19th Century Philosophy: Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)

V. Human Nature and Society

A. Human Nature

Nietzsche insists that human beings constitute a transitional, not a final stage of development. Consequently, human beings cannot become too complacent about or satisfied with their achievements without endangering their claim to be human. They must constantly strive to surpass themselves and to prepare the way for what Nietzsche calls “the superman” or “overman” if they want to avoid slipping back to a subhuman level.

In the prologue to Nietzsche’s Thus Spake Zarathustra (Prologue 4), Zarathustra says,

“Man is a rope, stretched between beast and Superman – a rope across an abyss,
a dangerous looking back, a dangerous shuddering and stopping. What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not a goal; what can be loved in man is that he transcends and descends.”

Risks, suffering, sacrifice, reevaluation of values, indomitable spirit, self-assertion, and a willingness to face life without rancor are evident when true human beings act. In effect, humanity itself resides with the noble person.

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)

II. Morality

A. Master/Slave Morality

There is a master morality according to Nietzsche, which is exhibited by noble persons who choose for themselves what is valuable, and a slave morality exhibited by the weak persons who inculcate mediocrity in order to protect themselves from superior persons. Thus master morality is based upon choice, whereas slave morality is based upon resentment and fear. Of the noble person, Nietzsche says in Beyond Good and Evil,

“The noble type of man regards himself as a determiner of values; he does not require to be approved of; he passes the judgment: ‘What is injurious to me is injurious in itself;’ he knows that it is he himself only who confers honor on things; he is a creator of values. He honors whatever he recognizes in himself. Such morality is self-glorification. In the foreground there is the feeling of plenitude, of power, which seeks to overflow the happiness of high tension, the consciousness of a wealth which would fain give and bestow: The Noble man also helps the unfortunate, but nor, or scarcely, out of pity, but rather from an impulse generated by the super-abundance of power. The noble man honors in himself the powerful one, him also who has power over himself, who knows how to speak and how to keep silence, who takes pleasure in subjecting himself to severity and hardness, and has reverence for all that is severe and hard. “Wotan placed a hard heart in my breast,” says an old Scandinavian Saga; it is thus rightly expressed from the soul of a proud Viking Such type of man is even proud of not being made for sympathy; the hero of the Saga therefore adds warningly: ‘He who has not a hard heart when young, will never have one.’ The noble and brave who think thus are the furthest removed from the morality which see precisely in sympathy, or in acting for the good of others, or in desinterestessement, the characteristic of the moral; faith in oneself, pride in oneself, a radical enmity and irony towards ‘selflessness,’ belongs as definitely to noble quality, as do a careless scorn and precaution in the presence of sympathy and the ‘warm heart.’” (Beyond Good and Evil, 260) No action is objectively and automatically right or wrong within the master morality. Thus, for example, the characteristic attributes of slave morality, such as pity, selflessness, compassion, humility, and love of neighbor, are not objectively and automatically wrong. A noble person, too, can exhibit these attributes, so long as they originate through self-assertion, not through resentment and fear.

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)

