I don't think that follows --

if it were arbitrary people could agree insofar that they feel the same.

Yes, and they would feel the same at random, according to arbitrary desires, so we should expect overlap to be roughly random.

So, supposing human desire is "arbitrary," why then have I never seen people slamming their hands in their car door for fun or having competitions to see how much paint they can drink? People tend to do a very narrow range of the things they could possibly do. Why do hot tubs sell so well when digging a hole so you can sit in a pool of muddy, fetid, cold water is so much easier and cheaper? Why is murder and rape illegal everywhere, but nowhere has decided to make pears or bronze illegal? What's with people going through such lengths to inject heroin but no one ever inject barbecue sauce, lemon juice, or motor oil?

Sure seems like a lot of similarity for something arbitrary.

The economy -- these are useful for war, agriculture, production, etc.

So then they aren't desired arbitrarily. Science is pursued because it shows us how to do things, indeed, in a certain sense it makes us free to do things that we otherwise could not. At the same time, you also mention wonder. Science is sought for its own sake.

But I'd argue that the desire for truth and understanding is not properly a passion nor an appetite.

But it seems a popular image, at least -- the Rational Being Controlling Emotion. The Charioteer Guiding. There's a part of the image that I like -- that one is along for the ride -- but the part that I do not like is the idea of a charioteer choosing. Taken literally it's a homuncular fallacy -- we explain the mind by assuming a minded person within the mechanism of the mind.

In his A Secular Age Charles Taylor does a pretty great job tracing this to the Reformation period and the rise of "neo-stoicism" and the idea of the "buffered self." So, the overlap with homuncular or "Cartesian theater" theories is no accident. Yet this is decidedly not how Plato was received when Platonism was particularly dominant. Aside from Taylor, C.S. Lewis's The Discarded Image does a good job capturing the old model of the porous self:

The daemons are 'between' us and the gods not only locally and materially but qualitatively as well. Like the impassible gods, they are immortal: like mortal men, they are passible (xiii). Some of them, before they became daemons, lived in terrestrial bodies; were in fact men. That is why Pompey saw Semidei Manes, demigod-ghosts, in the airy region. But this is not true of all daemons. Some, such as Sleep and Love, were never human. From this class an individual daemon (or genius, the standard Latin translation of daemon) is allotted to each human being as his ' witness and guardian' through life (xvi).It would detain us too long here to trace the steps whereby a man's genius, from being an invisible, personal, and external attendant, became his true self, and then his cast of mind, and finally (among the Romantics) his literary or artistic gifts. To understand this process fully would be to grasp that great movement of internalisation, and that consequent aggrandisement of man and desiccation of the outer universe, in which the psychological history of the West has so largely consisted.

Okay, but how so? What is a counterexample?

People ask not to receive medical treatment all the time. My grandfather, for instance, was told he should undergo open heart surgery at 86, after having lost his wife and being ready for the end of life. It is hardly clear that it would have been to his benefit to spend his last days undergoing grueling, painful treatments to extend his life. And this sort of thing happens all the time.

If a grandmother attempts to save her grandchildren, and will die in the process of successfully rescuing them, it hardly seems clear that this cannot be to her benefit either.

Likewise, if a genie shows up and offers us 100 years of the life of our choice in perfect health, or an indeterminant amount of time (but at least 1,000 years) living in a concentration camp, it's hardly obvious that it's to our benefit to take the latter because it extends our lives.

Now you can say, "but people would like to live longer lives, just not sick or imprisoned, etc." And this might well be true, but it shows that life is not ultimately sought for its own sake, but rather as a prerequisite for other goods.

People ask not to receive medical treatment all the time. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Okay, but this isn't really relevant to an argument regarding courage or virtue. The question here is, "Should we be virtuous, even if means dying?" When death is preferable to a burdensome life we are talking about something quite different.

If a grandmother attempts to save her grandchildren, and will die in the process of successfully rescuing them, it hardly seems clear that this cannot be to her benefit either. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Okay, but why? How is it to her benefit? J is obviously going to respond by pointing out that one who ceases to exist can no longer positively benefit.

And this might well be true, but it shows that life is not ultimately sought for its own sake, but rather as a prerequisite for other goods. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I think that life is intrinsically good. It's just not unconditionally good. It does not trump every other consideration. And this is where I would go with Socrates. Indeed, it is where Socrates goes himself.

"They conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; love for life did not deter them from death" (Revelation 12:11).

So, supposing human desire is "arbitrary," why then have I neverseen people slamming their hands in their car door for fun or having competitions to see how much paint they can drink? People tend to do a very narrow range of the things they could possibly do. Why do hot tubs sell so well when digging a hole so you can sit in a pool of muddy, fetid, cold water is so much easier and cheaper? Why is murder and rape illegal everywhere, but nowhere has decided to make pears or bronze illegal? What's with people going through such lengths to inject heroin but no one ever inject barbecue sauce, lemon juice, or motor oil? — Count Timothy von Icarus

Desire is for the sake of that which staves off arbitrariness, chaos and disorganization. Human bodies are organized in similar ways, so in general what is necessary and what is toxic for our physiological health does not vary dramatically from one person to the next. But while bodily organization, and its needs , changes very little from generation to generation and culture to culture, the same cannot be said of cognitive -affective needs and desires. From the most general perspective, our cognitive desires, like our bodily needs, are for the sake of that which staves off arbitrariness, chaos and disorganization, what I have called anticipative sense-making. But while our boldly needs remain relatively static over time, our cognitive desires evolve along with cultural development. Does this mean that within a given community, ethical norms can be agreed upon, but the changes in these norms from one era to the next are arbitrary? I would say the evolution of ethical norms is no more arbitrary than the evolution of scientific paradigms. Ther is no linear progression, but there is a strengthening of adaptivity.

By contrast, the idea that ethical norms are grounded in something transhistorical forces us to explain the failure to live up to those norms in arbitrary ways. The unethical person was behaving ‘irrationally’, ‘pathologically’ , ‘deviantly’, ‘capriciously’. The concept of evil is typically defined synonymously with arbitrariness.

Okay, but why? How is it to her benefit? J is obviously going to respond by pointing out that one who ceases to exist can no longer positively benefit.

Because it's generally bad to have one's grandchildren die. The one act, saving the kids, might entail dying. Which is to be preferred? The claim that it is simply impossible to rightly prize any goals more than temporarily extending one's (necessarily finite) mortal life seems like one that it will be very hard to justify.

