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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2020
I would like to offer an interpretation of the Genealogy of Morals, of the relationship of master morality to slave morality, and of Nietzsche's philosophy of history that is different from the interpretation that is normally offered by Nietzsche scholars. Contrary to Nehamas, Deleuze, Danto, and many others, I wish to argue that Nietzsche does not simply embrace master morality and spurn slave morality. I also wish to reject the view, considered simply obvious by most scholars, that the Übermensch develops out of, or on the model of, the master, not the slave. And to make the case for all of this, I want to explore the relationship between Hegel's master-slave dialectic and the conflict Nietzsche sees between master morality and slave morality. That Nietzsche does not intend us to recall the famous master-slave dialectic of Hegel's Phenomenology as we read the Genealogy of Morals, I find difficult to believe. Yet very few commentators ever notice, let alone explore, this connection.
1 Nehamas, A. Nietzsche: Life as Literature (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 1985), 206Google Scholar; Deleuze, G. Nietzsche and Philosophy, Tomlinson, H. trans. (New York: Columbia University Press 1983), 10Google Scholar; Danto, A. C. Nietzsche as Philosopher (New York: Macmillan 1965) 158-60, 166Google Scholar. Also see Schutte, O. Beyoud Nihilism: Nietzsche without Masks (Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1984), 108Google Scholar. On the other hand, Kaufmann does not think that Nietzsche necessarily identifies with the master; Kaufmann, W. Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press 1968), 3rd edition, 297Google Scholar.
2 Schacht is an exception here; he does not think that the übermensch simply grows out of master morality; Schacht, R. Nietzsche (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul 1983), 466Google Scholar.
3 Deleuze, 10, 156, 195. Also Foucault, M. ‘Nietzsche, Genealogy, History,’ in Language, Counter-Memory, Practice, Bouchard, D.F. ed. (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press 1977), 151-4Google Scholar; Greene, M. ‘Hegel's “Unhappy Consciousness” and Nietzsche's “Slave Morality,“’ in Christensen, D.E. ed., Hegel and the Philosophy of Religion (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff 1970), 125-41CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Houlgate, S. Hegel, Nietzsche and the Criticism of Metaphysics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1986), 19–20CrossRefGoogle Scholar. However, Schacht thinks that Nietzsche holds a revised view of Hegelian development (395). For a good review of the literature on the relationship of Hegel to Nietzsche, though for the most part dealing with issues other than those that I will treat, see Breazeale, D. ‘The Hegel-Nietzsche Problem,’ in Nietzsche-Studien, Montinari, M. Müller-Lauter, W. and Wenzel, H. eds. (Berlin: de Gruyter 1975), IV, 146–58Google Scholar.
4 Whenever available, I have used Kaufmann's translations of Nietzsche and, for the German, Nietzsche Werke: Kritische Gesamtausgabc, Colli, G. and Montinari, M. eds. (Berlin: de Gruyter 1967 ff.)Google Scholar. I will, whenever possible, cite both the section and the page of Nietzsche's text so that any other editions, English or German, may be used. On the Genealogy of Morals (hereafter GM), in On the Genealogy of Morals and Ecce Homo, Kaufmann, W. ed. (New York: Vintage 1969)Google Scholar, ‘First Essay,'§ 2, pp. 25-6; § 5, p. 29; § 10, p. 36.
5 GM, ‘First Essay,'§ 2, p. 26
6 GM, ‘First Essay,'§ 4, pp. 27-8
7 GM, ‘First Essay,'§ 10, pp. 36-7
8 GM, ‘First Essay,'§ 16, pp. 53-4
9 Phenomenology of Spirit, Miller, AV. trans. (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1977), 114-16Google Scholar; for the German see Phänomenologie des Geistes, Hoffmeister, J. ed. (Hamburg: Felix Meiner 1952), 144-6.Google Scholar
10 Phenomenology, 116-17 and Phänomenologie, 147-8
11 Phenomenology, 118-9 and Phänomenologie, 148-50
12 Kojève, A. lntroduction to the Reading of Hegel, A Bloom, ed. (New York: Basic Books 1966), 22, 51Google Scholar
13 Philosophy of History, Sibree, J. ed. (New York: Dover 1956), 407Google Scholar and, for the German, see Vorlesungen über die Philosophic der weltgeschichte, Lasson, G. ed. (Hamburg: Felix Meiner 1968), 11-IV, 875Google Scholar.
