Nietzsche: Instantaneous becoming or autonomy?

[Fent]

Okay, I know, it’s another Nietzsche thread. However, there’s some contradictions that really need sorting out. Is Nietzsche a believer in “instantaneous becoming” or is there space for autonomy?

The following is section 21 from Beyond Good and Evil where he argues against free will and unfree will, but not only does he argue against them, he wants them completely out of our heads as a way to understand our behaviour.Instead, all that exists is strong and weak wills, which, if I am interpreting this section properly, means that all behaviour is only a symptom of a strong or weak will. Additionally, Nietzsche seems to point here to something like “instananeous becoming”, which, seems to be the gist of the first chapter of BGE, that all instincts, drives, thoughts, arise spontaneously, and not by conscious choice.

The CAUSA SUI is the best self-contradiction that has yet been conceived, it is a sort of logical violation and unnaturalness; but the extravagant pride of man has managed to entangle itself profoundly and frightfully with this very folly. The desire for “freedom of will” in the superlative, metaphysical sense, such as still holds sway, unfortunately, in the minds of the half-educated, the desire to bear the entire and ultimate responsibility for one’s actions oneself, and to absolve God, the world, ancestors, chance, and society therefrom, involves nothing less than to be precisely this CAUSA SUI, and, with more than Munchausen daring, to pull oneself up into existence by the hair, out of the slough of nothingness. If any one should find out in this manner the crass stupidity of the celebrated conception of “free will” and put it out of his head altogether, I beg of him to carry his “enlightenment” a step further, and also put out of his head the contrary of this monstrous conception of “free will”: I mean “non-free will,” which is tantamount to a misuse of cause and effect. One should not wrongly MATERIALISE “cause” and “effect,” as the natural philosophers do (and whoever like them naturalize in thinking at present), according to the prevailing mechanical doltishness which makes the cause press and push until it “effects” its end; one should use “cause” and “effect” only as pure CONCEPTIONS, that is to say, as conventional fictions for the purpose of designation and mutual understanding,–NOT for explanation. In “being-in-itself” there is nothing of “casual- connection,” of “necessity,” or of “psychological non-freedom”; there the effect does NOT follow the cause, there “law” does not obtain. It is WE alone who have devised cause, sequence, reciprocity, relativity, constraint, number, law, freedom, motive, and purpose; and when we interpret and intermix this symbol-world, as “being-in-itself,” with things, we act once more as we have always acted–MYTHOLOGICALLY. The “non-free will” is mythology; in real life it is only a question of STRONG and WEAK wills.–It is almost always a symptom of what is lacking in himself, when a thinker, in every “causal-connection” and “psychological necessity,” manifests something of compulsion, indigence, obsequiousness, oppression, and non-freedom; it is suspicious to have such feelings–the person betrays himself. And in general, if I have observed correctly, the “non-freedom of the will” is regarded as a problem from two entirely opposite standpoints, but always in a profoundly PERSONAL manner: some will not give up their “responsibility,” their belief in THEMSELVES, the personal right to THEIR merits, at any price (the vain races belong to this class); others on the contrary, do not wish to be answerable for anything, or blamed for anything, and owing to an inward self-contempt, seek to GET OUT OF THE BUSINESS, no matter how. The latter, when they write books, are in the habit at present of taking the side of criminals; a sort of socialistic sympathy is their favourite disguise. And as a matter of fact, the fatalism of the weak-willed embellishes itself surprisingly when it can pose as “la religion de la souffrance humaine”; that is ITS “good taste.”

This next quote is from Twilight of the Idols: The Fours Great Errors section 4 and 5 which explain how the “causal instinct”, or “cause creating-drive” in the Hollingdale translation, creates causes. This not cause and effect in-itself, but rather a drive that creates explanations from it being excited by feelings of tension, pressure, inhibition, and explosion. By alleviating these feelings, comfort and relief appear, that is, we are given a reason for why we felt or acted as we did, even though it may not be true. Truth then is associated with feelings of pleasure or contentment. What follows is those explanations that become the most popular for causes become habit and eventually truth, which, then, in turn become religions and moralities.

