I would not have replied but I felt a worried this great subject matter may go wandering alone down the rabbit hole and so I will give my two very brief cents on the subject.

Ressentiment could also backfire; someone who becomes conscious of or identifies their frustration with their environment does not necessarily reach a capacity to challenge the 'Master' and this failure enables a 'spiritual hate' or a hatred of himself for this subjective emasculation that he feels due to his powerlessness. He is left with a choice; to revolt against the conditions that have caused his frustrations through philosophical creativity, or a nihilistic attempt to ignore the emasculation by empowering his ego with vicious, political games.

Likewise, in return, I would like to ask you what is strength? Is strength being able to defeat an enemy with a sword or is it being able to turn the other cheek?

Is strength being able to defeat an enemy with a sword or is it being able to turn the other cheek? — TimeLine

'Turning the other cheek' is 'slave mentality' for Nietsche.

I mean, you've only got so many cheeks though...

'Turning the other cheek' is 'slave mentality' for Nietsche. — Wayfarer

This is such a misreading :-d - in fact quite the contrary, for Nietzsche taking the sword and cutting their head off is slave morality based on ressentiment.

And I'm saying this even though I disagree with Nietzsche on this point. Turning the other cheek is right in some circumstances, and taking the sword is right in others (for example Jesus using a whip to drive out the money changers from the temple). Strength is being able to execute the right option.

Obviously both of those things take strength though, just different kinds, and certainly to different degrees for different people. It, I would imagine be easier for a confrontation averse person to turn the other cheek than a confrontational person. Similarly it will take more strength for the confrontation averse person to be aggressive and confrontational than for the person that's go-to is already there.

I don't think that you can tell everyone the same things. Some people need to slow down, other speed up, some shut up, others speak up, some turn the other cheek, others pick up the sword.

"Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword." - Jebus.

One thing to note is that no particular action is representative of master or slave morality. A master is not one who notes what are the masterly actions and performs said actions, as a slave is not one who asks what it is a slave does and then does the things which slaves do.

Master morality and slave morality cannot be deduced from the act alone. One could crush their enemies as either a master or a slave, and one can turn the other cheek as either a master or a slave.

My favorite example for master/slave morality is giving to the poor -- a master gives to the poor out noble emotions like magnanimity and to display power. A slave gives to the poor out of ignoble emotions like guilt in order to fulfill some code of goodness set before them.


I'm just noting this because it makes no sense to say whether this or that action is always a master or a slave action. This way of thinking, at least according to my understanding of N., is to still be thinking "within" good or evil, as the clear analogue here is that master=good, and slave=evil when we say this or that action is a master/slave action.



I'm not sure if I'd count or not as the target of the OP, but I'd say I don't believe I'm beyond good and evil, though I have doubts, at least, about the self -- depending on what we mean, etc. etc.

So... nobody responded to the OP. Cool.

So...no subject, no moral responsibility and no valid reason for resentment? The salient point, then. seems to be whether there can be valid, or only invalid (in terms of envy, say), reasons for resentment. If there can be valid reasons for resentment, then, would it not follow that no one can be justifiably thought to be beyond good and evil?

It's hard to say whether I'd qualify as a self-anti-realist, so it's difficult to say much more than I've already said to the OP. I am skeptic-lite about the self -- in the sense that maybe there exists such a thing, but I wouldn't be able to say how I could know such a thing, and furthmore that a sense of oneself does seem to develop out of social circumstances more than out of finding some truth about yourself -- so there are reasons for doubt, at least, that there is some ontological entity which is "the self"

But I would not say I am beyond good and evil at all, in spite of that. In fact I don't know if I could connect the two notions. It seems to me that I could both have a self or not have a self and yet either be beyond good and evil or not. While there is this notion of creating oneself, like a work of art, in Nietzsche -- and I agree where you say that N pretty much says that those who do this are strong -- I'd also say that this notion of his is different from his stance on morality. It seems to me that the former is more prescriptive in N than the latter.

So...no subject, no moral responsibility and no valid reason for resentment? — John

I think it's that they all go together. So imagine there's some group that's dominant and in a position to run rough shod over others. Let's say it's Australia. Resentment splits the real Australia from some ideal (I guess) version that is nice and friendly. The ideal Australia never commits atrocities (apparently for the fun of it or to make Australians feel less impotent).

Nietzsche is saying this ideal Australia doesn't exist. The real Australia's hostile actions are completely in line with its nature. It's a predator. It does what predatory creatures do. Think of it as a force of nature and there's nothing to resent (as there's nothing to resent about a volcano or thunderstorm).

So a person who has resentment can't be a self-antirealist without being in contradiction. Does that make sense?

But I would not say I am beyond good and evil at all, — Moliere

What is morality to you? Is it more about ought statements? Or about guilt, sin, and redemption?