14 Philosophy of Right, Knox, T.M. trans. (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1952), 125Google Scholar and, for the German, see Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts, Hoffmeister, J. ed. (Hamburg: Felix Meiner 1955), 168Google Scholar.
15 Phenomenology, 138 and Phänomenologie, 170-1; also Greene, 137
16 GM, ‘First Essay,'§ 2, p. 26
17 GM, ‘Second Essay,'§ 12, p. 77
18 GM, ‘Second Essay;§ 13, p. 80
19 GM, ‘Second Essay,'§ 13, pp. 80-1
20 Deleuze, 3-4
21 Shapiro, G. ‘Translating, Repeating, Naming: Foucault, Derrida, and the Genealogy of Morals,’ in Koelb, C. ed., Nietzsche as Post modernist (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press 1990), 39Google Scholar
22 The Use and Abuse of History (hereafter UAH), Collins, A. trans. (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill 1949), §VIII, pp. 51-2Google Scholar. See also Beyond Good and Evil (hereafter BGE), Kaufmann, W. trans. (New York: Vintage 1966), § 207, p. 128Google Scholar.
23 UAH, §VI, p. 40
24 Ibid.
25 GM, ‘First Essay,'§ 6, p. 33. Also The Will to Power (hereafter WP), Kaufmann, W. and Hollingdale, R.J. trans. (New York: Vintage, 1968), § 864, p. 460Google Scholar.
26 GM, ‘First Essay,'§ 7, p. 33
27 GM, ‘First Essay,'§ 10, p. 37
28 GM, ‘First Essay,'§ 10, p. 38
29 GM, ‘First Essay,'§ 9, p. 36
30 GM, ‘Second Essay,'§ I, pp. 57-8
31 UAH, §I, p. 6, see also pp. 5-8.
32 GM, ‘Second Essay,'§ 3, p. 61
33 Deleuze, 114-15; Danto, A.C. ‘Some Remarks on The Genealogy of Morals,’ in Solomon, R.C. and Higgins, K.H. eds., Reading Nietzsche (New York: Oxford University Press 1988), 17,26Google Scholar
34 GM, ‘Second Essay,'§ 2, pp. 58-60
35 GM, ‘First Essay,'§ 5, p. 29; also BGE, § 260, p. 205
36 GM, ‘First Essay,'§ 11, p. 40
37 GM, ‘Second Essay,'§ 16, pp. 84-5
38 GM, ‘Second Essay,'§ 11, p. 76
39 BGE, § 225, p. 154. Also WP, § 382, p. 206
40 GM, ‘Second Essay,'§ 10, p. 73
41 GM, ‘Third Essay,'§ 4, p. 101
42 GM, ‘Third Essay,'§ 10, p. 115. See also The Gay Science (hereafter GS), Kaufmann, W. trans. (New York: Vintage 1974)Google Scholar, § 338, p. 269. Also WP, § 1030, p. 532.
43 GM, ‘First Essay:§ 2, p. 26
44 Foucault, ‘Nietzsche, Genealogy, History,’ 154Google Scholar
45 GM, ‘First Essay,'§ 7, p. 34
46 Deleuze seems to suggest that a reactive force can only become active as a kind of baseness, meanness, stupidity; see Deleuze, 66. This hardly fits Vishvamitra.
47 ‘Nietzsche, Skepticism, and Eternal Recurrence,’ in Canadian Journal of Philosophy 13 ( 1983) 365-87
48 GS, § 341, p. 273
49 Ecce Homo (hereafter EH), in On the Genealogy of Morals and Ecce Homo, ‘Why I Am So Clever,'§ 10, p. 258. WP, § 1041, p. 536. Thus Spoke Zarathustra (hereafter Z), Kaufmann, W. trans. (New York: Viking 1966)Google Scholar, Second Part, ‘On Redemption,’ 139-41.