I. Life

Nietzsche’s father was a Lutheran minister and was also the son of a Lutheran minister. His mother was the daughter of a Lutheran minister. His father died of mental illness due to what was termed “a softening of the brain” when Nietzsche was 4 years old. Nietzsche was raised in a household consisting of his mother, his younger sister, his father’s mother, and two maiden aunts. He was educated at Bonn and Leipzig. At some point he was supportive of Schopenhauer’s philosophy. Due to the influence of his favorite teacher, Frederick Ritschl, he was appointed as professor at the University of Basel when he was 24 years of age, being awarded a doctoral degree without having to write or defend a dissertation. He taught at Basel from 1869-1879 and in 1870 he served as a medical orderly during the Franco-Prussian War, contracting both diphtheria and dysentery. During his teaching years and throughout most of his life he suffered from migraine headaches and gastric pains which were severe enough to induce vomiting. His illnesses were a primary factor in his giving up teaching. He published his first book, The Birth of Tragedy in 1872. During the 1870’s he was a friend of Richard Wagner and was also in love with Wagner’s wife Cosima. Nietzsche and Wagner both were extremely egoistic and they found themselves at odd as time passed. Nietzsche especially disliked anti-Semitism, Berman nationalism, and Wagner’s favorable use of Christianity in Parsifal. In 1882, Nietzsche met and formed a brief friendship with Lou Salome, who established herself as a friend of celebrities. His major works after The Birth of Tragedy, include, Thus Spake Zarathustra, Beyond Good and Evil, The Genealogy of Morals, Human All Too Human, The Joyful Wisdom, Twilight of Idols, Ecce Homo, The Antichrist, and The Will to Power. The Will to Power is a posthumous collection of notes written between 1864 and 1888. His last works, The Antichrist and Ecce Homo, may show some early signs of mental illness, but they cannot be discounted as philosophy. IN January 1889, he collapsed on a street and was insane for the remainder of his life. It is generally held that the insanity resulted from tertiary syphilis, which was contracted when Nietzsche may have visited a brother as a student. He is regarded to have been sexually celibate nearly all of his life. His sister who apparently changed some of his writings after his death was married to the leading anti-Semite in Germany and she took control of his literary estate after his death.

Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797)

II. Philosophy

Wollstonecraft’s lasting place in the history of philosophy rests upon her work entitled A Vindication of the Rights of Women, published in 1792. This work constitutes a classical feminist text. In the work she appealed to egalitarian social philosophy as the basis for the creation and preservation of equal rights and opportunities for women. The foundation of morality in all human beings, according to Wollstonecraft, whether male or female, is their common possession of the faculty of reason and rationality. Wollstonecraft argued that women must claim their equality by accepting its unemotional dictates. Excessive concerns for thing such as romantic love and physical desirability are not the natural conditions of female existence, according to Wollstonecraft. These are the socially imposed means by which male domination enslaves women. Further, the work entitled Maria or the Wrongs of Woman develops similar themes but in a fictional setting. The work shows that the plight of working women differs from imprisonment.

Wollstonecraft wrote extensively on the degradation of women. She contends that if reason is an “emanation of divinity,” then it must be the same in men and women. And if we women live by “wit and cunning” it must be because these have been substituted for an understanding (VRW, 53). Knowledge consists in “the power of generalizing ideas of drawing comprehensive conclusions from individual observations.” (VRW, 54) And without the cultivation of knowledge and understanding, women are closed off from the foundations of virtue.

“The men who pride themselves upon paying arbitrary insolent respect to the sex, with the most scrupulous exactness, are most inclined to tyrannize over and despise the very weakness they cherish.” (VRW, 55) Women are given food and clothes without working for them but have to surrender in exchange their health, liberty and the acquisition of virtue (VRW, 56). By showing trivial attentions toward women, men insultingly support their own superiority (VRW, 57).

While abilities and virtues are cultivated in men and they can improve themselves through effort, this is not the case with women (VRW, 57) Consequently, women take on the follies and vices of civilization without the useful fruit (VRW, 61). The rich are in a similar situation. Women are plunged into “meannesses, cares and sorrows” due to the “prevailing opinion that they were created to feel rather than to reason” (VRW, 62) “Without knowledge, there can be no morality” (VRW, 63 and reason is necessary for women to perform their duties properly (VRW, 64) “Most of the evils of life arise from a desire of present enjoyment that outruns itself: (VRW, 73) and this is why when women lose their husband’s attentions after the initial excitement of marriage wears off, there are problems. The present education of women, at best, leaves them romantic and inconstant and at worst, vain and mean. (VRW, 75)

“Humanity to animals should be particularly cultivated as part of national education . . . The habitual cruelty is first caught at school, where it is one of the rare sports of boys to torment the miserable brutes that fall in their way. The transition, as they grow up, from barbarity to brutes to domestic tyranny over wives, children, and servants is very easy. Justice, or even benevolence, will not be a powerful spring of action unless it extends to the whole creation; nay, I believe that it may be delivered as an axiom, that those who can see pain, unmoved will soon learn to inflict it.” (VRW, 178)

Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797)

Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797)

I. Life

Wollstonecraft grew up in London in a family with an abusive father and a submissive mother. In 1786, she published a book entitled, Thoughts on the Education of Daughters, based on her experiences teaching in a village school near London. She operated the school with two of her sisters, but the school had to close. During 1786-1787, she was a governess in Ireland, but the experience did not go well. In 1787, she moved to London with a manuscript for a novel, Maria, which was published in 1788 by Joseph Johnson, a publisher willing to publish radical views. In London, she met the writers Thomas Paine and William Godwin. A Vindication of the Rights of Women was published in 1792. Late in 1792, she went to Paris, where she met and fell in love with an American adventurer, Gilbert Imray. They had a child, but Imray eventually abandoned her, which led to a period during which she made two attempts at suicide. An Historical and Moral View of the French Revolution was published in December 1794. Back in England, she entered a relationship with and later married William Godwin. She died of an infection some 2 weeks after giving birth to their first child, Mary Godwin, later to become Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein.

II. Influence

Although most known for living a scandalous life, her contributions to feminism have attracted recognition in the latter half of the 20th century.

19th Century Philosophers: Mill

IX. Views on Women (Based upon his work, The Subjection of Women)

A. Basic Position

“That the principle which regulates the existing social relations between the two sexes, the legal subordination of one sex to the other is wrong in itself and now one of the chief hindrances to human improvement; and that it ought to be replaced by a principle of perfect equality, admitting no power or privilege on the one side, nor disability on the other.” Questions about the natural abilities and inclinations of women should be settled in free and open competition, once the present advantages enjoyed by men have been removed. Most of the usual claims about women, used to justify their lower status, such as their willingness to be submissive, their voluntary desire to be just wives and mothers, their mental inferiority are speculative claims rather than established truths. Even if true now, the claims are unreliable because of the artificial social circumstances (generally set up to the advantage of men) that often govern and control women’s attitudes. Many women do not accept this voluntary subjection, as growing evidence in different places shows. Natural and social circumstances, such as the woman’s near total dependence upon a man in marriage, hinder women’s rebellion against the power of men.

B. Historical Situation

The power of men over women is a historical remnant of the rule of force as the primary principle of social life. The pattern of fixed social hierarchies characteristic of the past, for example with respect to states and slavery, gives way to freedom, mobility, and equality as human progress continues (and the same should happen with respect women).

C. Dispelling Misunderstandings

Misunderstanding: Establishing the rights of women is unnecessary because they are able to exert their power in other ways. The response to this misunderstanding lies in Mill’s assertion that power is not adequate compensation for loss of freedom or for the denial on warranted rights. In addition, women should not have to resort to other means than merely asserting their rights. Further, even if women possess respect and dignity due to the good will of most men and due to the often favorable relations within a marriage, this situation does not always occur and laws need to be set up not to protect us from the majority of people of good will but rather from the minority who would do us harm.

Misunderstanding: Women lack the originality to produce great scientific or artistic works. Mill’s response to this misunderstanding lies in his assertion that the social circumstances of women have not provided them with the opportunities to dedicate their lives to a profession in the ways that have been open to men.

D. Advantages to Human Beings generally likely to follow from the liberation of women.

There are essentially three of the advantages. First, the liberation of women will result in greater social justice according to Mill. Further, such liberation will have the consequence of “doubling the mass of mental faculties available for the higher service of humanity.” Finally, the outcome of such liberation will be the enhancement of the moral influence of women.

E. Miscellaneous

It is strange that a country can deny women the right to vote on the grounds that they are incapable of meeting political duties when the whole country was ruled by women (such as Queen Elizabeth I). Although nothing should prevent women from developing their abilities in a profession while in a marriage, it is desirable that women not have to support a family financially, since their commitment to a marriage involves considerable commitment to the management of a household and to raising a family. Society’s cultivating a tendency in boys to think of themselves as naturally, or inherently, superior to girls perverts the whole manner of existence of the man, both as an individual and as a social being. Society’s cultivating devotion to self-sacrifice in a woman exacts from her an unremitting restraint of the whole of her natural inclinations and the sole return it makes to her for what often deserves the name of a martyrdom is consideration from her husband and other family members.