Nietzsche's central argument for anti-realism about value is explanatory: moral facts don't figure in the “best explanation” of experience, and so are not real constituents of the objective world. Moral values, in short, can be “explained away.” Such a conclusion follows from Nietzsche's naturalism (on the latter, see the competing accounts in Janaway 2007 and Leiter 2013). As we saw in the context of Nietzsche's critique of morality, Nietzsche thinks a person's moral beliefs can be explained in naturalistic terms, i.e., in terms of type-facts about that person. Thus, to explain a person's moral judgments, one needn't appeal to the existence of objective moral facts: psycho-physical facts about the person suffice. Thus, since non-evaluative type-facts are the primary explanatory facts, and since explanatory power is the mark of objective facts, it appears that there cannot be any value facts. Moral judgments and evaluations are “images” and “fantasies,” says Nietzsche, the mere effects of type-facts about agents (D 119). — Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Nietzsche's Moral and Political Philosophy, by David Papineau

Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Nietzsche's Moral and Political Philosophy: 3.2 Nietzsche's Anti-Realism

The “inner world” is full of phantoms…: the will is one of them. The will no longer moves anything, hence does not explain anything either — it merely accompanies events; it can also be absent. The so-called motive: another error. Merely a surface phenomenon of consciousness — something alongside the deed that is more likely to cover up the antecedents of the deeds than to represent them….

What follows from this? There are no mental [geistigen] causes at all. (TI VI:3) — Nietzsche

This is over my head by it sounds like N. is arguing that free will is an illusion.

Apparently I was adding to my initial response just as you were responding to it. I can't continue right now (work beckons), but I will later. :)

Yes. And it's something Schopenhauer talked about.. that determinism alleviates anger (he tended to be a fearsomely angry person).

Oh cool. Thanks for responding!

But Nietzsche himself seems trapped in ressentiment, shadowed by his own father's convictions, or why would he so have it in for gentle Jesus meek and mild?

In politics it's a perennial problem of nationalism, what are we for once we win our nation state? What then for Slovakia, or America First? Then I agree with N, there is a terrible vacuity to the slave morality, what will it find of value beyond the overthrow of the supposed Master?

But then, isn't there in what N says a strange yearning for the irretrievable noble, the knightly, like Raymond Chandler novels? I bring you, the Uber Detective who knows all, but has barely a personal answer.

But Nietzsche himself seems trapped in ressentiment, shadowed by his own father's convictions, or why would he so have it in for gentle Jesus meek and mild? — mcdoodle

What were his father's convictions? My speculation has been that it was a massive emotional response to Schopenhauer's pessimism. But that can't be all..

Then I agree with N, there is a terrible vacuity to the slave morality, what will it find of value beyond the overthrow of the supposed Master? — mcdoodle

You nailed Nietzsche's view of it... that resentment is reactive. It's not a type of life that arises from within and expresses outward. It only responds to outward stimulation with "NO!"

But then, isn't there in what N says a strange yearning for the irretrievable noble, the knightly, like Raymond Chandler novels? I bring you, the Uber Detective who knows all, but has barely a personal answer. — mcdoodle

Could be. There's something about the way he says "blonde beast" that doesn't seem particularly romantic. I wish I could read it in German.

My speculation has been that it was a massive emotional response to Schopenhauer's pessimism — Mongrel

Schopenhauer's flute playing pessimism? :D

Uh.. don't know about that.

Uh.. don't know about that. — Mongrel

Schopenhauer lived a great life I think, all things considered. Definitely a life worth living.

I agree. He's my favorite philosopher.

I agree. He's my favorite philosopher. — Mongrel

Are you a flute playing pessimist? :-}

I did play the flute, but I gave it to my cousin.

I did play the flute, but I gave it to my cousin. — Mongrel

And were you also a pessimist while playing the flute? :P

Some other thread?

What is morality to you? Is it more about ought statements? Or about guilt, sin, and redemption? — Mongrel

For me, personally?

There's an interpretation of Nietzsche that I feel is applicable here, actually. In Thus Spoke... the section titled On the Three Metamorpheses can be interpretted as stating the journey of one's relationship to moral codes with the death of God in mind: From camel, to lion, to baby. Initially one saddles themselves with principles and desires to take said principles to their limit, as a camel carries a load. Then one rebels against said code and wishes to destroy the master, thereby becoming your own master, as a lion. And then the lion gives way to the baby, because the lion is still defined by the initial code -- only in opposition or rejection. The baby, on the other hand, is entirely innocent and creative of moral codes.

At least when it comes to morality in general I'd say I often feel like the baby, but without any project to create -- merely uncertain.

