Nietzsche%20and%20the%20denial%20of%20moral%20truth

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Nietzsche and the denial of moral truth

• Michael Lacewing
• enquiries_at_alevelphilosophy.co.uk

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Nietzsches non-cognitivism

• False belief that value cant have its origins in
  this lowly, deceptive world of desire.
• Consulting our intuitions to justify moral
  principles these justifications are expressions
  of our morality, which has a history.
• most of a philosophers conscious thinking is
  secretly guided and channelled into particular
  tracks by his instincts. Behind all logic, too,
  and its apparent tyranny of movement there are
  value judgements, or to speak more clearly,
  physiological demands for the preservation of a
  particular kind of life. (3)

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Nietzsches non-cognitivism

• all animals, including la bête philosophe the
  philosophical animal, strive instinctively for
  an optimum combination of favourable conditions
  which allow them to expend all their energy and
  achieve their maximum feeling of power (On the
  Genealogy of Morals, III 7)
• There are different types of people, who are
  drawn to the different types of life that suit
  them best, e.g. master/slave
• Different values (and interpretations) support
  different ways of life.
• Philosophical views reflect particular
  interpretations of values.

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Philosophers values

• Philosophy requires contemplation and ascetism.
  Values of transcendental world of mind
  knowledge of truth and goodness are defended as
  superior to values of action.
• This carves out social space and reinforces
  self-discipline.
• The will to truth is an expression of a will
  to power.
• Nothing wrong with this but we should be aware
  that we are seeking to impose values, not
  discover them.

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The will to power

• What is the will to power? Is Nietzsche right
  about it?
• Life is the will to power
• But not all forms of life involve a will
  Nietzsche is projecting psychology onto biology
  (which he criticizes in Schopenhauer)
• Some living things (human beings under the
  ascetic ideal) lack the will to power!

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The will to power

• The will to power is a characteristic of the will
  the basic form of our drives/instincts.
• The nature of a drive is to assert itself.
• For success, it must compete with other drives.
  To achieve expression is for the drive to have
  power.
• Power is not a separate aim of the drives.
• The will to power is present in all willing. But
  it can be strong or weak. It is weak in the
  ascetic ideal.

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Objection

• What force can combat or reduce the will to
  power? What is the origin of despair, decadence,
  etc.?
• Are all motives nothing more than the will to
  power, e.g. love?
• Suggestion Nietzsche approves of those
  understandings and expressions of love, of
  thought that fit with and express the will to
  power, but is not reductivist.

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Nietzsche on physiology

• Nietzsche doesnt understand evolution and
  doesnt distinguish biological from social
  inheritance
• Genetics does not determine psychology, so the
  will to power is not in ones blood.
• Therefore, values are not physiological demands
  for a way of life.

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Will to power and values

• Say yes to will to power saying yes to
  life, and take joy in exercising power
• Naturalistic fallacy? What is natural is not
  necessarily what is good.
• Reply
• without life, valuing is not possible.
• Therefore, any values that deny or impoverish our
  living undermine their own foundations.
• Therefore, the affirmation of life (will to
  power) is the basis of all values.

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Objection

• Equivocation on life
• life as the strong expression of the will to
  power.
• life as a matter of being alive.
• It is the latter, not the former, that makes
  valuing possible. So we can ask why we should
  value the higher form.