural ends in Nietzsche in Strauss, to wit in this passage:

“[A] man is the not yet fixed, not yet established beast ([Beyond Good and Evil] aph. 62): man becomes natural by acquiring his final, fixed character. For the nature of a being is its end, its completed state, its peak (Aristotle, Politics 1252b 32-34). ‘I too speak of “return to nature,” although it is properly not a going back but an ascent—up into the high, free, even terrible nature and naturalness . . .’ (Twilight of the Idols, “Skirmishes of an untimely man” nr. 48).” (Source: Strauss, Studies in Platonic Political Philosophy, page 189.)

As you may remember, the latter is the section I referred to when I wrote:

“Now it’s also Napoleon whom Nietzsche uses as a ‘metaphorical’ example of the Superman in section 48 (cf. section 57 of The Antichrist).”

That’s actually where my reference was, hidden in a completely different part of my post. Section 48 immediately continues where Strauss left off:

“[…] a nature and naturalness that plays, that can afford to play, with great tasks… To put it metaphorically: Napoleon was a piece of ‘return to nature’ as I understand the phrase (for example, in rebus tacticis [tactical matters], even more, as military men know, in matters of strategy).”

I recommended comparing this with section 57 of The Antichrist because Nietzsche there uses much the same language with regard to the naturally highest caste, which I confidently identify with the Superman:

“The most spiritual human beings, as the strongest, find their happiness where others would find their undoing: in the labyrinth, in hardness against themselves and others, in the experiment; their joy is self-conquest: asceticism with them becomes nature, need, instinct. The heavy task counts as a privilege to them, to play with burdens that crush others, a recreation…”

20

Hello Sauwelios,

— The rich and poor distinction was just an example. All families should also be equally loving for your idea to work. Or do you assume that all families are naturally equally “gifted”?
O- We assume that families are loving, that mothers are loving. Under this assumption, the State let’s parents forge ahead as they may. The benefits or damage seems to be minimal. What memory do adults have of the 3rd year of life? If there is the suspicion of abuse, then the State does step in to bring back closer to the average the life of the poor sap.

— And what, may I ask, is the criterion for that minimum? Why not set it at zero?
O- The criterion is anything but set. There is constant research on the effects of State programs on the life of children. It is also a matter of money. But why not zero? Because it would affect the fate of the entire society. Whatever level of involvement the State assumes, it should be considered, or argued as an investment on the future of the State. The future of the State should not be left to chance alone.

— Who is to say all three are equally important, or even at all important? You use the word “should” a lot, but what do you base it on?
O- These are opinions. In my opinion, disregarding any one of them as unimportant is to impose a prejudice on a process that escapes our certainty. Maybe you think that motives are unimportant, but based on what? What is unintentional creates intention. The brain creates mental activity which ponders questions about values. Sure, your brain state WILL have an effect on how you behave. Sure, our physical bodies predispose us for certain path. Aggressiveness can be inherited. But aggressiveness can be, how shall we say it, “sublimated”, channel by parents, teachers and even the child’s other natural needs as well. In any case, unconscious facts about a person, such as drives and natural tendencies perhaps give an aim to a person, but it is our motives which give it an object. Does that mean that a person is absolutely responsible for his actions, for his thoughts about his motives? No, but close enough to play the praise/blame game. Is every preceding event that cause of the conjoined following event? No, but close enough to make empiricism workable. Are there straight lines in nature, perfect circles etc? No but close enough to make astronomy work.

— All actions are reactions to unintentional states: the existence of intention must ultimately be unintended (as you yourself said in your first post, “That one has the ‘will’, to assume this freedom, is only an effect of causes that are not willed, for which we were not free”).
O- I was interested in presenting Nietzsche’s views on the matter. For me, to say that “All actions are reactions to unintentional states” speak of a certainty that has no basis other than faith. “All”, as without exception and unconditional, is beyond the grasp of a finite mind. I don’t know any “all”. The brain, in whatever state is unintended. But it brings about the “you” from which intention can develop. Meat has no intention. Atoms have no intentions. It is the representational “you” or “I” that has that capacity. What goes on in the eyes of the “I” affect, for example, the regions of the brain that are active. During prayer, what you think you are doing, that is talking to someone, activate the regions of the brain associated with speaking to another person. Sociability is our predisposition, but it is faith that gives us the Other with whom we socialize. Thinking about something dangerous provokes a reaction in our brain and in our bodies. The “I” is affected by the health of the brain, it’s recall ability, sure, but the “I” is there in part to form conclusions and judgments, not according to the brain, or some tyrant drive, but according to stimuli and memory, which is all “we” really “are”.

— I don’t think murder is inherently wrong simply by its consequence, by the way.
O- Is it wrong at all in your view?

— “Let us dwell a moment on this symptom of highest culture—I call it the pessimism of strength. […]
In such a state it is precisely the good that needs ‘justifying,’ i.e., it must be founded in evil and danger or involve some great stupidity: then it still pleases. […] If he [man] in praxi advocates the preservation of virtue, he does it for reasons that recognize in virtue a subtlety, a cunning, a form of lust for gain and power.
This pessimism of strength also ends in a theodicy, i.e., in an absolute affirmation of the world—but for the very reasons that formerly led one to deny it—and in this fashion to a conception of this world as the actually-achieved highest possible ideal.” (Source: Nietzsche, The Will to Power, section 1019; Kaufman translation.)
O- I would not call it “pessimism” if from it one gains the “conception of this world as the actually-achieved highest possible ideal.”