19th Century Philosophers: Mill

VIII. God and Religion

A. Early and Middle View

Both his father and Harriet Taylor were strongly atheistic. In the “Utility of Religion”, which was written during the 1850’s, he denied religion’s social utility, describing it as “moral bribery and subornation of the understanding.”

B. Final View

He was more sympathetic to the issue of God and religion late in his life. His views are expressed in an essay, “Theism” which was a posthumously published work.

C. Requirement of Consistency with Science

Conceptions of God and arguments for God’s existence should not contravene science. The concept of God governing the universe through a variable will, rather than invariable laws, is inconsistent with science.

D. Arguments for the Existence of God.

1. Argument for a First Cause Rejected. Theism requires a volitional first cause, but Matter and Force, which have no beginning in our experience, can be a first cause, while still lacking volition.

2. Argument from the General Consent of Mankind: Rejected - Secondhand testimony cannot substitute for real evidence.

3. Argument from Consciousness: Rejected – Appeals to subjective, internal consciousness are inadequate. God is not necessary for a sense of moral obligation to be present.

4. Argument from Design in Nature: Granted some probability. “The resemblances between some of the arrangements in nature and some of those made by man are considerable, and even as mere resemblances afford a certain presumption of similarity of cause; but how great that presumption is, it is hard to say. Al that can be said with certainty is that these likenesses make creation by intelligence considerably more probable than if the likenesses had been less, or than if there had been no likenesses at all.” (EPC, 406 or Essays on Politics and Culture.) However, the doctrine of evolution based upon the survival of the fittest (and Mill does not mention “evolution” although he is clearly referring to it as a new scientific doctrine, offers an alternative to the need for an intelligent will.

E. Attributes of God.

Mill denies the omnipotence of God. Since God would need wisdom to “rule the means by which two accomplish purposes for the universe, that is, God would need ingenuity to play things our, God cannot be omnipotent. The need to work with the substances and forces in the universe in order to accomplish purposes implies limitation of power. The inability to prevent evil points to either a lack of power or a lack of knowledge. In addition, Mill argues for God’s limited benevolence. We can expect the designing intelligence to will happiness for human beings, but there is no evidence that happiness is a chief purpose of God, given the extent of human misery and how “baffled” human beings are.

F. Immortality
Mill contends that there is no evidence for the existence of immortality, although science cannot exclude its possibility. On this basis we can maintain a so-called “hope” in immortality.

G. Rejection of Miracles

Mill proposes that miracles go against the overwhelming evidence in science that events are subject to natural laws. Witnesses to miracles are generally unreliable.


H. Conclusions

With respect to God’s existence Mill argues that there is evidence but this evidence is insufficient for proof and amounts to one of the lower degrees of probability (p. 444, EPC). “The whole domain of the supernatural (particularly with regard to Divine Benevolence, is removed from the region of Belief into that of simple Hope and in that for anything we can see it is likely always to remain.” (445, EPC) However, even granting our lack of adequate evidence, “the indulgence of hope . . . is legitimate and philosophically defensible” (448, EPC). Hope is beneficial because it elevates the importance of feelings and gives both greater strength and solemnity to our sentiments. Hope gives us an ideal standard of excellence by which to regulate out own character and lives.

19th Century Philosophers: Mill

VII. Liberty and Necessity (from A System of Logic, Bk. VI. Ch. II)

A. Philosophical Necessity:

“Given the motives which are present to an individual’s mind, and given likewise the character and disposition of the individual, the manner in which h he will act might be unerringly inferred; that if we knew the person thoroughly, and know all the inducements which are acting upon him, we could foretell his conduct with as much certainty as we can predict in any physical event.”

This is merely an “interpretation of universal experience. If we know all the relevant circumstances and the character of a person, we believe we can predict how the person would act. We only hesitate because we lack all the relevant information. Moreover, we do not think that we stop acting freely just because persons who know us well can predict how we will act in various situations. So Mill is taking a compatibilist position of free will and determinism, i.e. our actions are determined, but we also can act freely in some sense.