The error of imaginary causes. To begin with dreams: ex post facto, a cause is slipped under a particular sensation (for example, one following a far-off cannon shot)–often a whole little novel in which the dreamer turns up as the protagonist. The sensation endures meanwhile in a kind of resonance: it waits, as it were, until the causal instinct permits it to step into the foreground–now no longer as a chance occurrence, but as “meaning.” The cannon shot appears in a causal mode, in an apparent reversal of time. What is really later, the motivation, is experienced first–often with a hundred details which pass like lightning and the shot follows. What has happened? The representations which were produced by a certain state have been misunderstood as its causes.
In fact, we do the same thing when awake. Most of our general feelings–every kind of inhibition, pressure, tension, and explosion in the play and counterplay of our organs, and particularly the state of the nervus sympaticus–excite our causal instinct: we want to have a reason for feeling this way or that–for feeling bad or for feeling good. We are never satisfied merely to state the fact that we feel this way or that: we admit this fact only–become conscious of it only–when we have furnished some kind of motivation. Memory, which swings into action in such cases, unknown to us, brings up earlier states of the same kind, together with the causal interpretations associated with them–not their real causes. The faith, to be sure, that such representations, such accompanying conscious processes are the causes is also brought forth by memory. Thus originates a habitual acceptance of a particular causal interpretation, which, as a matter of fact, inhibits any investigation into the real cause–even precludes it.

5. The psychological explanation of this. To derive something unknown from something familiar relieves, comforts, and satisfies, besides giving a feeling of power. With the unknown, one is confronted with danger, discomfort, and care; the first instinct is to abolish these painful states. First principle: any explanation is better than none. Since at bottom it is merely a matter of wishing to be rid of oppressive representations, one is not too particular about the means of getting rid of them: the first representation that explains the unknown as familiar feels so good that one “considers it true.” The proof of pleasure (“of strength”) as a criterion of truth.The causal instinct is thus conditional upon, and excited by, the feeling of fear. The “why?” shall, if at all possible, not give the cause for its own sake so much as for a particular kind of cause–a cause that is comforting, liberating, and relieving. That it is something already familiar, experienced, and inscribed in the memory, which is posited as a cause, that is the first consequence of this need. That which is new and strange and has not been experienced before, is excluded as a cause. Thus one searches not only for some kind of explanation to serve as a cause, but for a particularly selected and preferred kind of explanation–that which has most quickly and most frequently abolished the feeling of the strange, new, and hitherto unexperienced: the most habitual explanations. Consequence: one kind of positing of causes predominates more and more, is concentrated into a system and finally emerges as dominant, that is, as simply precluding other causes and explanations. The banker immediately thinks of “business,” the Christian of “sin,” and the girl of her love.

If we notice, Nietzsche, at the tail of the 4th section, doesn’t dismiss the belief that we can know a real cause. Yet Nietzsche will not provide us with evidence of how to do this. The other pertinent point is that Nietzsche’s philosophy of power and nobility become a lie, just like that of the Christians, utilitarians, Romantics, and many others. Unless he thinks he really has access to a “real” cause, kind of like when he insinuates in BGE 21 that there are only weak and strong wills? Are there only weak and strong wills, or is this a Nietzschean noble lie? Which brings us to the next quote from On the Genealogy of Morals essay 2 section 2. This is one of the only sections in his entire corpus where he speaks of autonomy, free will, and responsibility is a positive light, that is, as someone who actually does make promises of how he will act and then carry it out. Also, if we look at the second last sentence in this section, Nietzsche reverses his position of instantaneous becoming and leaves room for behaviour to consciously be made instinctual. So behaviour isn’t just spontaneously arising to the surface, the surface is made to be pushed into the depth of the unconscious, thus giving himself his own directed fate.