"A society grows great when men plant trees in whose shade they know they will never sit," is not meant to be a proverb on the benefits of old men falling into delusions about what is truly to their benefit for instance.

"They conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; love for life did not deter them from death" (Revelation 12:11).

Exactly. As St. Maximus says:

“Food is not evil – but gluttony is.
Childbearing is not evil – but fornication is.
Money is not evil – but avarice is.
Glory is not evil – but vainglory is.
Indeed, there is no evil in existing things – but only in their misuse."

Because it's generally bad to have one's grandchildren die. The one act, saving the kids, might entail dying. Which is to be preferred? The claim that it is simply impossible to rightly prize any goals more than temporarily extending one's (necessarily finite) mortal life seems like one that it will be very hard to justify. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes, that is a good argument. :up:
The virtuous person does not value their own life above every other thing.

I think it particularly makes sense from the perspective of virtue ethics, but I think it will make sense in almost any ethics.

Our lives are finite, so we are not talking death versus immortality, but "dying now" versus "dying somewhat later." To highlight the absurdity that it is "always better to die later," we need only consider the limit situation where everyone and everything we cherish is destroyed, subject to great suffering, etc. and we get just 5 more seconds of life, versus our simply dying, with none of these consequences, 5 second earlier. I don't think anyone wants to be committed to the idea that we should let our children be tortured so that we can take a couple more breaths, or even that those extra few breaths would benefit us.

Well, again, I think the question has to do with cases of heroic virtue. If a 110 year-old sacrifices their life there will almost certainly be less heroic virtue involved than if a 30 year-old sacrifices their life. It is one thing to be willing to accept a mortal cost for the sake of a virtuous act, and another to be circumstantially indifferent to death. So I would want to keep our eyes on cases where the person stands to lose something. You are giving cases where, for one reason or another, the person does not stand to lose much in dying.

Sure, I just think the extreme cases are useful to demonstrate how it is implausible, from the perspective of almost any ethics, that we always benefit most from extending our own lives. For another thing, dramatic calorie restriction is pretty much the best way to ensure life extension in organisms, and yet very few would want to say we benefit from starving ourselves to get a few extra years of old age, even if we are "gaining years" at the cost of fleeting satiety.

But if we can have proper goals that trump life extension, then it is to our benefit to pursue them, and this can hold for greater sacrifices as well. This can mean self-sacrifice involving death, just as the bee prefers to sting and die rather than to flee the hive. The drive of beings to maintain their own form is absolute nowhere in nature.

We might say that it benefits us to have things we care about so much that we are willing to make such sacrifices. The egoist is, in a certain sense, "missing out" in their inability to so fully identify with things that transcend them.

Nor is the case of dying in this way really sui generis. We often take on all sorts of risk and suffering to accomplish goals. The duties that come with being a parent, learning to ride a bike, learning to read, starting an exercise regime or diet, etc. can all be unpleasant and risky, and yet it seems hard to claim that this entails that they cannot be to our benefit. The daily self-reported "happiness" of parents of young children is significantly lower on average, for years out, but I don't think this makes having children necessarily not to one's benefit.

It's the demand for a univocal measure of the good that leads towards such rigid pronouncements as "it is never to our benefit to do something that kills us."

Yes, and they would feel the same at random, according to arbitrary desires, so we should expect overlap to be roughly random.

So, supposing human desire is "arbitrary," why then have I never seen people slamming their hands in their car door for fun or having competitions to see how much paint they can drink? People tend to do a very narrow range of the things they could possibly do. Why do hot tubs sell so well when digging a hole so you can sit in a pool of muddy, fetid, cold water is so much easier and cheaper? Why is murder and rape illegal everywhere, but nowhere has decided to make pears or bronze illegal? What's with people going through such lengths to inject heroin but no one ever inject barbecue sauce, lemon juice, or motor oil?

Sure seems like a lot of similarity for something arbitrary. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Much like the rest of life the environmental pressures select for the passions which lead to reproductive fitness. I think something similar happened with societies, except the selection mechanism was justified cruelty -- insofar that a society can justify expansion and cruelty it will outgrow other societies which prioritize kindness and peace because the cruel will outwit the kind, take their stuff, and kill them.

We are the descendents of the barbarians ruthless enough to live.



Also, for each question you pose in order:

People do hurt themselves for fun sometimes.
Just recently people ate tidepods as a challenge.
Hot tubs sell because they are advertised -- though sometimes people seek out the muddy waters for those special minerals.
Murder and rape is not illegal everywhere -- but the preponderance of a legal system I think can be traced back to capitalist and colonial expansion.
And among the small group of people that inject heroin they do it because they are attached to that feeling or cycle -- a passion -- where the others don't provide that feeling.

So then they aren't desired arbitrarily. Science is pursued because it shows us how to do things, indeed, in a certain sense it makes us free to do things that we otherwise could not. At the same time, you also mention wonder. Science is sought for its own sake.

But I'd argue that the desire for truth and understanding is not properly a passion nor an appetite. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Why?

It makes perfect sense to me: Why doesn't everyone enjoy science? They aren't attached to it, or feel a particular aversion to it for one or another reason. The teacher's job who teaches science is to figure that out to the extent that the student can be motivated to learn. If someone fears science because they've been told it's "for girls", for instance, it's important to attempt to assuage that fear. If a person feels frustration because they are unable to pay attention then it's important to accomodate that frustration.

Science is sought for its own sake -- by nerds. But not everyone. The nerds are the ones who are passionate about it such that it seems to have an intrinsic value, where it is done for its own sake; when one is passionate about something like that then it is a thirst that can never be fully quenched. One that maybe could be put to the side sometimes for other things, once one knows that there is no such state as fulfillment, but rather the pursuit itself is the point.

But surely not everyone can be so passionate about the same thing in a functioning society.