In particular, though, I'd say I'm more eclectic than anything. It seems to me that guilt, sin, and redemption is a perfectly good way of looking at morality, in certain circumstances, but not in all. I have, before, defended ought-statements as a basis for morality, but I'm less inclined to that line of thinking anymore. These days I mostly think of morality in one of three ways: good character, what is just, and hedonism. And I find that each way of thinking tends to conflict, in some respect, with each other. But these are the more specific topics in moral philosophy that I'm interested in because they all seem relevant to what I'd say is moral, in spite of that conflict. In fact, were I to feel more confident in this approach, I'd probably adopt the thesis that these are moral because of their conflict -- where each one mediates the others into a golden mean of goodness. But, since you're asking personally, it wouldn't be honest to what I actually feel.

Risking a cross-post here:

I tend to associate the phrase "beyond good and evil" with a kind of morality which comes after good and evil which N seems to reach for. While Nietzsche has some particular suggestions to go to this beyond, I'd say that this new morality isn't something which exists. To be in that "beyond" is to be an uber-mensch, or at least to have been one -- as the uber-mensch not only overcomes good and evil, but also themselves. To worry about master morality or slave morality, to pursue one over the other, is to fall back into thinking in terms of good and evil. Though God is dead and these terms can offer us no help in sorting the good from the bad because of his murder, we do, in fact, think of certain actions, thoughts, etc. etc. as good or evil in spite of this.

Or, at least, this is one way of looking at it. But I'm putting this here as for the reason why I'd say that I am not beyond good and evil -- I certainly think some things are good and some things are evil. These are terms which, while I would rarely use them, do work in certain circumstances. I don't have to have an explanation -- i.e. God -- for the reason why they work, I just know that they do and they are appropriate terms at times.

Nietzsche is saying this ideal Australia doesn't exist. The real Australia's hostile actions are completely in line with its nature. It's a predator. It does what predatory creatures do. Think of it as a force of nature and there's nothing to resent (as there's nothing to resent about a volcano or thunderstorm).

So a person who has resentment can't be a self-antirealist without being in contradiction. Does that make sense? — Mongrel

I agree. I think that people are incapable of thinking of nations or individuals as 'forces of nature' and they inevitably hold attitudes of blame for, and anger and desire for revenge on account of, actions that they think have injured them or their loved ones, their interests or even the interests of their society. It would not make sense to want to blame the earthquake or the shark that took the life of someone close to me, as it does to blame a person that does the same.

All of this presupposes that we impute the existence of a morally responsible self to others.

It's important to remember though that Nietzsche coupled his rejection of the self ("self-antirealism") to a realism about drives or impulses that swarm within us and which are the true subjects of 'decisions': "a single individual contains within him a vast confusion of contradictory valuations and consequently of contradictory drives"; “Every drive is a kind of lust to rule ... each one has its perspective that it would like to compel all the other drives to accept as a norm." Consequently, any 'action' is a kind of precipitation of a 'victorious drive':

"The I is not the attitude of one being to several (drives, thoughts, etc) but the ego is a plurality of personlike forces, of which now this one now that one stands in the foreground as ego and regards the others as a subject regards an influential and determining external world ... Within ourselves we can also be egoistic or altruistic, hard-hearted, magnanimous, just, lenient, insincere, can cause pain or give pleasure: as the drives are in conflict, the feeling of the I is always strongest where the preponderance is".

Elsewhere: "However far we may drive our self-knowledge, nothing can be more incomplete than the image of the totality of drives that constitute our being. We can scarcely even name the cruder ones: their number and strength, their ebb and flood, their play and counter-play, and above all the laws of their nourishment remain quite unknown to us. their nourishment is thus a matter of chance: our daily experiences throw a piece of prey now to this drive, now to that one, which they seize greedily, but the entire coming and going of these events does not stand in any rational relation to the nutritional requirements of the drives as a whole, with the result that some of them are starved and waste away, with others are overfed".

Ressentiment stems from treating these drives as both unified and cohesive, rather than as the medley of contradictions that they are. To be beyond good and evil, consequently, is to refuse to impart intentionality or calculated action of behalf of the subject, recognizing instead a kind of innocence of the drives, a refusal of to 'hold action against the subject' (which was never 'a' subject to begin with), in the form of a moral debt (of which the 'original sin' is a model of). I definitely think that this is a far more attractive model of ethics than the Christian one that Nietzsche is attacking, but I wonder if the insular/aristocratic alternative that Nietzsche presents is sustainable today. Rather than looking 'inward' at the multiplicity of drives, perhaps looking 'outwards', towards a kind of virtuous community is more amenable to today's interconnected, globalized world.

Thanks. I'll have to figure out how to square that with what he says in Geneology of Morals. Good reminder that N has a cultural frame which includes Freud and Darwin.

When N talks about aristocrats, he means military. Someday, when the US descends into social breakdown, the military will take over the country and that entity would be the "aristocrat" N is talking about.