Precisely that development is the long history of the origin of responsibility. That task of breeding an animal which is permitted to make promises contains within it, as we have already grasped, as a condition and prerequisite, the more precise task of first making a human being necessarily uniform to some extent, one among others like him, regular and consequently predictable. The immense task involved in this, what I have called the “morality of custom” (cf. Daybreak 9, 14, 16)—the essential work of a man on his own self in the longest-lasting age of the human race, his entire prehistorical work, derives its meaning, its grand justification, from the following point, no matter how much hardship, tyranny, monotony, and idiocy it also manifested: with the help of the morality of custom and the social strait jacket, the human being was made truly predictable. Let’s position ourselves, by contrast, at the end of this immense process, in the place where the tree at last yields its fruit, where society and the morality of custom finally bring to light the end for which they were simply the means: then we find, as the ripest fruit on that tree, the sovereign individual, something which resembles only itself, which has broken loose again from the morality of custom, the autonomous individual beyond morality (for “autonomous” and “moral” are mutually exclusive terms), in short, the human being who possesses his own independent and enduring will, who is entitled to make promises—and in him a consciousness quivering in every muscle, proud of what has finally been achieved and has become a living embodiment in him, a real consciousness of power and freedom, a feeling of completion for human beings generally. This man who has become free, who really is entitled to make promises, this master of free will, this sovereign—how is he not to realize the superiority he enjoys over everything which is not permitted to make a promise and make pledges on its own behalf, knowing how much trust, how much fear, and how much respect he creates—he “is worthy” of all three—and how, with this mastery over himself, he has necessarily been given in addition mastery over his circumstances, over nature, and over all less reliable creatures with a shorter will? The “free” man, the owner of an enduring unbreakable will, by possessing this, also acquires his own standard of value: he looks out from himself at others and confers respect or contempt. And just as it will be necessary for him to honour those like him, the strong and dependable (who are entitled to make promises)—in other words, everyone who makes promises like a sovereign, seriously, rarely, and slowly, who is sparing with his trust, who honours another when he does trust, who gives his word as something reliable, because he knows he is strong enough to remain upright even when opposed by misfortune, even when “opposed by fate”—in just the same way it will be necessary for him to keep his foot ready to kick the scrawny unreliable men, who make promises without being entitled to, and to hold his cane ready for the liar, who breaks his word in the very moment it comes out of his mouth. The proud knowledge of the extraordinary privilege of responsibility, the consciousness of this rare freedom, of this power over oneself and destiny, has become internalized into the deepest parts of him and grown instinctual, has become an instinct, a dominating instinct:—what will he call it, this dominating instinct, assuming that he finds he needs a word for it? There’s no doubt: the sovereign man calls this instinct his conscience.

So does Nietzsche believe in instantaneous becoming, or, does he create space for autonomy?

[Diekon]

@Fent

The proud knowledge of the extraordinary privilege of responsibility, the consciousness of this rare freedom, of this power over oneself and destiny, has become internalized into the deepest parts of him and grown instinctual, has become an instinct, a dominating instinct:—what will he call it, this dominating instinct, assuming that he finds he needs a word for it? There’s no doubt: the sovereign man calls this instinct his conscience.

So does Nietzsche believe in instantaneous becoming, or, does he create space for autonomy?

I think this last part gives us the best indication of how Nietzsche views it. In the end it’s another drive that forms the others and forces them in line.

Is that autonomy? Not in the metaphysical “free-will” sense. He doesn’t choose that dominating drive, it’s that drive that is making or influencing the choices.

But in a world without metaphysics, maybe it’s the closest we can get to some kind of autonomy.

I don’t know exactly what you mean with “instantaneous becoming”, but it wouldn’t the first word i would use to describe his views on the matter.

[Fent]

@Diekon

@Fent

The proud knowledge of the extraordinary privilege of responsibility, the consciousness of this rare freedom, of this power over oneself and destiny, has become internalized into the deepest parts of him and grown instinctual, has become an instinct, a dominating instinct:—what will he call it, this dominating instinct, assuming that he finds he needs a word for it? There’s no doubt: the sovereign man calls this instinct his conscience.

So does Nietzsche believe in instantaneous becoming, or, does he create space for autonomy?

I think this last part gives us the best indication of how Nietzsche views it. In the end it’s another drive that forms the others and forces them in line. Is that autonomy? Not in the metaphysical “free-will” sense. He doesn’t choose that dominating drive, it’s that drive that is making or influencing the choices.But in a world without metaphysics, maybe it’s the closest we can get to some kind of autonomy.

I don’t know exactly what you mean with “instantaneous becoming”, but it wouldn’t the first word i would use to describe his views on the matter.

Okay, this is how I would view it as well, as just another drive. But if it’s just another drive I can’t see how one can be responsible or autonomous. Nietzsche has done away with the ego so, what, then, is doing the decision making? A decision making drive? But wouldn’t that just be another phrase for ego? What does the reflecting on the drives so decisions can be made? A reflecting drive? Again, this is just another term for ego. This section in GM II, 2 contradicts the entire first chapter of BGE and most of Twilight.

What I mean by “instantaneous becoming” is that thoughts, drives, instincts arise when they want to, not when the subject wants them to. The entire first chapter of BGE explains how behaviour is chanelled into certain paths by instincts, and not by conscious thinking. If they can be conjured forth at any time then Nietzsche must reinsert the ego. If instincts cannot be conjured forth at will then we are constantly becoming something beyond our control.

