Category Archives: Philosophy

On the Genealogy of Morality by Friedrich Nietzsche, translated by Maudmarie Clark and Alan J. Swensen

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On the Genealogy of Morality (more often translated as “On the Genealogy of Morals”) is Nietzsche’s attempt to explain why many of us subscribe to Judeo-Christian morality, and why we’re wrong to do so.

The book is divided into three treatises. In the first treatise, Nietzsche argues that there was an ancient distinction between “good” and “bad”. “Good” referred to the powerful, i.e. the nobility; “bad” referred to the weak, i.e. the slaves. Then Judaism and Christianity popularized a new distinction, replacing “bad” with “evil”. “Good” people were now those who followed strictures like the Golden Rule and evil people were those who didn’t. Judeo-Christian morality embraces ideas like compassion for the weak in place of respect (including self-respect) for the strong. It is “slave morality”.

The second treatise describes the origins of punishment in the ancient relationship between creditor and debtor and the subsequent creation of the guilty conscience. God was erected as the ultimate creditor to which we owe absolutely everything. We are not worthy. We feel guilt. Nietzsche says that having a guilty conscience is a kind of sickness. We should accept the fact that we all have a fundamental “will to power” or, what he says is an equivalent phrase, an “instinct for freedom”. If we suppress our will to power, if we do not act as we will, our internal energy bursts forth in other ways. We become sick. We suffer. 

According to Nietzsche, bad conscience should really be wed to “the unnatural inclinations, all those aspirations to the beyond, to that which is contrary to the senses, contrary to the instincts, contrary to nature, contrary to the animal — in short, the previous ideals which … are hostile to life, ideals of those who libel the world” (section 24).

Not everyone recommends reading the third treatise. It is an extended rant concerning the ill effects of religion as practiced by the “ascetic priest”. To quote Nietzsche: “the ascetic ideal and its sublime-moral cult, this most ingenious, most unsuspected and most dangerous systematizing of all the instruments of emotional excess under the aegis of holy intentions, has inscribed itself in a terrible and unforgettable way into the entire history of man” (section 21). But not all is lost: “It is from the will to truth’s becoming conscious of itself that from now on — there is no doubt about it — morality will gradually perish” (section 27).

Nietzsche apparently believes that the will to power or instinct for freedom is such a large part of human psychology that it is foolish to deny it. In order to live good, healthy lives, we need to create our own morality, one that meets our need for power and freedom, if we are capable of doing so. This does not necessarily mean that we must treat other people badly. We just have to remember that we should always come first. It isn’t surprising that this philosophy appeals to some people, since it is awfully one-dimensional. Fortunately, cooperation, compassion and even altruism are natural too.  (4/2/12)

American Nietzsche: A History of an Icon and His Ideas by Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen

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Friedrich Nietzsche has probably affected more people than any other philosopher, except Karl Marx. American Nietzsche describes the effect Nietzsche has had on generations of Americans, including philosophers, theologians, journalists and literary critics, as well as ordinary citizens. Many have considered him to be a kind of prophet, or at least a kindred spirit.

Nietzsche expressed strong opinions on ultimate questions, and his aphoristic, feverish style has supported many interpretations. I didn’t realize that he greatly admired Ralph Waldo Emerson and how similar their views were. First came Emerson, then Nietzsche, then pragmatists like William James and John Dewey. Walter Kaufmann made Nietzsche popular again after World War II and Richard Rorty tried to synthesize Emerson, Nietzsche and Dewey, among others. It’s quite an interesting story if you enjoy intellectual history.  (3/25/12)

Relativism by Maria Baghramian

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Relativism is, roughly speaking, the idea that statements can be true or actions can be right for one person and not another, because people have different points of view, possibly because they grew up in different cultures or live in different societies. So you and I might be in similar circumstances, but if you belong to the Mafia, it might be right for you to beat up your competition, although it wouldn’t be right for me to do the same thing. 

There are many kinds of relativism. Professor Baghramian considers relativism about truth, rationality, logic, concepts and morality. She says that “we can admit one of the philosophical intuitions informing relativism: that our encounters with the world, our beliefs and judgments, are always perspectival” (p. 313). But she argues that some perspectives are better than others. The morality of the Red Cross is better than the morality of the Mafia, not just from her point of view or the Red Cross’s point of view, but in some objective, non-relativistic sense. 

