Abstract
Nietzsche characterises some influential individuals – such as Socrates and Wagner – as “decadents” because they promote life-inhibiting values that potentially undermine the flourishing of humanity. A clearly stated but less prominent example of such a decadent is Herbert Spencer. While Nietzsche’s observations concerning Spencer are far fewer than those on Socrates and Wagner, they still have considerably significance for understanding Nietzsche’s philosophy – particularly his views on morality and science – and consequently their role in his conception of decadence. This article argues that Nietzsche considers Spencer to be a decadent not just because of the latter’s advocating of a morality based on altruism, but also the projection of the decadent values of this morality as inevitable, as part of his belief in objective, scientific and sociological truths.
Bibliography
Ahern, Daniel R.: Nietzsche as Cultural Physician, Pennsylvania, PA 1995Search in Google Scholar
Alfano, Mark: Nietzsche’s Moral Psychology, Cambridge 201910.1017/9781139696555Search in Google Scholar
Benson, Bruce Ellis: Pious Nietzsche, Bloomington, IN 2008Search in Google Scholar
Brobjer, Thomas H.: Nietzsche’s Philosophical Context: An Intellectual Biography, Urbana, IL 200810.5406/j.ctt1xcr79Search in Google Scholar
Call, Lewis: “Anti-Darwin, Anti-Spencer: Friedrich Nietzsche’s Critique of Darwin and ‘Darwinism’”, History of Science 36 (1998), 1–2210.1177/007327539803600101Search in Google Scholar
Campioni, Giuliano / D’Iorio, Paolo / Fornari, Maria Cristina / Fronterotta, Francesco / Orsucci, Andrea (eds.): Nietzsches persönliche Bibliothek, Berlin 200310.1515/9783110896138Search in Google Scholar
Conway, Daniel W.: Nietzsche’s Dangerous Game: Philosophy in the Twilight of the Idols, Cambridge 199710.1017/CBO9780511624735Search in Google Scholar
Emden, Christian J.: Nietzsche’s Naturalism: Philosophy and the Life Sciences in the Nineteenth Century, Cambridge 201410.1017/CBO9781107445123Search in Google Scholar
Evans, Daw-Nay: “Socrates as Nietzsche’s Decadent in Twilight of the Idols”, Philosophy and Literature 34.2 (2010), 340–34710.1353/phl.2010.0009Search in Google Scholar
Fitzgerald, Timothy: “Herbert Spencer’s Agnosticism”, Religious Studies 23.4 (1987), 477–49110.1017/S0034412500019065Search in Google Scholar
Fornari, Maria Cristina: Die Entwicklung der Herdenmoral: Nietzsche liest Spencer und Mill, trans. Leonie Schroeder, Wiesbaden 200910.2307/j.ctvbnm1vvSearch in Google Scholar
Fornari, Maria Cristina: “Die Spur Spencers in Nietzsches ‘moralischem Bergwerke’”, Nietzsche-Studien 34 (2005), 310–32810.1515/9783110182620.310Search in Google Scholar
Francis, Mark: “Herbert Spencer”, in George Ritzer / George Stepnisky (eds.), The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Major Social Theorists, vol. I, Chichester 2011, 165–18410.1002/9781444396621.ch6Search in Google Scholar
Hamacher, Werner: “‘Disgregation des Willens’: Nietzsche über Individuum und Individualität”, Nietzsche-Studien 15 (1986), 306–33610.1515/9783110244342.306Search in Google Scholar
Holub, Robert C.: Nietzsche in the Nineteenth Century: Social Questions and Philosophical Interventions, Pennsylvania, PA 201810.9783/9780812295146Search in Google Scholar
Huddleston, Andrew: Nietzsche on the Decadence and Flourishing of Culture, Oxford 201910.1093/oso/9780198823674.001.0001Search in Google Scholar
Janaway, Christopher: Beyond Selflessness: Reading Nietzsche’s Genealogy, Oxford 200710.1093/acprof:oso/9780199279692.003.0014Search in Google Scholar
Johnson, Dirk R.: Nietzsche’s Anti-Darwinism, Cambridge 201010.1017/CBO9780511762215Search in Google Scholar
Katsafanas, Paul: “Nietzsche’s Philosophical Psychology”, in Ken Gemes / John Richardson (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Nietzsche, Oxford 2013, 727–75710.1093/oxfordhb/9780199534647.013.0032Search in Google Scholar
Katsafanas, Paul: The Nietzschean Self: Moral Psychology, Agency, and the Unconscious, Oxford 201610.1093/acprof:oso/9780198737100.001.0001Search in Google Scholar
Magnus, Bernd: “Nietzsche’s Philosophy in 1888: The Will to Power and the Übermensch”, Journal of the History of Philosophy 24 (1986), 79–9810.1353/hph.1986.0017Search in Google Scholar
Moore, Gregory: Nietzsche, Biology and Metaphor, Cambridge 200210.1017/CBO9780511490637Search in Google Scholar
Moore, Gregory: “Nietzsche, Spencer, and the Ethics of Evolution”, Journal of Nietzsche Studies 23 (2002), 1–2010.1353/nie.2002.0005Search in Google Scholar
O’Connell, Jeffrey: “Nietzsche’s Rejection of Nineteenth-Century Evolutionary Ethics” in Michael Ruse / Robert J. Richards (eds.), The Cambridge Handbook of Evolutionary Ethics, Cambridge 2017, 28–4210.1017/9781316459409.003Search in Google Scholar
Piazzesi, Chiara: Nietzsche: Fisiologia dell’arte e decadence, Lecce 2003Search in Google Scholar
Richardson, John: Nietzsche’s New Darwinism, Oxford 200410.1093/0195171039.001.0001Search in Google Scholar
Schacht, Richard: Nietzsche, Abingdon 1983Search in Google Scholar
Selle, Carl Friedrich: Herbert Spencer und Friedrich Nietzsche, Leipzig 1902Search in Google Scholar
Small, Robert: Nietzsche and Rée: A Star Friendship, Oxford 200510.1093/0199278075.001.0001Search in Google Scholar
Solms-Laubach, Franz zu: Nietzsche and Early German and Austrian Sociology, Berlin 201210.1515/9783110911480Search in Google Scholar
Stern, Tom: “Against Nietzsche’s ‘Theory’ of the Drives’”, Journal of the American Philosophical Association 1 (2015), 121–14010.1017/apa.2014.23Search in Google Scholar
© 2020 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