[Diekon]

@Fent

Okay, this is how I would view it as well, as just another drive. But if it’s just another drive I can’t see how one can be responsible or autonomous. Nietzsche has done away with the ego so, what, then, is doing the decision making? A decision making drive? But wouldn’t that just be another phrase for ego? What does the reflecting on the drives so decisions can be made? A reflecting drive? Again, this is just another term for ego. This section in GM II, 2 contradicts the entire first chapter of BGE and most of Twilight.

What I mean by “instantaneous becoming” is that thoughts, drives, instincts arise when they want to, not when the subject wants them to. The entire first chapter of BGE explains how behaviour is chanelled into certain paths by instincts, and not by conscious thinking. If they can be conjured forth at any time then Nietzsche must reinsert the ego. If instincts cannot be conjured forth at will then we are constantly becoming something beyond our control.

“What I mean by “instantaneous becoming” is that thoughts, drives, instincts arise when they want to, not when the subject wants them to.”

Yes, this is also his view, that we do not choose our instincts. But i don’t think he contradicts himself.

If instincts cannot be conjured forth at will then we are constantly becoming something beyond our control.

Who is “our” in this sentence. If by “our” you mean deliberate conscious thought, or something like the ego, then yes “we” become something beyond “our” control. But if will, instincts are part of us, than beyond our control is something else.

What i think helps is some context, or some examples.

Someone with a religious or social instincts will be more prone to following other people’s will, or some group morality, than someone with a strong will who’s sceptical nature can’t help but examen other people’s claims. Both are just following their drives, but we still can say the latter is the more autonomous, can’t we?

[Fent]

Diekon wrote
Someone with a religious or social instincts will be more prone to following other people’s will, or some group morality, than someone with a strong will who’s sceptical nature can’t help but examen other people’s claims. Both are just following their drives, but we still can say the latter is the more autonomous, can’t we?

The latter is more autonomous, but it’s a fated autonomy isn’t it? It’s not something one consciously disciplines oneself to do.
This seems to insinuate, and I believe there is textual support for this, that drives actually contain some form of intelligence.

The misunderstanding of passion and reason, as if the latter were an independent entity and not rather a system of relations between passions and desires; and as if every passion did not possess its quantum of reason (WP 387).

If passions or instincts contain some form of reasoning, meaning, they have a teleology of sorts, then this may get Nietzsche off the hook in regards to the ego problem. Still, Nietzsche looks to be a thoroughgoing determinist here.

[Diekon]

@Fent

Diekon wrote
Someone with a religious or social instincts will be more prone to following other people’s will, or some group morality, than someone with a strong will who’s sceptical nature can’t help but examen other people’s claims. Both are just following their drives, but we still can say the latter is the more autonomous, can’t we?

The latter is more autonomous, but it’s a fated autonomy isn’t it? It’s not something one consciously disciplines oneself to do.

Yes, your quote below from WTP answers this i think. Conscious thoughts will be influenced by passions and desire. So it is possible to conscious discipline oneself… if one has allready has some sort of desire to do so .

The misunderstanding of passion and reason, as if the latter were an independent entity and not rather a system of relations between passions and desires; and as if every passion did not possess its quantum of reason (WP 387).

If passions or instincts contain some form of reasoning, meaning, they have a teleology of sorts, then this may get Nietzsche off the hook in regards to the ego problem. Still, Nietzsche looks to be a thoroughgoing determinist here.

Yes, but the thing with determinism is that is looks at things on a much bigger scale, namely that the whole universe, from the beginning of time is connected in causal chains. I don’t think Nietszsche suscribes to this. There are several passage where he explicitly states he only sees causal relations as usefull descriptions, and not causality as a fundamental law of the universe or something.

He obviously doesn’t deny humans are influenced by outside forces to some extend either. But there is some room for self-determination in his view i think. And sure it will be will doing the self-determining, but that needn’t be a problem if we view will as part of us. It’s only a problem if we are eductated with some notion of a magical ability to also choose our own will ex nihilio.

[Fent]

Deiken wrote
Conscious thoughts will be influenced by passions and desire. So it is possible to conscious discipline oneself… if one has allready has some sort of desire to do so

I am still having problems fathoming how any conscious disciplining can occur without an ego or ‘I’.

If drives contain ‘intelligence’ and subsumes other drives under its aims, then this must all occur on the unconscious level to be rid of the ego problem. Because, if one can consciously discipline one’s drives then there must be an ego or ‘I’ doing it. This also brings in the ‘doer behind the deed’ problem which Nietzsche diproves of. Maybe I am missing something here, but unless drives ordering occurs unconsciously, somehow hard wired into the whole physiological system of the human being, coupled with the requirements that societal interaction demands, I can’t see how he can be rid of the ego.