Baghramian calls her view “pluralism”. She acknowledges the existence of various points of view, and agrees with the relativist that there is no way to choose between some of them, but believes that our common humanity allows us to see that some points of view are clearly better than others. 

I think that Professor Baghramian would agree that we cannot say that one perspective is better than another one, without speaking from some perspective or other. That’s why I think that “perspectivism” might be preferable to pluralism (and relativism). We each have our own physical perspective, and each of us can employ many different perspectives, that is, consider the world from different points of view.

From my single physical perspective, I can evaluate an idea from the perspective of morality, physics, practicality, simplicity, rationality or personal satisfaction. But any perspective can only be evaluated from some other perspective(s). That doesn’t mean that some perspectives are objectively better than others. But it does mean that we can offer reasons for preferring one to another.  (1/24/12)

Physicalism by Daniel Stoljar

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Professor Stoljar is the author of the article called “Physicalism” in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. In that article, he explains that physicalism is the metaphysical view that everything in the universe is physical or material, i.e. that there is nothing in the world except stuff like matter and energy and arrangements of such stuff. This is opposed to other views, like the ancient claim by Thales that everything is made of water, or the more modern theory of Bishop Berkeley, who said that all of reality is mental. A physicalist, in particular, will deny that there are minds or souls that exist somehow independently of people’s living bodies. 

In his book called Physicalism, however, Stoljar argues that there is no way to state the doctrine of physicalism that will result in a view that is both physicalistic (“physicalism that deserves the name”) and true. Either we have to broaden our definition of “physicalism”, in which case it’s not really physicalism anymore, or we have to restrict our definition, in which case the world isn’t completely physicalistic. 

Stoljar presents lots of arguments for and against his position in great detail (too much detail for me anyway). The conclusion I reached, however, is that although it is difficult to offer a precise definition of physicalism that can deal with every imaginable counter-example (e.g. physics in an alternate universe), it is sufficiently clear what the physicalist position is. Scientists have been investigating the nature of reality at low levels (the subatomic) and high levels (the intergalactic) and cataloging what they’ve found. So far it seems that everything is made up of certain kinds of stuff (photons, quarks, dark energy, strings, whatever).

The physicalist view is that there’s nothing else floating around, in particular, no mental substances, souls, angels or unattached ideas. Stoljar says we can’t sensibly explain physicalism in terms of what there isn’t (he calls this the via negativa), but it seems to me that we can. The list of non-physicalistic things that we need to mention (e.g. souls and mental substances) is not as long as Stoljar suggests.  (1/2/12)

The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory by David J. Chalmers

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The Conscious Mind is one of those philosophical works that becomes famous because it features interesting arguments in support of implausible conclusions. Chalmers argues for property dualism, the thesis that mental properties are fundamentally different from physical properties. In other words, mental states are not equivalent to, cannot be reduced to, and do not logically supervene on brain states. This is a more plausible view than the traditional dualist claim that there are mental substances (minds or souls) in addition to physical substances, and that the mental and physical substances somehow interact.  

Chalmers agrees that there are psycho-physical laws that relate brain states and mental states, but argues that physical properties and mental properties are ontologically distinct. Maybe this is the correct view, but Chalmers goes further when he begins to discuss a possible fundamental theory of consciousness. He thinks that we should ascribe consciousness to any system that exhibits the same causal relationships as a brain, e.g. automated systems, John Searle’s Chinese Room translation scheme, and Ned Block’s billion minds linked together by radio. Since he views consciousness as a fundamental property of the universe, he thinks that rocks and even sub-atomic particles might possess some simple form of proto-consciousness. He suggests that panpsychism is a real possibility. He also argues that the simplest interpretation of quantum mechanics involves minds branching into other minds, so that each of us is one of a vast set of similar minds, all having split off from our infant selves.

The naturalistic or property dualism that Chalmers advocates, featuring “physical properties, separate phenomenal properties, and a lawful connection between the two”, is certainly worth considering as a philosophical theory of mind. If a property is merely a way of being, maybe mental properties (what it is like to have experiences or to be an X) are fundamentally different from physical properties. However, his views on what systems or objects might be conscious are much less plausible, despite the many ingenious arguments that he offers.  (7/25/11)