In his A Secular Age Charles Taylor does a pretty great job tracing this to the Reformation period and the rise of "neo-stoicism" and the idea of the "buffered self." So, the overlap with homuncular or "Cartesian theater" theories is no accident. Yet this is decidedly not how Plato was received when Platonism was particularly dominant. Aside from Taylor, C.S. Lewis's The Discarded Image does a good job capturing the old model of the porous self:

The daemons are 'between' us and the gods not only locally and materially but qualitatively as well. Like the impassible gods, they are immortal: like mortal men, they are passible (xiii). Some of them, before they became daemons, lived in terrestrial bodies; were in fact men. That is why Pompey saw Semidei Manes, demigod-ghosts, in the airy region. But this is not true of all daemons. Some, such as Sleep and Love, were never human. From this class an individual daemon (or genius, the standard Latin translation of daemon) is allotted to each human being as his ' witness and guardian' through life (xvi).It would detain us too long here to trace the steps whereby a man's genius, from being an invisible, personal, and external attendant, became his true self, and then his cast of mind, and finally (among the Romantics) his literary or artistic gifts. To understand this process fully would be to grasp that great movement of internalisation, and that consequent aggrandisement of man and desiccation of the outer universe, in which the psychological history of the West has so largely consisted. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Cool.

A Secular Age is one of thems that's been on my mind as something that could be interesting, but it's thickness is intimidating for someone like me -- I know it'll be interesting, but I'm bound to disagree with a lot of it. :D

Much like the rest of life the environmental pressures select for the passions which lead to reproductive fitness. I think something similar happened with societies, except the selection mechanism was justified cruelty -- insofar that a society can justify expansion and cruelty it will outgrow other societies which prioritize kindness and peace because the cruel will outwit the kind, take their stuff, and kill them.

We are the descendants of the barbarians ruthless enough to live — Moliere

Your analysis is closer to Nietzsche’s than it is to mine. Nietzsche argued that the Will to knowledge is a derivative of the Will to Power. Knowledge wants to control and subdue differences for the sake of an assimilating dominant interpretation (“forcing, adjusting, shortening, omitting, filling-out, inventing, falsifying”).

What is the origin of logic in man's head? Surely it arose out of the illogical, the realm of which must originally have been immense. But innumerable beings drew inferences in a way different from that in which we do now perished; nonetheless, they might have been closer to the truth! He, for instance, who did not know how to find ‘identity' often enough, both with regard to nourishment and to hostile animals – that is, he who subsumed too slowly and was too cautious in subsumption - had a slighter probability of survival than he who in all cases of similarity immediately guessed that they were identical. The predonminant disposition, however, to treat the similar as identical - an illogical disposition, for there is nothing identical as such - is what first supplied all the foundations for logic.

Similarly, in order for the concept of substance to originate, which is indispensable to logic though nothing real corresponds to it in the strictest sense, it was necessary that for a long time changes in things not be seen, not be perceived; the beings who did not see things exactly had a head start over those who saw everything ‘in a flux'. As such, every great degree of caution in inferring, every sceptical disposition, is a great danger to life. No living being would be preserved had not the opposite disposition - to affirm rather than suspend judgement, to err and make things up rather than wait, to agree rather than deny, to pass judgement rather than be just – been bred to become extraordinarily strong. The course of logical thoughts and inferences in our brains today corresponds to a process and battle of drives that taken separately are all very illogical and unjust; we usually experience only the outcome of the battle: that is how quickly and covertly this ancient mechanism runs its course in us. (The Gay Science)

But while you distinguish between the motives behind cruelty and those behind kindness and peace, Nietzsche argues they are the same. Peace and kindness are themselves interpretations forced on others. This isn’t the tyranny of egoism, since for Nietzsche the egoism itself just an invention, a product of the competition among myriad drives, from which struggle one emerges as temporarily dominant.

He who aspires to distinction has his eye ceaselessly on his neighbour and wants to know what his feelings are; but the sympathy and abandon which this penchant needs to satisfy itself are far from being inspired by innocence, compassion or benevolence. On the contrary, one wants to perceive or guess in what way the neighbour is suffering, internally or externally to our sight, how he is losing power over himself and giving way to the impression that our hand or sight make on him.” (Daybreak)

Sure, I just think the extreme cases are useful to demonstrate how it is implausible, from the perspective of almost any ethics, that we always benefit most from extending our own lives. — Count Timothy von Icarus

That's fair.

The drive of beings to maintain their own form is absolute nowhere in nature. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I think self-preservation is a drive of nature.

Nor is the case of dying in this way really sui generis. We often take on all sorts of risk and suffering to accomplish goals. The duties that come with being a parent, learning to ride a bike, learning to read, starting an exercise regime or diet, etc. can all be unpleasant and risky, and yet it seems hard to claim that this entails that they cannot be to our benefit. The daily self-reported "happiness" of parents of young children is significantly lower on average, for years out, but I don't think this makes having children necessarily not to one's benefit. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Isn't is sui generis in the sense that it forces us to conceive of "our benefit" in a non-egoistic manner? After all, egoists don't balk at dieting to lose weight in the way they balk at martyrdom.

I agree that we are mistaken in thinking that egoism is the default or natural position, but it does have a basis in human experience.

It's the demand for a univocal measure of the good that leads towards such rigid pronouncements as "it is never to our benefit to do something that kills us." — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes, but the univocity is determined by egoism and the attendant interpretation of "our benefit." For Peter L. P. Simpson this is perhaps the characteristic moral marker of modernity. It is certainly the prima facie position for 21st century folk.

Kant is an inheritor of that modern way of thinking. He does not challenge it in any significant way. And his fideistic solution is characteristically Protestant.

I think self-preservation is a drive of nature.

No doubt, but other ends often loom larger. Stinging often kills bees, and yet they sting for the good of the hive. Male spiders, male praying mantis, etc. mate even though this generally means being eaten. Parts of organisms, with their own degree of form and drive to homeostasis, often self-terminate for the good of the whole, and this shows up in individuals in some superorganisms or in holobionts composed of multiple species.

Reproduction and the protection of young is another area where it is common to see even extreme levels of risk taken in pursuit of a goal that lies external to the organism.

Whitehead, in "The Function of Reason" speaks of the three drives:
To live
To live well
To live better

The modern evolutionary synthesis has tended to only focus on reproduction, in part because it is easier to study gene frequencies and model them. Part of what makes extended evolutionary synthesis so fascinating is that it attempts to avoid this reductionism (which is in part only justified by the methodological limits of its time, and then a dogmatic commitment to a particular mechanistic view of nature).

Isn't is sui generis in the sense that it forces us to conceive of "our benefit" in a non-egoistic manner? After all, egoists don't balk at dieting to lose weight in the way they balk at martyrdom.

I don't think so. Any involvement in a common good or deep identification with institutions (e.g. the family, the church, the state, one's workplace, etc.) involves transcending egoism to some degree. One of the reasons the egoist "misses out" on things that are to his benefit is because he cannot fully participate in these common goods.