Conscious ‘intelligent’ drives merely sounds like another term for ego.

[Diekon]

Fent, sorry, i guess i don’t understand what you mean by the ego problem, and why an ego whould be necessary.

Say i have two conflicting desires, one short term and one long term. For instance, I’m hungry and want to go eat something, but i have a meeting with my boss in 5min. The fear of missing the meeting ,and possibly losing my Job, can override the feeling of hunger. This can all happen unconsciously, e.g. it may not even cross my mind to go eat something at that time. Or I may also become conscious of it, think about it, and decide it’s a bad idea to miss the meeting. I’d call the latter a conscious decision, or conscious disciplining of drives… but in the end it’s still a product of unconscious drives.

Where does ego come into the picture here?

[Fent]

@Diekon

Fent, sorry, i guess i don’t understand what you mean by the ego problem, and why an ego whould be necessary.

Say i have two conflicting desires, one short term and one long term. For instance, I’m hungry and want to go eat something, but i have a meeting with my boss in 5min. The fear of missing the meeting ,and possibly losing my Job, can override the feeling of hunger. This can all happen unconsciously, e.g. it may not even cross my mind to go eat something at that time. Or I may also become conscious of it, think about it, and decide it’s a bad idea to miss the meeting. I’d call the latter a conscious decision, or conscious disciplining of drives… but in the end it’s still a product of unconscious drives.

Where does ego come into the picture here?

I guess drives have to be somewhat reasonably ‘intelligent’. If the drive to get to your boss overrides the hunger drive, this means they also contain direction, memory, and also something akin to the ‘bad conscience’. Because if you miss the meeting and you’re fired, which is why you went to the meeting instead of a cafe, then you would feel bad for making the wrong decision. So, basically, to be rid of the ego, each drive itself would have purposeful direction, memory, and a capability of castigating itself or other drives if they do not discharge themselves correctly. It’s also a pertinent point on trying to understand which drives are innate and which have been introjected from without. He speaks of the ‘conscience’ and its development in GM II, but he’s a bit thin on how this interacts with drives. I know he speaks of the ‘internalization’ of instincts that do not discharge themselves outward, but the process of this internalization doesn’t get much expansion.

So, to get to your meeting a decision has to be made, but if Nietzsche gets rid of the ego as decision maker, then all that takes its place is drives which can do work equal to the old ego.

The only real difference I see between Nietzsche’s drives making decisions and the old ego formulation, is that drives stand in time and are strongly influenced by the unconscious drives, whereas the old ego thought it stood apart from the unconscious and was not a slave to time.

[Diekon]

@Fent

I guess drives have to be somewhat reasonably ‘intelligent’. If the drive to get to your boss overrides the hunger drive, this means they also contain direction, memory, and also something akin to the ‘bad conscience’. Because if you miss the meeting and you’re fired, which is why you went to the meeting instead of a cafe, then you would feel bad for making the wrong decision. So, basically, to be rid of the ego, each drive itself would have purposeful direction, memory, and a capability of castigating itself or other drives if they do not discharge themselves correctly. It’s also a pertinent point on trying to understand which drives are innate and which have been introjected from without. He speaks of the ‘conscience’ and its development in GM II, but he’s a bit thin on how this interacts with drives. I know he speaks of the ‘internalization’ of instincts that do not discharge themselves outward, but the process of this internalization doesn’t get much expansion.

So, to get to your meeting a decision has to be made, but if Nietzsche gets rid of the ego as decision maker, then all that takes its place is drives which can do work equal to the old ego.

Well, it’s not exactly only drives instead of the ego. When i’m thinking about missing my meeting, i’m running scenario’s of what could happen if i would miss it. I have an idea of what my boss is like, how he’ll likely react in these situations, what would happen if i lost my job, bills to pay… and i also have emotional reactions to these thoughts.

The only real difference I see between Nietzsche’s drives making decisions and the old ego formulation, is that drives stand in time and are strongly influenced by the unconscious drives, whereas the old ego thought it stood apart from the unconscious and was not a slave to time.

I completely agree with this. I think that’s the key point here, that in his view there’s no clear boundary between unconscious and conscious, and no free isolated ego that decises. They are linked, and it’s a mix of this that will result in decisions.