B. Elimination of Misinterpretations

The Common View of Necessity contends that nothing can be changed. Mill rejects this view. He contends that if different causal circumstances occur, then human actions can change.

As regards the issue of “Fatalism” he contends that since our character is formed “for” us by causal circumstances, there is no point in struggling to change it. Mill rejects this view. He contends that to some extent, our character is formed “by” us. “His character is formed by his circumstances, . . . but his own desire to mold it in a particular way is one of those circumstances, and by no means one of the least influential.” So what “we” are has some bearing on changes that can come about; and there is no reason for fatalistic submission. Mill further argues that “this feeling of being able to modify our own character ‘if we wish’, is itself the feeling of moral freedom which are conscious of” and this makes possible the notion of moral responsibility, thus exhibiting Mill’s acceptance of a soft determinism.

19th Century Philosophers: Mill

D. Replies to the Problems in the Development of Social Science

Problem: “It is a common notion, or at least, it is implied in may common modes of speech that the thoughts, feelings, and actions of sentient beings are not a subject of science in the same strict sense in which this is true of the objects of outward nature.”

Reply: “An facts are fitted, in themselves, to be a subject of science which follow one another according to constant laws, although those laws may not have been discovered nor even be discoverable by our existing resources.” Meteorology, tidology, and early astronomy provide examples.

Problem: Due to the inadequate date, viz, the absence of complete knowledge about every human being’s individual circumstances and about the diverse ways leading to the formation of human character, predictions matching those of a science such as astronomy are impossible.

Reply: “Inasmuch, however, as many of those effects which it is of most importance to render amenable to human foresight and control are determined like the tides, in an incomparably greater degree by general causes than by all partial causes taken together, depending in the main on those circumstances and qualities which are common to all mankind, or at least, to large bodies of them, and only in a small degree on the idiosyncrasies of organization or the peculiar history of individuals, it is evidently possible with regard to all such effects to make predictions which will almost always be verified and general propositions which are almost always true. And whenever it is sufficient to know how the great majority of the human race of some nation or class of persons will think, feel, and act, these propositions are equivalent to universal ones. For the purposes of political and social science this is sufficient.”

19th Century Philosophers: Mill

C. Ethology

“In other words, mankind have not one universal character, but there exist universal laws of the formation of character. And since it is by those laws, combined with the facts of each particular case, that the whole of the phenomena of human action and feeling are produced, it is on these that every rational attempt to construct the science of human nature in the concrete and for practical purposes must proceed.”

“This science of ethology may be called the ‘exact science of human nature’ . . . . It is, however (as in all cases of complex phenomena), necessary to the exactness of propositions that they should be hypothetical only and affirm tendencies, not facts. They must not assert that something will always, or certainly happen, but only that such and such will be the effect of a given cause, so far as it operates uncounteracted. It is a scientific proposition that bodily strength tends to make man courageous, not that it always makes them so, that an interest on one side of a question tends to bias the judgment, not that it invariably does so; that experience tends to give wisdom, not that such is always its effect. These propositions, being assertive only of tendencies, are not the less universally true because the tendencies may be frustrated.”

“The laws of the phenomena of society are and can be nothing but the laws of the actions and passions of human beings united together in this social state. Men, however, in a state of society are still men; their actions and passions are obedient to the laws of individual human nature. Men are not, when brought together, converted into Another kind of substance with different properties, as hydrogen and oxygen are different from water . . . Human beings in society have no properties but those which are derived from and may be resolved into the laws of nature of individual man. In social phenomena, the composition of causes is the universal law.”

Although the ways human beings act in society varies with circumstances, individual human nature is unchangeable and is determined by the universal laws of mind and the formation of character.

With respect to social dynamics, i.e. the progression from one state of society to another, “we are justified in concluding that the order of human progression in al respects will mainly depend on the order of progression in the intellectual convictions of mankind, that is, on the law of the successive transformations of human opinions.” IN other words, the idea of human beings is the primary cause of social change.