The good of a "good marriage" or of a deep commitment to the church or one's vocation, can be a key element of human flourishing. The egoist cannot fully participate in these goods. They might get married, but their marriage has to be based around power struggles, manipulation, and quid pro quo arrangements.

Actual participation in the common good, as opposed to merely receiving individual benefits from participation, is not a binary status. People can identify with (even love) and participate in institutions more or less fully. Likewise, Aristotle'sfriendship of the good doesn't require that we don't get the benefits of the friendship of pleasure or the friendship of utility (Ethics Book VIII), but rather than we get the extra benefits of the higher level, which transcends the lower (up to the "giving birth in beauty" of the Symposium—and such "giving birth in beauty" is part of "being like God.")

I agree that we are mistaken in thinking that egoism is the default or natural position, but it does have a basis in human experience.

No doubt. So too does drunkenness, wrathfulness, sullenness, gluttony, licentiousness, adultery, murder, etc.

Egoism is atomization; yet goodness always relates to the whole, pointing to the One as against the slide into the Many.

That's Plato's whole point, that it is the pursuit of what is truly good, not what simply appears to be good or is said to be good, which allows us to transcend current beliefs and desire—to not be ruled over by instinct, appetites, passions, and circumstance (or to be relatively less so).

Egoism is a sort of default that must be transcended. It is the sickness that prevails when good health is not fostered and nurtured. And this jives very well with the Orthodox notion of sin as disease and the Fall as a sort of cosmic corruption, a web of interconnecting, self-reinforcing lines of pathology.

Yes, but the univocity is determined by egoism and the attendant interpretation of "our benefit."

Perhaps. I think there is a sort of positive feedback loop here. Univocity cuts off the option of understanding goodness analogically, which in turn makes it harder to see a coherent way out of egoism, while at the same time egoism makes one blind to the possibility of analogy. A negative side effect of the intense drive towards specialization in philosophy is that there isn't much focus on the ways ideas from different areas of philosophy interact.

This is part of what makes modern ethical treatments of the classical tradition often deficient. They are deflating them out the gate because the moral philosopher doesn't want to mess around with metaphysics and philosophy of nature, and yet for Aristotle notions of virtue ultimately tie back to metaphysics, the "queen of the sciences."

So, I see the two coming from different angles and reinforcing one another. Whereas this is a very different view from the idea that the One is also the Good itself (e.g., https://www.newadvent.org/summa/1006.htm)

Yeah I'm riffing on Nietzsche, though I don't know about the whole "Will to Power" part of his philosophy -- though I think his critical and descriptive project is good to reflect on for the question of ethics and the good -- I don't know to what extent Nietzsche is being sincere in different parts of his writing. Sometimes it feels like it's absolutely ironic to the point that he doesn't intend, but interprets and speaks with the language around him at the time such that he's holding up a mirror.

Also, I think nihilism isn't so bad. And I question the extent to which suffering actually is meaningful. I think of pain as absolutely absurd -- there is no deep mystery or wisdom in pain. It is just a brute absurdity we have to learn to deal with.

And lastly I think Nietzsche valorizes heightened states or excellent persons far too much. While master/slave morality is descriptive I definitely get a sense throughout his writing that he prefers master morality, whereas I'd say I prefer slave morality, and the wisdom of the herd.

Lastly, I'm skeptical of hierarchies, where Nietzsche seems to almost equate hierarchies with value.

And lastly I think Nietzsche valorizes heightened states or excellent persons far too much. While master/slave morality is descriptive I definitely get a sense throughout his writing that he prefers master morality, whereas I'd say I prefer slave morality, and the wisdom of the herd. — Moliere

Deleuze would say you’re succumbing to a common misreading here.

We must again avoid misconceptions about the Nietzschean terms "strong" and "weak," "master" and "slave": it is clear that the slave doesn't stop being a slave when he gets power, nor do the weak cease to be weak. Even when they win, reactive forces are still reactive. In everything, according to Nietzsche, what is at stake is a qualitative typology: a question of baseness and nobility. Our masters are slaves that have triumphed in a universal becoming-slave: European man, domesticated man, the buffoon. Nietzsche describes modern states as ant colonies, where the leaders and the powerful win through their baseness, through the contagion of this baseness and this buffoonery.

Whatever the complexity of Nietzsche's work, the reader can easily guess in which category (that is, in which type ) he would have placed the race of “masters" conceived by the Nazis. When nihilism triumphs, then and only then does the will to power stop meaning "to create" and start to signify instead "to want power," "to want to dominate" (thus to attribute to oneself or have others attribute to one established values: money, honors, power, and so on). Yet that kind of will to power is precisely that of the slave; it is the way in which the slave or the impotent conceives of power, the idea he has of it and that he applies when he triumphs.

I can see describing our masters as slaves, and slaves as masters -- the master/slave distinction has to do more with why someone does something. Any given action can be justified within a master or slave frame -- the master donates to causes out of a sense of beneficence, because they desire that cause to flourish. The slave donates to causes out of a sense of fear, because it's "the right thing", or it follows the rules.

I see the description as helpful as a descriptive frame. I'm skeptical of the valorization of master morality over slave morality, though -- so in the Deleuze quote he's saying that master morality is the good morality and slave morality is the bad morality of the people who are in control of our society.

But Nietzsche's solution to this problem strikes me as pretty unrealistic. For one it only applies to ubermensch -- people who act out of a sense of nobility for what is higher in spite of suffering, or even seek out suffering to improve themselves. The slaves can't even strive to this morality; their lesser morality is written by the masters.

Since the ubermensch doesn't even exist -- his book is for all and none -- it's very much a philosopher's solution to the problem of ethics. Further, if we are slaves, then it simply doesn't speak to us.

I think it fair to say, though we can re-interpret master morality in favor of what we care about, that Nietzsche holds contempt for the herd, for socialists, and all their ilk.

But Nietzsche's solution to this problem strikes me as pretty unrealistic. For one it only applies to ubermensch -- people who act out of a sense of nobility for what is higher in spite of suffering, or even seek out suffering to improve themselves. The slaves can't even strive to this morality; their lesser morality is written by the masters — Moliere

Again, we need to redefine the way you’re using terms like master and slave, good and bad, higher and lower, improvement and lack of improvement.