50 For further discussion as to whether eternal recurrence and amor fati are to be taken as truths or as illusions, see my ‘Nietzsche, Skepticism, and Eternal Recurrence,’ 365-87. Also, GM, ‘Second Essay,’ § 24, p. 95.
51 EH, ‘Thus Spoke Zarathustra,’ § 8, pp. 308-9. Z, Third Part, ‘On Old and New Tablets,'§ 3, p. 198
52 GM, ‘Second Essay,'§ 14, pp. 81-2
53 GM, ‘Second Essay,'§ 16, pp. 84-5
54 GM, ‘Third Essay,'§ 20, p. 140
55 GM, ‘Second Essay,'§ 22, p. 92
56 GM, ‘Second Essay,'§ 17, p. 87
57 GM, ‘Second Essay,'§ 18, pp. 87-8
58 GM, ‘First Essay;§ 5, p. 29
59 GM, ‘Second Essay,'§ 7, p. 67
60 Birth of Tragedy (hereafter BT), Kaufmann, W. trans. (New York: Vintage 1967), § 3, p.42Google Scholar
61 GM, ‘Second Essay,'§ 7, p. 68
62 BGE, §4, pp. 11-12; § 39, p. 49. BT, § 3, p. 42; § 7, p. 60. WP, § 493, p. 272; § 853 (I), p. 451. ‘On Truth and Falsity in Their Ultramoral Sense,’ in Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche, Volume Two: Early Greek Philosophy, Levy, O. ed. (New York: Russell & Russell 1964), 184Google Scholar.
63 GM, ‘Second Essay,'§ 7, pp. 68-9
64 GM, ‘Third Essay,'§ 28, p. 162
65 Danto, Nietzsche as Philosopher, 176-7Google Scholar
66 GM, ‘Second Essay,'§ 24, p. 96
67 GM, ‘Third Essay,'§ 1, p. 97; § 7, pp. 107-8; § 8, p. 111
68 GM, ‘Second Essay,'§ 18, pp. 87-8
69 GM, ‘Third Essay,'§ 11, p. 117; § 13, p. 120
70 GM, ‘Third Essay,'§ 24, p. 151
71 GM, ‘Third Essay,'§ 23, p. 147; § 27, p. 160
72 BGE, § 260, p. 204
73 GM, ‘Third Essay,'§ 11, p. 117
74 GM, ‘First Essay,'§ 6, pp. 31-2
75 GM, ‘First Essay,’ § 7, p. 33. This, it seems to me, sets up a dialectic that is quite Hegelian- a possibility vigorously rejected by Deleuze, 8-10.
76 Z, Second Part, ‘On Priests; p. 91
77 GM, ‘First Essay;§ 16, p. 53; also§ 7, p. 33
78 GM, ‘First Essay:§ 16, p. 53
79 BGE, § 251, p. 187-8. I think Kaufmann is correct in arguing that Nietzsche is not anti-Semitic (Kaufmann, Nietzsche: Philosophy, Psychologist, Antichrist, Chapter 10). At least, Nietzsche is not anti-Semitic in the ordinary sense- he does not hate Jews, think them inferior, etc. But Nietzsche is often guilty of what might be called positive racism. He is all too willing to generalize about races or nations, to assign them a character, a unified identity, perhaps even an essence. In doing so, he often points to what he takes to be the strengths of a people. But to ignore variation between individuals, to rank a people against other peoples, to lump them together and to generalize in this way, only differs from ordinary racism in that it approves of this people rather than disapproves and demeans. Schutte has suggested that Nietzsche scholars tend to cover up for Nietzschethey tend to avoid criticizing many of his values. She argues that we ought to be much more critical of him. I agree with this. I think many of Nietzsche's views, especially those centering around his elitism, are morally atrocious. But I think our criticism must be carefully timed. We must restrain our criticism until we understand Nietzsche. Schutte goes on to say that ‘Nietzsche repeatedly Justified slavery and the exploitation of the disadvantaged for the sake of the development of a “higher culture“’ (Schutte, 162). This, I have tried to argue in this paper, is to misunderstand and to oversimplify the relation of master to slave as Nietzsche understands it. The übermensch is as much a slave as a master and the role of the slave in producing a higher culture is much more subtle and complex than Schutte's complaint suggests.
