. Tie “problem of value” . . . . . . . . . Ruthless skepticism Genealogical method Some key themes . Ruthless skepticism Genealogical method Tie “problem of value” Evaluative critiques of values Application: Cruelty, bad conscience, guilt Against nihilism / Alex Silk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Nietzsche on human nature and what to do about it
. Tie so-called ‘experiences’ . . . . . . . Ruthless skepticism Genealogical method Tie “problem of value” Non-transparency of attitudes/motives “We are unknown to ourselves , we knowers — and with good reason… , — who of us ever has enough seriousness for . them? or enough time? I fear we have never really been ‘with it’ in such matters: our heart is simply not in it — and not even our ear! On the contrary, like somebody divinely absent-minded and sunk in his own thoughts… we, too, afuerwards rub our ears and ask, astonished, taken aback, ‘What did we actually experience then?’ or even, ‘Who are we, in fact?’ … [W]e remain strangers to ourselves our of necessity, we do not understand ourselves… [W]e are not ‘knowers’ when it comes to ourselves…” ( On the Genealogy of Morality , P:) / Alex Silk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Nietzsche on human nature and what to do about it
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ruthless skepticism Genealogical method Tie “problem of value” Response: Ruthless questioning We must question even our deepest, most central values. Perhaps we’ll come to endorse them upon further refmection. But we must be prepared to reject them if they prove to be based on a false or unhealthy conception of the world. / Alex Silk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Nietzsche on human nature and what to do about it
. conscience … To the great majority it is not contemptible to believe this . . . . . . . Ruthless skepticism Genealogical method Tie “problem of value” Response: Ruthless questioning “ Intellectual conscience . — … Tie great majority lacks an intellectual or that and to live accordingly without fjrst becoming aware of the fjnal . and most certain reasons pro and con, and without even troubling themselves about such reasons afuerwards.” ( Tie Gay Science , §) “[O]bjectivity” is “ having in our power the ability to control one’s Pros and Cons and to dispose of them, so that one knows how to employ a variety of perspectives and afgective interpretations in the service of knowledge… [T]he more afgects we allow to speak about one thing, the more eyes, difgerent eyes, we can use to observe one thing, the more complete will our… ‘objectivity,’ be.” ( On the Genealogy of Morality , III:) / Alex Silk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Nietzsche on human nature and what to do about it
. Tie truth about ourselves and the world may be ugly. We may not like . . . . . . . . Ruthless skepticism Genealogical method Tie “problem of value” Response: Ruthless questioning (cont’d) what we see. Tie pursuit of truth requires strength of will and . intellectual honesty : “A very popular error: having the courage of one’s convictions; rather it is a matter of having the courage for an attack on one’s convictions !” (Note, Spring ) It is “the desire for certainty… which separates the higher human beings from the lower!” ( Tie Gay Science , §). It’s a measure of strength how much “terrible insight into reality” one can bear and affjrm: “Error… is not blindness, error is cowardice .” Nietzsche’s human exemplar “conceives reality as it is , being strong enough to do so.” ( Ecce Homo , Z:, P:, IV:) / Alex Silk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Nietzsche on human nature and what to do about it
. fault, it seems to me, is not necessarily mine. It is clear enough, . . . . . . . Ruthless skepticism Genealogical method Tie “problem of value” Hazards “If this book is incomprehensible to anyone and jars on his ears, the assuming, as I do assume, that one has fjrst read my earlier writings and . has not spared some trouble in doing so: for they are, indeed, not easy to penetrate.” ( On the Genealogy of Morality , P:) “[I]n the midst of an age of ‘work’ , that is to say, of hurry, of indecent and perspiring haste, which wants to ‘get everything done’ at once, including every old or new book: — this art [of reading well] does not so easily get anything done, it teaches to read well, that is to say, to read slowly, deeply, looking cautiously before and afu, with reservations, with doors lefu open, with delicate eyes and fjngers… My patient friends, this book desires for itself only perfect readers and philologists: learn to read me well!” ( Daybreak , P:) / Alex Silk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Nietzsche on human nature and what to do about it
. Tie “problem of value” . . . . . . . . . Ruthless skepticism Genealogical method Some key themes . Ruthless skepticism Genealogical method Tie “problem of value” Evaluative critiques of values Application: Cruelty, bad conscience, guilt Against nihilism / Alex Silk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Nietzsche on human nature and what to do about it
. Genealogical method . . . . . . . . . . Ruthless skepticism Tie “problem of value” . Method of “genealogy” Methodological naturalism: Philosophical inquiry — e.g., philosophical investigation of our moral beliefs — should be continuous with empirical scientifjc inquiry. Our philosophical conclusions should be supported by, or at least consistent with, the fjndings in our best sciences. Philosophical strategy: use the scientifjcally informed truths about the psychological (sociocultural, historical) origins of our beliefs/attitudes/values as a basis for philosophically critiquing them / Alex Silk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Nietzsche on human nature and what to do about it
. Tie “problem of value” . . . . . . . . . Ruthless skepticism Genealogical method Against “hypothesis mongering” . “My real concern is something much more important than hypothesis-mongering, whether my own or other people’s, on the origin of morality… What is at stake is the value of morality.” ( Genealogy , P:) Two components: empirical/scientifjc and normative/evaluative Tie empirical inquiry into the naturalist origins of (e.g.) our moral practices/attitudes is in the service of “much more important” philosophical ends. Tie ultimate goal is constructive : discerning what to value, how to live, what kind of person to be, and why. (not necessarily “debunking”) / Alex Silk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Nietzsche on human nature and what to do about it
. Application: Cruelty, bad conscience, guilt . . . . . . . . Ruthless skepticism Genealogical method Tie “problem of value” Evaluative critiques of values Against nihilism . Some key themes Ruthless skepticism Genealogical method Tie “problem of value” Evaluative critiques of values Application: Cruelty, bad conscience, guilt Against nihilism / Alex Silk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Nietzsche on human nature and what to do about it
. all question; one has hitherto never doubted or hesitated in the slightest . . . . . Ruthless skepticism Genealogical method Tie “problem of value” Evaluative critiques of values Application: Cruelty, bad conscience, guilt Against nihilism Questioning our core values and commitments “One has taken the value of these ‘values’ as given, as factual, as beyond degree in supposing ‘the good man’ to be of greater value than ‘the evil . man,’ of greater value in the sense of furthering the advancement and prosperity of man in general (the future of man included). But what if the opposite were true?” “What was especially at stake was the value of the ‘unegoistic,’ the instincts of pity, self-abnegation, self-sacrifjce… on the basis of which [traditional morality] said No to life… It was precisely here that I saw the great danger to mankind… the will turning against life… I understood the ever spreading morality of pity… as the most sinister symptom of a European culture that had itself become sinister, perhaps as its by-pass to… — nihilism ?” ( Genealogy , P:, ) / Alex Silk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Nietzsche on human nature and what to do about it
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