Slave morality has to be understood in relation to reactive values and the ascetic ideal. Nietzsche believed that the world, and the psyche, is composed of continually changing valuative differences. This is expressed by his notion of the eternal return of the same, which is the endless return of the same absolutely different . This means that concepts like purpose, goal, standard, identity and equality are fabrications which conceals the underlying changes in qualitative value. Reactive values assume an equal opposition that is ruled by an overarching concept or principle which remains the same. For instance, male vs female is ruled by the overarching concept of gender, good vs evil is ruled by the overarching concept of ethics. For Nietzsche slave morality, weakness, the ascetic ideal, and sickness in general have to do with believing in concepts, principles and truths which remain the same and rule over life. The notion of science as providing deeper truths that transcend mere appearance is an ascetic ideal, and as such
falsifies the actual creative becoming of life. The same is true of moral principles.

The ubermensch is not a higher man, it is a critique and overcoming of humanism. Not the elevation of man after the death of God , but the death of man. Not self-improvement but self-overcoming. As Foucault put it

“As the archaeology of our thought easily shows, man is an invention of recent date. And one perhaps nearing its end.

The death of man implies the death of the subject and the ego. Nietzsche writes:

The 'I' (which is not the same thing as the unitary government of our being!) is, after all, only a conceptual synthesis - thus there is no acting from 'egoism’… The concept of the 'individual' is false. In isolation, these beings do not exist: the centre of gravity is something changeable; the continual generation of cells, etc., produces a continual change in the number of these beings… “…mixing in the concept of number, the concept of subject, the concept of motion: we still have our eyes, our psychology in the world. If we eliminate these ingredients, what remains are not things but dynamic quanta in a relationship of tension with all other dynamic quanta, whose essence consists in their relation to all other quanta, in their 'effects' on these - the will to power not a being, not a becoming, but a pathos-is the most elementary fact, and becoming, effecting, is only a result of this.

(Remember, the will to power does not mean "wanting to dominate" or "wanting power")

The ubermensch is not a higher man, it is a critique and overcoming of humanism. Not the elevation of man after the death of God , but the death of man. Not self-improvement but self-overcoming. As Foucault put it

“As the archaeology of our thought easily shows, man is an invention of recent date. And one perhaps nearing its end.

The death of man implies the death of the subject and the ego. Nietzsche writes:
The 'I' (which is not the same thing as the unitary government of our being!) is, after all, only a conceptual synthesis - thus there is no acting from 'egoism’… The concept of the 'individual' is false. In isolation, these beings do not exist: the centre of gravity is something changeable; the continual generation of cells, etc., produces a continual change in the number of these beings… “…mixing in the concept of number, the concept of subject, the concept of motion: we still have our eyes, our psychology in the world. If we eliminate these ingredients, what remains are not things but dynamic quanta in a relationship of tension with all other dynamic quanta, whose essence consists in their relation to all other quanta, in their 'effects' on these - the will to power not a being, not a becoming, but a pathos-is the most elementary fact, and becoming, effecting, is only a result of this. — Joshs

But does he overcome humanism, after all? Does the subject fade with Nietzsche's positive project, or does it resurface? It seems to me to resurface -- the "I" is a synthesis, one isn't acting from ego, but rather towards what is noble, healthy, flourishing. But we remain human all the same. We remain couched in our individuality.

Just what is "healthy" about the constant creation of value over the holding to a principle? I see no reason to reject principles just because they lead to nihilism.

Nietzsche's sickness appears to me to be a perfectly viable ethical frame. I don't see how it's a sickness -- I think it's just a matter of preference.

Further, I think you're showing just in what way Nietzsche's solution to the problem of ethics is unrealistic. I haven't said that his is an egoism. I see Nietzsche as a dreamer who dreams of a healthy existence, and so he feels a certain disdain for that unhealthy existence. It requires a constant striving, whereas humanity stays about neutral ethically speaking -- they want similar things now as they did back then. It is my belief that we are animals -- I am a materialist -- and nothing more than that.

Surely you agree that Nietzsche prefers the healthy and noble master morality, yes?

Surely you agree that Nietzsche prefers the healthy and noble master morality, yes? — Moliere

Again, how are you understanding health and nobility for Nietzsche? It is not about a ‘constant striving’. Who is doing the striving? A self? Doesn’t striving imply a pre-existing purpose or aim on the basis of which to strive? The creative becoming Nietzsche valorizes isnt something we have to decide to put into effect, like some sort of plan, as if a self sits there in the background judging the success of their striving. The point is that the self which would see itself as putting into effect such a plan doesn’t exist in the next moment. It is already a different self. That is what self-overcoming means, not a substantive subject accumulating points, enjoying witnessing the progress in the direction of its increase in health, nobility and mastery. The very notion of health and nobility is the continual forgetting and displacing of the previous self. The ubermensch is beyond good and evil because it constantly erases and displaces its history, and with it previous standards and principles of morality.

It is not as if those who cling to traditional moralities are not also functioning as a continual becoming. The difference between them and the ubermensch is a question of awareness, not that “humanity stays about neutral ethically speaking -- they want similar things now as they did back then”. The will to nothingness, the ascetic ideal and slave morality which undergird staying neutral ethically and wanting similar things over time are themselves forms of the will to power. This means that we are displacing ourselves even as we desire to remain the same. We only succeed in remaining the same differently, in spite of our best efforts. But this doesnt keep us from trying to enforce repressive modes of conformity on others, based on our Platonic faith in constancy, eternity and fixity.

Again, how are you understanding health and nobility for Nietzsche? It is not about a ‘constant striving’. Who is doing the striving? A self? Doesn’t striving imply a pre-existing purpose or aim on the basis of which to strive? — Joshs

The healthy and the noble are those who follow the way of the overman. They are...

..beyond good and evil because it constantly erases and displaces its history, and with it previous standards and principles of morality. — Joshs

They are the tablet breakers. They aspire to heights beyond; the mere enlightenment self is a concept. I'm not casting Nietzsche as an egoist, though that he can easily be read this way is a point in my favor in pointing out that he is unrealistic.

What I think is true of Nietzsche is he presents a kaleidoscopic mirror. The aphoristic approach makes it such that there is no true Nietzsche at all -- there are perspectives on Nietzsche, like Deleuze's, and there are other perspectives which read him more as a modernist. There isn't a true perspective so much as a perspectival truth. This applies to Nietzsche as well, such that there is no true reading of Nietzsche -- there was a Deleuzian reading of Nietzsche, and there was a fascist reading of Nietzsche, and there's the historical reading of Nietzsche, and there's the intentional reading of Nietzsche, and there's the leftist Nietzsche, the Christian Nietzsche, and the analytic Nietzsche, and the silly reading of Nietzsche which ought be included in the ever updating persona that is the new Nietzsche.

