WORKSHOP: THE GENEALOGY OF MORALS (First and Second Essays)

By Don Finkel

Divide up into groups of five. Make one person responsible for keeping an eye on the time. You do not need a scribe, but everyone should take good notes, so you can use your responses as grist for seminar this afternoon.

I. (30 minutes) Part I of this workshop addresses the important question of Nietzsche's method. TAKE NO MORE THAN A HALF HOUR FOR THIS SECTION. GO ON TO PART II AFTER THAT, EVEN IF YOU HAVEN'T COMPLETED PART I.)

Nietzsche tells us (p. 151) that like, Ivan Karamazov, he too was preoccupied with the question, "Where does evil come from?" By the age of 13, he had decided that evil came from God. However, later he transformed this question into another one, namely: "Under what conditions did man construct the value judgments good and evil?" To understand Nietzsche's work, one must understand the stunning significance of this transformation of a question.

1. What is the difference between investigating the first version of the question and investigating the second version?

2. What kind of an answer is suitable to the first question, and what kind is suitable to the second?

3. What is implied by his calling the second question a transformation of the first question, rather than the replacement of it with a new question?

4. How does the title of Nietzsche's essay (or book) connect to the transformation we are discussing here?

5. Nietzsche says (p. 212), "only that which has no history can be defined." Why would this be so?

6. Giving a definition and providing a genealogy are thus contrasted: what human needs might be satisfied by providing a definition? By providing a genealogy?

7. What are the possible dangers of providing a definition (and not providing a genealogy)?

8. Are there dangers, also, in providing a genealogy (and not providing a definition)?

II. A. (40 mins.) In Part II, we wish to come to grips the contrasting pair of contrasting pairs that Nietzsche uses as the title of his first essay.

1. The account Nietzsche gives us (the genealogy) argues that one pair came first, and that the second pair developed historically out of the first. Which pair came first?

2. Further, and very important, within each pair, one term comes first, both psychologically and probably historically. The second term within the pair is derived from the first; it is therefore secondary and derivative. We can therefore make the following schema:

A ---> B

C ---> D

In this schema, each letter stands for a term. Using the labels "Good1," "Bad," "Good2," and "Evil," fill in the schema. (This should not be a difficult task, but it is crucial that you get it right.)

3. It is important to notice that this genealogy begins with the word "Good" and ends with the word "Good," but that in the process, the meaning of the word "Good" has been transformed.

Not only has this meaning been transformed, but the word "Good" has gone from being a primary term to being a derivative term.

According to Nietzsche, what is the original meaning of the word "Good"?

4. Give an example of something or some action that is good according to this original meaning?

5. Now try to think of an example from your own personal experience of something or some action that is good according to this "original" meaning?

6. On p. 160, Nietzsche tells us that the original concept of "good" originated with those who did the good, not with those to whom it was done. He then says, "It was only this pathos of distance that authorized them to create values and name them..." "Pathos of distance" is therefore a crucial concept. What does it mean? [My dictionary defines "pathos" as "A quality in something or someone that arouses feeling s of pity, sympathy, tenderness, or sorrow in another."]

7. Can you find an example in your own experience of "the pathos of distance"?

8. Thus, according to Nietzsche, morality, in its origin, presupposes fundamental differences between classes of people, and more than that, inequality. Why should this be? (Recall Rousseau's analysis of compassion in Book IV of Emile, and his analysis of how envy and amour propre grow out of amour-de-soi.)

9. So if we are clear on what the original meaning of good was, what, then, does its opposite, "bad," signify?

II B. (35 mins.)

1. The second and newer contrasting pair of moral terms comes from what Nietzsche calls an "inversion of values" due to a "slave revolt" in moral thinking. In this pair, "evil" is the primary term, and "good" the derived term. What does "evil" signify, according to Nietzsche?

2. What motives did the impotent classes (priests and "slaves") have for redefining "bad" as "evil"?

3. What then would the new or derived meaning of "good" become, given that it is derived as the opposite of "evil"?

4. "... so does popular morality divorce strength from its manifestations, as though there were behind the strong a neutral agent, free to manifest its strength or contain it. But no such agent exists; there is no "being" behind the doing, acting, becoming; the "doer" has simply been added to the deed by the imagination--the doing is everything." (pp. 178-9)

Discuss this passage and try to make sense of it.

5. Have someone in your group read aloud--with some care and feeling--the passage that starts on the top of p. 217 and keep reading until she gets to the word "awesomeness," 3/4 of the way down p. 218.

Discuss what you think Nietzsche means by the process he calls "interiorization."

6. Why should "interiorization" lead to the growth of "what is later called man's soul"? What does Nietzsche mean by this surprising claim?

BREAK - 15 minutes

C. (15 mins.) Below are 2 diagrams I have created to help unravel the differences in the psychological organizations that lead to the two systems of morality Nietzsche is contrasting. On the left, the simpler diagram might depict the healthy, strong, animal-like aristocrat who is the bearer of aristocratic values. The arrows stand for "instinctive actions." On the right, the more complex diagram might depict the unhealthy, impotent, slave who is the bearer of "altruistic values" (which derive from "bad conscience.") The curving arrows stand for instinctive actions turned inward because they are not allowed free play. The circle of straight arrows pointing inward represent the external forces that prevent the free play of the slave's instinctive actions and impulses toward freedom and free expression. The letter "S" stands for the "soul," or "self," or agent, who is created by this set of psychological conditions.

1. Examine and discuss the two diagrams and explain why the left hand one might make sense of Nietzsche's claim that there is no doer behind the doing, no neutral agent, and why the right hand one might make sense of his claim that the soul is created by a perverse and unhealthy set of psychological conditions.

2. Try to explain how altruistic values might develop out of the bad conscience created in the right hand diagram. ("Bad conscience, the desire for self-mortification, is the wellspring of all altruistic values."--p. 221)

III. Summary (20 mins.)

Have someone real aloud--with care and feeling--the passage that starts with the second full sentence on p. 229 ("Man has looked ...") and continues to the end of that long paragraph.

1. What does Nietzsche mean by superb health?

2. What are the implications of making health a moral term, as he is doing here?

3. What is Nietzsche's view of nature, and how does it connect with his view of superb health?

4. What do you suppose are the conditions that make his doubt whether superb health is still possible in his day (Europe at the end of the 19th Century)?

5. What is your prognosis about the possibility of superb health (never mind its desirability) under the conditions we live in today (America at the end of the 20th Century)?

IV. Whole Group Discussion (15 mins.)