Abstract
The article discusses how Nietzsche understands the institution of law and morals in distinction to Kant and the Christian tradition. It argues that Nietzsche to a large extent is inspired by the paradigm-shift toward a evolutionary biological thinking introduced by several of his peers in the late 19th century, among else F. A. Lange, who sees this shift as a sobering scientific-materialistic alternative to Kant. In Nietzsche, the Kantian moral imperative is replaced with a notion of a morality emerging thanks to historical, or pre-historical, civilizational processes, imposed on a feebleminded human without any inherent rational dispositions to obey Law. It is also a process, which rather than universalizing the human, splits it in a duality where one part obeys old immediate self-interests and another part obeys new 'commands,' having been shouted 'into the ear' by a so-called 'commander.' The compliance with law takes two radically different forms in Nietzsche: servile and mediocre individuals need to be exposed to discipline and punishment in order to adopt Law; while so-called 'sovereign' individuals are able to impose law upon themselves. The figure of the 'sovereign' has consequently been an issue for vigorous debate in especially the Anglo-Saxon tradition of Nietzsche research, since his apparent 'respect for law' and 'sense of duty' reiterate typical Kantian qualities. Relating to these discussions, I suggest that Nietzsche's 'sovereign' (in one context) is identical his 'commander' (in other contexts). When the 'sovereign' as such imposes law upon himself and others, his act is conventional and arbitrary (like language in Saussure), and is rather irrational than rational as in Kant. His will is not a good will, nor a rational will with a vision of human autonomy. His command of himself and others is a performative, thus without truth-value (like illocutionary speech-acts in Austin and Searle).
Highlights
Kant famously believed in a “moral law within us” that demands our respect and admiration no less than the “starry heavens above us.”
In the last chapters of his monumental “A History of Materialism”, Lange discusses the possibility of rethinking Kant’s Ethics along the lines of his socalled ‘Theoretical Materialism.’. Like many of his peers, Lange is, on the one hand, immersed in the Kantian paradigm, but is on the other hand embracing the evolutionary biological paradigm-shift that had been introduced by Darwin, Huxley, Haeckel, and others
The evolutionary paradigm becomes the foundation for this new orientation toward Materialism, which by Lange and his contemporaries is seen as modifying Kant’s a priori categories
Summary
Kant famously believed in a “moral law within us” that demands our respect and admiration no less than the “starry heavens above us.” This moral law “within us,” he regarded as part of our transcendental make up. To Lange, both Egoism and Sympathy have a material basis in the “sensuous nature of man,” and they do not need the help of transcendental or “superstitious” assumptions, i.e., Kantian categories, which rather need to “be established on a purely psychological basis.”. We notice how this debate is present in Nietzsche when he in his discussion of morals implicitly or explicitly posits himself against Kant’s metaphysics of morals (we will return to Nietzsche’s take on this ‘egoism/ altruism’ distinction below). Rationality becomes an effect of disciplinary procedures, not an inert human precondition
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