Nietzsche is a philosopher which can be read as giving mastery to many different preferences -- I think he purposefully contradicts himself in such a way that to insist on a reading is to already agree with his perspectivism because now you've adopted one of the perspectives he has presented.

So, what say you? Does Nietzsche prefer master morality or slave morality?

I have no qualms with defining slave morality by the ascetic ideal. I'm noting that people like the ascetic ideal. They want to be sick. They desire slavish morality.

If we follow the ascetic ideal then nihilism is a natural consequence. I'm contending that's not so bad after all, and the Nietzsche's heroic effort to save morality fails because when it's dissiminated it comes back to the very things he wants to overcome -- the reading at large is individualistic. Power is a craving from an individual standpoint to engage in the same old moralities which are nothing but economies of pain.

The overman would be beyond good and evil and overcome himself -- but we are merely human, and so the book is not for us. It's a philosophers' ideal which is good for reflection, and so I've been maintaining unrealistic for the question of ethics.

Sure, if we weren't animals born from an amoral process which allows us to be vicious or kind because both of these dispositions are needed for reproductive fitness then maybe there'd be some titanic conflict of forces we cannot help but participate in which brings us beyond good and evil.

But all is atoms and void, not pathos. We come from an absurd darkness and so we will return. So I find the various metaphysical theses of Nietzsche to be imaginative ways of overcoming the absurd nihilism staring him in the face -- hence the perspectivalism, the attack on truth, etc.

But what if people just didn't care about this higher reading of Nietzsche, and stuck to the sick truth of transcendent goods which they only do because it's good? What does "remembering" Nietzsche's true meaning matter? And given the emphasis on potency doesn't that indicate a kind of failure of overcoming The Subject, of becoming post-man or after the death of man?

The aphoristic approach makes it such that there is no true Nietzsche at all -- there are perspectives on Nietzsche, like Deleuze's, and there are other perspectives which read him more as a modernist. There isn't a true perspective so much as a perspectival truth. This applies to Nietzsche as well, such that there is no true reading of Nietzsche -- there was a Deleuzian reading of Nietzsche, and there was a fascist reading of Nietzsche, and there's the historical reading of Nietzsche, and there's the intentional reading of Nietzsche, and there's the leftist Nietzsche, the Christian Nietzsche, and the analytic Nietzsche, and the silly reading of Nietzsche which ought be included in the ever updating persona that is the new Nietzsche. — Moliere

Yes, Nietzsche can be read in many ways. The same is true of any great philosopher, and I would add that natural scientific paradigms are interpretable in as many different ways, but the abstractive nature of vocabularies in the physical sciences masks this diversity. But if you are arguing that there is no consistent substantive set of philosophical ideas that we can locate in his work, then I side with Deleuze, Foucault , Derrida, Heidegger and others who differ with you.

I have no qualms with defining slave morality by the ascetic ideal. I'm noting that people like the ascetic ideal. They want to be sick. They desire slavish morality — Moliere

What people like is freedom from domination by others, but also freedom from inner chaos. Seeing the world as incoherent is just as imprisoning as being repressed by external authority. So this freedom for intelligibility from the vantage of one’s own perspective requires a world that is made recognizable, and such recognizability is a product of discursive , languaged, conceptual interactions within a social milieu. This makes us free within the systems of discursive rationality that we participate in, until the not where we become the victim of someone else’s interpretation of ‘slavish morality’, sovereign law of nature or doctrine of ethics. We are not forced into a way of understanding the world in a top-down fashion by the ‘collective’. Rather, such systems of rationality flow from one person to the next in our practices, and each interaction changes the nature of the system is some small fashion.

Eventually, a segment of the community can begin to diverge from the larger group such that they see what was formerly acceptable as repressive and unethical. What Nietzsche taught writes like Foucault and Deleuze was that it is possible el to insert oneself within a system of rationality such that one can be open to catalyzing and accelerating the transition from identified repressive structures. It’s not a question of telling people they should be unhappy with their current system of rationality, but of showing them how they can better prepare themselves when it inevitably collapses. Master morality amounts to this eternal vigilance and preparation for self-transformation in the face of suffering.

Yes, Nietzsche can be read in many ways. The same is true of any great philosopher, and I would add that natural scientific paradigms are interpretable in as many different ways, but the abstractive nature of vocabularies in the physical sciences masks this diversity. But if you are arguing that there is no consistent substantive set of philosophical ideas that we can locate in his work, then I side with Deleuze, Foucault , Derrida, Heidegger and others who differ with you. — Joshs

Why?

I see no reason to pick a side.

I'm not against a Deleuzian reading; but if asked how I understand the text then I'm going to point out the Nietzsche is purposefully kalaidescopic, and master morality remains neutral to any particular preference.

Though I think there are misreadings -- like the fascist reading -- I don't think the the post modern reading is the correct reading because there isn't a correct reading.

Which means that master morality can "slot in" various ways that human beings want it to, and slave morality is the bad kind of morality, whatever the morality being thought of at the time is (Christianity, Socialism, Scientism, etc.)

In addition to not saying Nietzsche is an egoist, I'm not saying that he's wrong because science says it's so. I'm noting how I don't agree with Nietzsche, however, yes.

What people like is freedom from domination by others, but also freedom from inner chaos. Seeing the world as incoherent is just as imprisoning as being repressed by external authority. — Joshs

How do we ascertain that?

If the world is absurd, incoherent, beyond knowledge then there's no point in arguing over what the world consists in and we can skip straight to the point: rather than making metaphysical theses which implicate a particular ethical frame we can just talk about the good, rather than being.

The old fact/value distinction I've been relying upon to give an against the grain reading of Aristotle is the same one I'm relying upon in giving an against the grain reading of Nietzsche. While I find the dithering of the distinction interesting -- just like I find the denial of The Subject interesting -- it seems to have a way of applying all over again.

So this freedom for intelligibility from the vantage of one’s own perspective requires a world that is made recognizable, and such recognizability is a product of discursive , languaged, conceptual interactions within a social milieu. This makes us free within the systems of discursive rationality that we participate in, until the not where we become the victim of someone else’s interpretation of ‘slavish morality’, sovereign law of nature or doctrine of ethics. We are not forced into a way of understanding the world in a top-down fashion by the ‘collective’. Rather, such systems of rationality flow from one person to the next in our practices, and each interaction changes the nature of the system is some small fashion.

