Monday, November 28, 2011

Genealogy - Preface

Most of us have certain moral inclinations that we hold onto very dearly, and most of the time the things which we speak of in passionate terms are spoken in moral language. In our most heated conversations on topics such as politics, many of us stand strongly behind our opinions because we believe them to be morally right. Most people believe that murder is absolutely wrong and very few will try to justify unwarranted murder, but what are we talking about when we talk about what is good/bad and right/wrong? What is truth? We like to believe that there is an absolute Truth somewhere out there in the world that can back up our moral feelings – people argue that such and such is wrong because people are sentient beings capable of suffering and causing unnecessary suffering is wrong, because of some God who is the origin of all essential values and God declared that killing is wrong, etc. Whatever the rationale is, often we speak as if there is an absolute truth to what we say. Some even argue that moral language can be translated and applied to a distant culture and/or time, and many insist on holding onto this notion of an absolute truth because they fear that to suggest that truth as something that varies in accordance to a particular set of values/language of a particular time and culture is to reduce that which we hold on to as having moral weight to nothingness. But are the ones who insist on the existence of some absolute truth trying to assert dominance of power? In Genealogy of Morality, Nietzsche is addressing the easy attitude some people take towards truth, as if truth lies in some essence in the world and can be guaranteed. Nietzsche shakes the reader out of her comfort zone by suggesting that values are invented under certain conditions (5) so it does not have some absolute origin/Truth it can fall back on. It appears that many of our moral language, or just language in general which we use to describe the world around us, evolves over time. How we understand the world today is very different from our cultural predecessor in history, yet if look backwards in time we see a gradual evolution of language and values, so morality is something like Darwinian evolution; it is a historical process, yet it does not have a rational end/goal because there is no origin/purpose, and its direction is as random as the particular events that shapes them. Nietzsche notes that the language/values which we use to look outward into the world and by which we judge the world has not been examined. As Nietzsche said, we need a “critique of moral values” (7) as “people have taken the value of these 'values' as given, as factual, as beyond all questioning”. To Nietzsche, this critique is important because he sees the system of morality during his time as one that is ultimately detrimental to society.

Sunday, November 27, 2011

Nietzsche’s Spontaneous Nobles and Clever Slaves


In his first essay: ‘Good and Evil’, ‘Good and Bad’ in On the Genealogy of Morality, Friedrich Nietzsche discusses mankind’s development of morality. The development of morality contained two distinct but related accounts; slave and noble. Slave morality can be easily understood if associated with Judeo-Christian ethics of selfless-ness and utilitarianism. Within slave morality, the weak are seen as ‘good’, and the violent and powerful are seen as ‘evil’. The slave morality was intellectually formulated.

However, the original account of morality was that of the nobles’. Noble morality did not create value-judgments based on what was useful. “Instead it has been ‘the good’ themselves, meaning the noble, the mighty, the high-placed and the high-minded, who saw and judged themselves and their actions as ‘good’” (11). The Noble’s morality was spontaneously created and was used only to form a pathos of distance between the powerful (the nobles) and the weak (the slaves) (11). Pathos of distance refers to the value laden distance created to distinguish between two groups. The noble was only concerned with being active and happy (21).

The slave on the other hand was more passive, clever and docile. Slave morality developed in opposition to the nobles and their morality. The slaves, who repeatedly suffered at the hands of the powerful nobles, convinced themselves that being weak was their own choice. Slave morality emerged as the slaves labeled the nobles and their actions as ‘evil’. The slave turned their natural condition of suffering at the hands of others into a condition which should be desired. Humility and selfless-ness were raised as the highest values by the slave. Weakness became ‘good’, and power became ‘evil’. The slaves’ natural passivity forced them to be cleverer than the nobles (21). The slave had to think of a justification for the suffering inherent in their existence. The slave account of ‘good’ and ‘evil’ is dialectically opposed to that of the nobles’. The nobles’ account of ‘bad’ is all that the slave embodies; the nobles’ account of ‘good’ is the slaves’ account of ‘evil’. Would a proper morality form as the outcome of a Hegelian dialectic between these two accounts of morality?

Nietzsche’s discussion of noble morality reminds me of the character Alex from A Clockwork Orange (both film and book). In A Clockwork Orange, Alex leads a group of young boys around his city, raping, killing, fighting, and doing as they please. Alex refers to this as “the ultraviolent”. Alex also has an appreciation for aesthetics as he enjoys Ludwig Van Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, especially the 4th movement, commonly known as the Ode to Joy. Alex only has an account of ‘good’. His actions seem to be highly spontaneous. He rarely seems to have a plan of what he will do, he only acts. The closest he gets to forming an idea of what is ‘bad’ is when he discusses how he despises the weakness of a homeless old man. Is Alex a good example of what Nietzsche would consider a noble?

Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, Keith Pearson, and Carol Diethe. On the genealogy of morality. Rev. student ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Print.

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Desire for Recognition (old blog)

blog post 1.

mastery and servitude, Desire for recognition.

