Spring 2000 Cyberseminar in Objectivist Studies
Nietzsche and Objectivism

Unit One: January 31 - February 20

Christopher Robinson's Comment on
Diana Mertz Hsieh's "Birds of Prey"
Freedom of the Will and the Value of Genealogy
In Friedrich Nietzsche's
Geneology of Morals and Beyond Good and Evil

To: TOC Cyberseminar <cybersem@objectivistcenter.org>

Sent: Thursday, February 24, 2000 9:20 AM

Subject: Cyberseminar: CR Pt. 1 Commentary on Diana Hsieh

[From: Christopher A Robinson ]

Commentary on Diana Hsieh


Diana Hsieh criticizes Nietzsche's genealogical method because it does
not start with the right questions, because it is not "likely to be
fruitful," and because it produces "just-so" stories. It could be further
argued that it does not address the rightness or wrongness of certain
moral actions. I think that these objections are, in some sense,
misplaced.

According to W. T. Jones (1975), one can understand a lot about
Nietzsche's thought by reflecting on his experience as a philologist. A
philologist studies words and texts; they try to determine original
meanings of words, or try to construct textual autographs. One other
aspect of philology is important in this context: the philologist assumes
the existence of words and texts.

Just as evolution really makes no claims about the ultimate origin of
life, the philologist makes no claims about the origins of words. Both
groups take their subject matter as given and seek to determine how
organisms, or words, change over time. So, I agree with Diana and others
that Nietzsche and Rand's fundamental questions are different. Nietzsche
was concerned with the original referents of moral terms-such as whether
they referred to the person or the action. Rand's question, by contrast,
was why we have moral terms at all. Nietzsche's question is "what is the
original meaning of this word or form of this text?" By analogy, Rand's
question would be "why do we have words and texts?"

While it might be better to begin moral theorizing with a question more
similar to Rand's, I do not think that Nietzsche's method to separate
subject from content is inherently less fruitful than Rand's. Indeed,
Nietzsche's method can lead one to Rand's question.

The historical method can reveal similarities as well as differences in
different moralities. For example, one might observe that different
moralities appear to serve different purposes (e.g., preparing one to
live in this world versus another), have different circumstances in which
they are applicable (e.g., a morality may only apply to how one treats
others in one's group), and focus on different aspects of a situation
(e.g., on intention versus effect, or on the actor versus the action).
When we find these differences, we can then check the premises of each to
determine which better represents moral fundamentals. If we find that
different moral codes hold different actions as the good, we are then
forced to be clearer about what we mean by the good. Instead of
pontificating that this or that is obviously good, we would be forced to
say "This is good, _because_ . . ."

Even if we found commonalties across different moralities, Nietzsche's
method would still be of value. If we found that every single moral
theory assumed that un-egotistic actions were the standard of the good,
for instance, then we could either simply say, "This is common to all,"
or we could ask, "Why is this common to all?" Alternatively, we could
observe the similarities and say, "Moral actions must be un-egotistic,"
or we could ask, "Must moral actions be un-egotistic?"

There are downsides to the historical method. I think that two of the
biggest problems are that knowing history does not always tell us why
something is that way now, and knowing history does not give us any
insight to whether something really is good. In the above example, we may
find that many people ultimately defend their moral code by referencing
some deity or another, but that alone does not tell us about the goodness
of the action (it may, however, reveal differences in how people defend
moral prescriptions).

Since Nietzsche was a philologist, perhaps a philological example might
make this point clearer. The modern day English meaning of the word
"anathema" is something that is detested. Etymological research, however,
reveals that the word actually used to refer to the choicest things that
one gave the gods in offering. So, the meaning of this word now is the
opposite of its original meaning. Although one could, I believe,
construct a plausible "just-so" story to explain this change, the point
here is that the etymological consideration did not greatly elucidate the
present day meaning of anathema; to see the point, realize that, without
any difficulty, anathema could still refer to the choice things given to
the gods.

In sum, I think that Nietzsche's method has benefits and drawbacks.
Although the historical method is not directly concerned with the purpose
of morality, or of words, this line of reasoning does ultimately nestle
up against questions about purpose or origin and provides some fodder
with which one begin considering the purpose or moral terms.

[Christopher Robinson]


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Spring 2000 Cyberseminar in Objectivist Studies
cybersem@objectivistcenter.org

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