Eventually, a segment of the community can begin to diverge from the larger group such that they see what was formerly acceptable as repressive and unethical. What Nietzsche taught writes like Foucault and Deleuze was that it is possible el to insert oneself within a system of rationality such that one can be open to catalyzing and accelerating the transition from identified repressive structures. It’s not a question of telling people they should be unhappy with their current system of rationality, but of showing them how they can better prepare themselves when it inevitably collapses. Master morality amounts to this eternal vigilance and preparation for self-transformation in the face of suffering.

To emphasize -- I like this reading very much. I think it's a good reading of Nietzsche, rather than a degenerate reading like the fascist reading. I'm not opposed to this so much as sticking to my criticism that Nietzsche doesn't answer the titular question -- why ought one do that which is good?


Does master morality always lead to an eternal vigilance and preparation for self-transformation in the face of suffering?

I think, rather, that suffering is as valorized as the other forces which lead one out of nihilism.

And, all the same, it does seem you agree that Nietzsche prefers master morality over slave morality, yes?

Yes, Nietzsche can be read in many ways. The same is true of any great philosopher, and I would add that natural scientific paradigms are interpretable in as many different ways, but the abstractive nature of vocabularies in the physical sciences masks this diversity. But if you are arguing that there is no consistent substantive set of philosophical ideas that we can locate in his work, then I side with Deleuze, Foucault , Derrida, Heidegger and others who differ with you.
— Joshs

Why?

I see no reason to pick a side — Moliere

I would never claim there is a correct reading of Nietzsche or any other philosopher, so you should pick a side which reveals a philosophical interpretation of Nietzsche that is the most interesting to you, pushes Nietzsche to the limits of his thinking and offers the greatest potential for usefully guiding your understanding of the world. This is what I have done.

I'm not against a Deleuzian reading; but if asked how I understand the text then I'm going to point out the Nietzsche is purposefully kalaidescopic, and master morality remains neutral to any particular preference. — Moliere

Yes, that explains why you don’t seem to get much use from his ideas. I wouldn’t either with a reading like that.

If the world is absurd, incoherent, beyond knowledge then there's no point in arguing over what the world consists in and we can skip straight to the point: rather than making metaphysical theses which implicate a particular ethical frame we can just talk about the good, rather than being. — Moliere

If the world were incoherent and beyond knowledge, we wouldn’t be able to function in it, even on a perceptual level. The world we actually live in provides normative structures of intelligibility, recognizable patterns on the basis of which we can anticipate events, communicate and understand each other. All this without any way of grounding our pragmatic ways of knowing and getting along in a metaphysically certain basis of the ‘way things really are’.
Notions of the good emerge out of our ensconsement within actual contingent contexts of interaction within normatively patterned social practices. That is to say, ways of being. We could say with Heidegger that Being is the event of its myriad ways of being.

Nietzsche doesn't answer the titular question -- why ought one do that which is good?

Does master morality always lead to an eternal vigilance and preparation for self-transformation in the face of suffering?

I think, rather, that suffering is as valorized as the other forces which lead one out of nihilism. — Moliere

I think the question of why one ought to do that which is good is a tautology. The justification is embedded within the historically, contextually created system of practices which provide the particular intelligibility of a way of being, a form of life, a language game. Each discursive system of rationality already implies its own criteria of good and bad. Its ‘oughts’ are presupposed by the qualitative ‘is’ of its value system, which is what any system of rationality is.

I wouldn’t say that master morality leads to an eternal vigilance and preparation for self-transformation in the face of suffering, but that in some sense it is nothing but this vigilance.

I would never claim there is a correct reading of Nietzsche or any other philosopher, so you should pick a side which reveals a philosophical interpretation of Nietzsche that is the most interesting to you, pushes Nietzsche to the limits of his thinking and offers the greatest potential for usefully guiding your understanding of the world. This is what I have done. — Joshs

Yes, that explains why you don’t seem to get much use from his ideas. I wouldn’t either with a reading like that. — Joshs

I think my reading has positive things to offer it; namely, that it cuts out the parts I don't like while keeping the parts I do :D

I'm keeping a rough approximation of his genealogy, for instance, and the master/slave distinction. I keep the notion of the overman because it's the fulcrum around which my criticism rests; empirically speaking Nietzsche can be interpreted in many ways, and the overman which overcomes himself is the overman that never exists (rather than comes about as the future state of post-humanity; or at least, not yet).

But I still get a great deal of use out of his ideas. I'm skeptical of the metaphysical project in general, and so it goes with Nietzsche. (and so the Will to Power)

And I see nothing sick about slave morality, or healthy about master morality. So while I accept the distinction I'm uncertain about Nietzsche's positive evaluation of master morality.

If the world were incoherent and beyond knowledge, we wouldn’t be able to function in it, even on a perceptual level. — Joshs

I'm tempted to go down this rabbit hole, but won't for now. Mostly because the following looks pretty close to what I'm saying.

The world we actually live in provides normative structures of intelligibility, recognizable patterns on the basis of which we can anticipate events, communicate and understand each other. All this without any way of grounding our pragmatic ways of knowing and getting along in a metaphysically certain basis of the ‘way things really are’.
Notions of the good emerge out of our ensconsement within actual contingent contexts of interaction within normatively patterned social practices. That is to say, ways of being. We could say with Heidegger that Being is the event of its myriad ways of being.

Except that I don't think the genealogy of notions of the good justifies the good -- that this is still an "is", and not an "ought"; it only becomes an ought if we are passionate about following the normative structures of intelligibility. This passion comes out of nothing. We are born out of an absurd darkness, a passion ignites a mind and suddenly the world is there for a particular Dasein, and then we eventually dissipate back to the absurd darkness. The "oughts" are fantasias passed on culturally as good-enough approximations that reproduce themselves, and the environment selects which reproductive morality gets to live.

Goodness is both invented and exterior. It's the absurd substratum which explains this ever-changing position we find ourselves in with the desire for simple moral truths which are passed on and work, more or less, in spite of being false.

This is absurd because not only do people not have control over what is good for them, what is good for them changes on the basis of no reason whatsoever. If people desired a Master morality then, as you note, they'd be adjusted towards a healthier, gayer existence.

