288.
_Morality regarded as an attempt at establishing human pride._--The
"Free-Will" theory is anti-religious. Its ultimate object is to bestow
the right upon man to regard himself as the _cause_ of his highest
states and actions: it is a form of the growing _feeling of pride._
Man feels his power his "happiness"; as they say: there must be a will
behind these states--otherwise they do not belong to him. Virtue is
an attempt at postulating a modicum of will, past or present, as the
necessary antecedent to every exalted and strong feeling of happiness:
if the will to certain actions is regularly present in consciousness,
a sensation of power may be interpreted as its result. This is a
_merely psychological point of view,_ based upon the false assumption
that nothing belongs to us which we have not consciously willed. The
whole of the teaching of responsibility relies upon the ingenuous
psychological rule that the will is the only cause, and that one must
have been aware of having willed in order to be able to regard _one's
self_ as a cause.
_Then comes the counter-movement_--that of the moral-philosophers.
These men still labour under the delusion that a man is responsible
only for what he has willed. The value of man is then made a _moral
value_: thus morality becomes a _causa prima_; for this there must be
some kind of principle in man, and "free will" is posited as _prima
causa._ The _arrière pensée_ is always this: If man is not a _causa
prima_ through his will, he must be irresponsible,--therefore he
does not come within the jurisdiction of morals,--virtue or vice is
automatic and mechanical....
In short: in order that man may respect himself he must be capable of
becoming evil.
289.
_Theatricalness_ regarded as the result of "Free Will" morality. It
is a step in the _development of the feeling of power itself_ to
believe one's self to be the author of one's exalted moments (of one's
perfection) and to have _willed_ them....
(Criticism: all perfect action is precisely unconscious and not
deliberate; consciousness is often the expression of an imperfect
and often morbid constitution. _Personal perfection regarded as
determined by will, as an act of consciousness,_ as reason with
dialectics, is a caricature, a sort of self-contradiction.... Any
degree of consciousness renders perfection _impossible._ ... A form of
_theatricalness_.)
290.
The _moral hypothesis,_ designed with a view to _justifying God,_
said: evil must be voluntary (simply in order that the _voluntariness
of goodness_ might be believed in); and again, all evil and suffering
have an _object which is salvation_.
The notion "guilt" was considered as something which had no
connection at all with the ultimate cause of existence, and the
notion "punishment" was held to be an educating and beneficent act,
consequently an act proceeding from a _good_ God.
The absolute dominion of moral valuations _over_ all others: nobody
doubted that God could not be evil and could do no harm--that is to
say, perfection was understood merely as _moral_ perfection.
291.
How false is the supposition that an action must depend upon what has
preceded it in consciousness! And morality has been measured in the
light of this supposition, as also criminality....
The value of an action must be judged by its results, say the
utilitarians: to measure it according to its origin involves the
impossibility of _knowing_ that origin.
But do we know its results? Five stages ahead, perhaps. Who can tell
what an action provokes and sets in motion? As a stimulus? As the spark
which fires a powder-magazine? Utilitarians are simpletons.... And
finally, they would first of all have to know _what_ is useful; here
also their sight can travel only over five stages or so.... They have
no notion of the great economy which cannot dispense with evil.
We do not know the origin or the results: has an action, then, any
value?
We have yet the action itself to consider: the states of consciousness
that accompany it, the yea or nay which follows upon its performance:
does the value of an action lie in the subjective states which
accompany it? (In that case, the value of music would be measured
according to the pleasure or displeasure which it occasions in us ...
which it gives to the _composer._ ...) Obviously feelings of value
must accompany it, a sensation of power, restraint, or impotence--for
instance, freedom or lightsomeness. Or, putting the question
differently: could the value of an action be reduced to physiological
terms? could it be the expression of completely free or constrained
life?--Maybe its _biological_ value is expressed in this way....
If, then, an action can be judged neither in the light of its origin,
nor its results, nor its accompaniments in consciousness, then its
value must be _x_ unknown....
292.
It amounts to a _denaturalisation of morality,_ to _separate_ an action
from a man; to direct hatred or contempt against "sin"; to believe that
there are actions which are good or bad in themselves.
The _re-establishment of_ "_Nature_": an action in itself is quite
devoid of value; the whole question is this: who performed it? One and
the same "crime" may, in one case, be the greatest privilege, in the
other infamy. As a matter of fact, it is the selfishness of the judges
which interprets an action (in regard to its author) according as to
whether it was useful or harmful to themselves (or in relation to its
degree of likeness or unlikeness to them).
293.
The concept "reprehensible action" presents us with some difficulties.
Nothing in all that happens can be reprehensible in itself: _one would
not dare to eliminate it completely_; for everything is so bound up
with everything else, that to exclude one part would mean to exclude
the whole.
A reprehensible action, therefore, would mean a reprehensible world as
a whole....
And even then, in a reprehensible world even reprehending would be
reprehensible.... And the consequence of an attitude of mind that
condemns everything, would be the affirmation of everything in
practice.... If Becoming is a huge ring, everything that forms a part
of it is of equal value, is eternal and necessary.--In all correlations
of yea and nay, of preference and rejection, love and hate, all that
is expressed is a certain point of view, peculiar to the interests of
a certain type of living organism: everything that lives says _yea_ by
the very fact of its existence.
294.
_Criticism of the subjective feelings of value.--_Conscience. Formerly
people argued: conscience condemns this action, therefore this action
is reprehensible. But, as a matter of fact, conscience condemns an
action because that action has been condemned for a long period of
time: all conscience does is to imitate. It does not create values.
That which first led to the condemnation of certain actions, was
_not_ conscience: but the knowledge of (or the prejudice against)
its consequences.... The approbation of conscience, the feeling of
well-being, of "inner peace," is of the same order of emotions as the
artist's joy over his work--it proves nothing.... Self-contentment
proves no more in favour of that which gives rise to it, than its
absence can prove anything against the value of the thing which fails
to give rise to it. We are far too ignorant to be able to judge of the
value of our actions: in this respect we lack the ability to regard
things objectively. Even when we condemn an action, we do not do so
as judges, but as adversaries.... When noble sentiments accompany an
action, they prove nothing in its favour: an artist may present us
with an absolutely insignificant thing, though he be in the throes of
the most exalted pathos during its production. It were wiser to regard
these sentiments as misleading: they actually beguile our eye and our
power, away from criticism, from caution and from suspicion, and the
result often is that we make _fools_ of ourselves ... they actually
make fools of us.
295.
We are heirs to the conscience-vivisection and self-crucifixion of two
thousand years: in these two practices lie perhaps our longest efforts
at becoming perfect, our mastery, and certainly our subtlety; we have
affiliated natural propensities with a heavy conscience.
An attempt to produce an entirely opposite state of affairs would be
possible: that is to say, to affiliate all desires of a beyond, all
sympathy with things which are opposed to the senses, the intellect,
and nature--in fact, all the ideals that have existed hitherto (which
were all anti-worldly), with a heavy conscience.
296.