Beyond Good and Evil

 

In carefully reading the opening passages of Friedrich Nietzsche's signature book of ethics, Beyond Good and Evil (1886), I'm struck by how much it's rambling and incoherent. Nietzsche seems to be a poor thinker and writer. He wanders and stumbles all over the place, expressing himself in a kind of almost-random, childish babble. Or, at the least, he engages in a lot of deliberately opaque, self-indulgent abuse of the reader. Anyone who extensively reads his loose, confused, contradictory, foolish speculation possibly gets what he deserves.

The book starts off with: "The Will to Truth, which is to tempt us to many a hazardous enterprise, the famous Truthfulness of which all philosophers have hitherto spoken with respect, what questions has this Will to Truth not laid before us!" This ungrammatically takes us in at least four dubious directions at once. And the next sentences and paragraphs don't get any better.

Still, Nietzsche seems justified in showing contempt for almost all philosophers who came before him. He disdainfully refers to them as "metaphysicians" [sections 2 and 6] and says they insincerely, vainly pursue "a cold, pure, divinely indifferent dialectic". [5]  Nietzsche says "philosophers are insufficiently skeptical" [2], and are more engaged in "autobiography" [6] than a disinterested pursuit of the truth – even tho he sees truth-seeking as itself a dubious activity. [1]

Nietzsche seems to especially despise Immanuel Kant and Georg Hegel – the two most illiberal philosophers ever. He impugns the "Tartuffery" of Kant, the possibly nonexistent "antitheses" of Hegel, and even the "hocus-pocus" of Baruch Spinoza [5] – which all seems deserved. Nietzsche calls Kant’s categorical imperative "mislead[ing]" and says his "synthetic judgments a priori" are "the falsest opinions" of all. [4] He says Hegel is "worse than a fool". [2]

So Nietzsche does take down some bad guys! But does he replace their many false and evil ideas with some solidly true and good ones? Not really.

Nietzsche never even gets close to the philosophy of liberalism. His respect for and adherence to the basic concepts and ideals of reason, science, naturalism, objectivism, individualism, and self-interest are medium and inconsistent at best. To begin with, Nietzsche confidently and unthinkingly damns "selfishness" and "cupidity" repeatedly. [2]

Nietzsche says "I do not believe that an 'impulse to truth' is the father of philosophy". [6] Moreover, he claims no philosopher really has a "Will to Truth" and seeks it without prejudice. [5] He says most philosophy is based upon "instincts" and "physiological demands". [3] Nietzsche displays his own lack of "Will to Truth" by almost bragging that "The falseness of an opinion is not for [me] any objection to it," because far more important is whether that "opinion is life-furthering, life-preserving, species-preserving, perhaps species-rearing". [4] But this opposition of truth-seeking and flourishment-seeking is a serious philosophical error leading to pain and misery for individuals and society. People can't skip over the truth-seeking part of life, as Nietzsche claims, and substitute for it ignorance, uncertainty, and lies. [1]

When it comes to metaphysical reality, Nietzsche rejects "the purely IMAGINED world of the absolute and immutable" [4], which is his rather poor description of the whole universe. He calls reality "transitory, seductive, illusory, paltry." [2] Nietzsche wildly claims that "without a constant counterfeiting of the world...man could not live." [4] He admits that "Granted that we want the truth: [but] WHY NOT RATHER untruth? Uncertainty? Even ignorance?" [1] He even argues that "the renunciation of false opinion would be a renunciation of life, a negation of life." [4] Horrifyingly, Nietzsche wants us "TO RECOGNIZE UNTRUTH AS A CONDITION OF LIFE." [4]

Early on Nietzsche compliments himself on his intellectual bravery and admits that his philosophy rejects "the traditional ideas of value" and that any such "philosophy which ventures to do" this is "beyond good and evil." [4] But, in fact, any such irrational belief-system is merely false and evil – not above and beyond these concepts.

Nietzsche condemns philosophers in general, arguing "there is not enough honest dealing in them" [5] and notes "How malicious philosophers can be!" [7] and says their ideas really constitute the "masquerade of a sickly recluse". [5] But all of these descriptions apply to Nietzsche most of all.

It’s especially sad to read Nietzsche condemn the liberal philosopher Epicurus in favor of the illiberal Plato. [7] Epicurus evidently called Plato and the Platonists, "flatterers of Dionysius", which strikes me as quite insightful. But Nietzsche says Epicurus wrote his anti-Platonic material "perhaps out of rage and ambitious envy of Plato." [7] Nietzsche even insults Epicurus by calling him a "garden-god". [7]

In the end, Nietzsche seems way off in most of what he claims at the beginning of his book of ethics. He’s clearly massively illiberal. Still, Nietzsche and his book are famous and well-regarded, so they're possibly still worth reading; thus, I plan to check him out a bit more.