But factually people desire slave morality. So this tale of the overman doesn't do much for the herd.

I think the question of why one ought to do that which is good is a tautology. — Joshs

I agree. :D

But then everyone gets confused on what that tautology implies when we go about doing things.

One of the things that's missing in Nietzsche and the virtue-theoretic account in general is its focus on the soul.

What I think is easy to miss in both accounts is where I think goodness actually comes about as a topic in the first place -- ethics begins with others rather than the state of being or the choices of an individual.

I'm keeping a rough approximation of his genealogy, for instance, and the master/slave distinction. I keep the notion of the overman because it's the fulcrum around which my criticism rests; empirically speaking Nietzsche can be interpreted in many ways, and the overman which overcomes himself is the overman that never exists (rather than comes about as the future state of post-humanity; or at least, not yet).

But I still get a great deal of use out of his ideas. I'm skeptical of the metaphysical project in general, and so it goes with Nietzsche. (and so the Will to Power)

And I see nothing sick about slave morality, or healthy about master morality. So while I accept the distinction I'm uncertain about Nietzsche's positive evaluation of master morality — Moliere

You say you have criticisms, and point out that Nietzsche can be interpreted in many ways. I’m sure you would agree that in order to be fair (and accurate) in your critique, you ned to be acquainted with the way he is read by poststructuralists like Klossowski, Focault, Deleuze, Heidegger and Derrida, who have produced some of the
most influential interpretations of him. In order to understand how they read such concepts as the overman, master/ slave morality and Will to Power, it is essential that you grasp their deconstruction of the concept of the subject, of identity, of dialectical opposition and of traditional metaphysics. How, for instance. can one critique identity politics from a Nietzschean point of view?
How can one put into question distinctions between the individual and the social, the self and the Other, as reflected in your Levinasian statement that ethics begins with others rather than the state of being or the choices of an individual?

Except that I don't think the genealogy of notions of the good justifies the good -- that this is still an "is", and not an "ought"; it only becomes an ought if we are passionate about following the normative structures of intelligibility. — Moliere

Who is this subjective ‘we’ that freely chooses in a Sartrean way to follow or not to follow the normative structures of intelligibility? Does a subject exist first and then choose to participate in normative epistemological or ethical systems? Or are subjects formed as an effect of social practices of subjectivation? Do we follow normative structures or do normative structures undergird, constrain and define the criteria of the ethical good and bad for us prior to our choosing as individual ‘subjects’? That is to say, do we choose the ethical norms that bind us or do we choose WITHIN the ethical norms that produce us?

Who is this subjective ‘we’ that freely chooses in a Sartrean way to follow or not to follow the normative structures of intelligibility? Does a subject exist first and then choose to participate in normative epistemological or ethical systems? Or are subjects formed as an effect of social practices of subjectivation? Do we follow normative structures or do normative structures undergird, constrain and define the criteria of the ethical good and bad for us prior to our choosing as individual ‘subjects’? That is to say, do we choose the ethical norms that bind us or do we choose WITHIN the ethical norms that produce us? — Joshs

It seems to me that we are the producers of value, and yet because of our thrownness we aren't blank slates in that production, per se -- but also I think there's a creative element to life such that new norms can be created ex nihilo, and frequently are created (and let go).

Who the subjective we that freely chooses is is pretty much the topic of my recent thread -- tl;dr, I don't know, but you're right to pinpoint Sartre as a beginning point (tho there's something in there that I don't like, I'm still working that out too -- it has to do with the emphasis on lack) -- and ultimately I'm tempted to include it in the list of fantasias.

Materially speaking we're individuated with government numbers and names which carry responsibilities and rights as well as by our passions.

But what gets synthesized unto this choosing subject changes with historical circumstance. In our case the capitalist-liberal bearer of responsibility and property. So, properly speaking, this cogito does not exist until it turns of age.

You say you have criticisms, and point out that Nietzsche can be interpreted in many ways. I’m sure you would agree that in order to be fair (and accurate) in your critique, you ned to be acquainted with the way he is read by poststructuralists like Klossowski, Focault, Deleuze, Heidegger and Derrida, who have produced some of the
most influential interpretations of him. — Joshs

I don't think that follows. I think that if I wanted post-structuralists to listen to me then that's certainly the case. And if I wanted to somehow displace Nietzsche in my critique then that'd also be wise to attend to these interpretations.

And, really, I wouldn't mind reading more anyways because that's kind of the whole thing -- just for my own edification and thinking. But for my purposes here the little interpretation is good enough for me. It's basically just Nietzsche on Nietzsche -- don't judge him on the basis of fairness and accuracy, but potency. And in particular I'm interested in popular potency amongst the herd, outside of the academy -- Nietzsche's cultural influence rather than his ideational meanings.

Basically the whole post-subject turn in philosophy is good and interesting for the academy and for people seeking a deeper Nietzsche, but that's not the Nietzsche that takes hold amongst the herd; and probably will never be in a society which emphasizes the individual.

. How, for instance. can one critique identity politics from a Nietzschean point of view? — Joshs

Is it important to do so?

It seems that identity politics would fall to the same criticism of slave morality as Christianity and Socialism, though, yes? That seems to me the most obvious move.

How can one put into question distinctions between the individual and the social, the self and the Other, as reflected in your Levinasian statement that ethics begins with others rather than the state of being or the choices of an individual?

Easy -- "What's up with that distinction? What are you saying?"

Or note how the individual is predicated by the social, or the self is born in the face-to-face of the Other. The distinctions aren't truth-apt or metaphysical, from what I can tell, but phenomenological -- temporary historically actuated concepts that make one able to speak about truth or metaphysics in the first place.

Noting how philosophy can begin anywhere we'd then proceed to drop the distinction and proceed to something else.

BUT -- and this is the important part -- not everyone would come along with us. Some would take another path, and that's what I'm more interested in.

That is what self-overcoming means, not a substantive subject accumulating points, enjoying witnessing the progress in the direction of its increase in health, nobility and mastery. — Joshs

Here I believe we agree. The meaning is there -- but meaning and potency aren't always the same.

The ubermensch is not a higher man, it is a critique and overcoming of humanism. — Joshs

And I agree with this higher reading of Nietzsche. A commonsense way of putting it -- if we're "Human, all too human", and nihilism is overcome, then post-humanity is the healthier approach.

Another thought that comes to mind is that I don't believe Nietzsche thought himself the overman.