In this portion of the phenomenology, Hegel writes about the desire for recognition of others. He begins by saying that the consciousness of one is only able to know itself through others. I believe that he means this, that if you can only know yourself through the struggle of two people between mastery and servitude. To be understood better this should be broken down into two parts; the first part about the actual recognition, and the second part about the struggle between master and slave between dominant and submissive. To support the idea that one can only know oneself through others it is easier to think of one person by him or herself. What kind of person would that be? Hegel believes that the person would lose his identity in that he wouldn't know who he is. And that the only way that he could know himself is through the recognition of others. It is like saying that if I found a heavy bat, however how do you know that the bat is the heaviest in the world unless one can compare it with others. Another way of thinking about it is to say that if there is a small island and on this island there are people and on this island there is one man who is the tallest man on the island. Now let us say that the average height of these people is 3 feet. Now let us imagine that a lost ship crashes on the island, and this ship is from another island where the average size of the people is 5 feet tall. Now let us say that they are all killed upon impact and that the smallest man survives and that the smallest man is 4 feet tall. This man would now be the tallest and the man who was the tallest no longer is. Of course to take this metaphor one step further would be to say that there was only one man on an island. How would he know if he was strong, weak, smart, or dumb? In fact Hegel would say that the man has no idea of himself and no concept of who he is.
The next part of this piece is the desire for recognition. Hegel says when any two people meet there is a struggle that takes place for recognition. Lacking a better comparison, I'd say that the two people struggle for dominance. Hegel says that this is always what happens when two people interact for the first time. Recognition can only occur when one submits to the other's dominance. What I am confused is why must this be so? Can't there be some sort of sharing of recognition, or would it only work if it was like flipping a coin each day to see which is the dominant and which is the submissive one. Hegel would say that this cannot happen ever. The idea of a flip of a coin determining type of personality is impossible because people are not like that. Something tells me that there must be a way that there can be shared dominance or a mutual cooperation.

Monday, November 14, 2011

Kierkegaard's Paradox of Faith

In Problem I of Fear and Trembling, Kierkegaard addresses a biblical, paradoxical dilemma: why does Abraham abandon his ethical duty to his son and choose to kill him? More specifically, Kierkegaard explores Abraham’s “teleological suspension of the ethical.” Drawing upon the traditional notions of ethics from Hegel and Kant, Kierkegaard establishes that the ethical is the universal, in which the individual has a telos (end or purpose) in the universal (46). The ethical describes the rational and normative aspects of morality that all people should abide by, for example, how Kant’s Categorical Imperative sets up rational, universal maxims. Under this traditional notion, all actions should strive towards the universal as their end or purpose. Kierkegaard uses Abraham’s conflict between his duty to his son (his ethical duty) and to God (his duty to his faith) to underline the paradox of faith. By critiquing the objectivism of the ethical and through the paradox of faith, Kierkegaard attempts to reestablish the value of faith – faith being outside of reason.

In order to explain the paradox of faith, Kierkegaard highlights Abraham’s conflict. In the story of Abraham, Isaac represents Abraham’s ethical duty – that a father should love his son more than himself (49). Why does Abraham suspend his ethical duty? Abraham wishes to express his duty to God in order to prove his faith. Since Abraham’s telos lies in the universal, he must conform to it (and thus save his son) in order to act morally. However, if he wishes to prove his faith and to act as an individual, he is guilty of acting immorally (53-54). Abraham’s dilemma is a paradox of faith – his telos (which lies in the universal) and faith (which is outside of the universal) are in opposition. Kierkegaard describes that faith is a paradox because “the single individual is higher than the universal.” In other words, Abraham is placing his single individual relationship with the divine above his ethical duty to his son.

This paradox, Kierkegaard argues, cannot be mediated and is “inexplicable” (58). Unlike Hegel’s notion of faith, which is part of reason and knowledge, Kierkegaard’s notion of faith is not reducible to rational or conceptual ideas. Abraham’s duty to God cannot be mediated on ethical grounds because he is acting as a single individual rather than in the realm of universals. Abraham is acting outside rationality. Kierkegaard puts Abraham’s actions into perspective: Abraham is “either a murder or we are at the paradox that is higher than all mediations” (54). If Hegel is correct and the ethical is the universal, Abraham becomes lost because he remains guilty of violating his ethical duty and transforms into a murderer (58). Kierkegaard might be suggesting that we must conceive of an ultimate human goal or telos that is beyond the universal or what is rational, stressing the value of singular purposes each single individual may have.

Kierkegaard concludes that we can only understand Abraham’s dilemma as a paradox. Kierkegaard is emphasizing that faith cannot be merely an expression of the ethical as Hegel would argue. In order to acknowledge Abraham as the “father of faith,” we must have a notion that is above the ethical and that emphasizes the individual (58). However, how can we think of a non-rational (quite absurd notion) existing beyond what is rational? Although Kierkegaard is showing his readers the value of faith, Abraham’s actions still remain questionable. It seems that Kierkegaard believes that Abraham’s actions are not punishable because they are beyond rationality. Should a person's duty to God, the one-on-one relationship between a person and the divine, become his or her telos? This idea Kierkegaard may be proposing in this section is quite radical. Abraham must believe that his faith to God is stronger or more important than his duty to his son – not only a paradoxical statement, but peculiar and selfish.

This point becomes more vivid when Kierkegaard’s paradox of faith is applied to the Doomsday Killer in the Showtime series Dexter. The Doomsday Killer is carrying out his duty to God to signal the end of the world by reenacting biblical stories of the second coming, which leads to the murder of several innocent people. His accomplice is convinced that he must assist in these murderous reenactments to prove his faith to God. However, by carrying out their duty to God, they are suspending themselves from the ethical – the universal responsibility for citizens to obey society's laws against murder. Are these actions justified since they are what lie in faith, what is beyond the rational? Although sensational fiction, the Doomsday Killer highlights that there is perspectivism in religion (and the single individual) that can lead to radicalism if there is no rationalizing force present to judge our actions.

Søren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling, ed. C. Stephen Walsh and Sylvia Walsh (Cambridge): Cambridge University Press, ISBN: 0521612691.

Sunday, November 13, 2011

Reminder of Classroom Rules

Man, isn't this Fear and Trembling book awesome? I suppose after Kant and Hegel, reading this is like one of the Nestea plunge ads where the person drinks a glass of iced tea and falls backwards into a refreshing pool of water.  I mean what is more refreshing than tea mix in a bottle ...

Anyway, I wanted to remind you of some of the class rules, as we've gotten along pretty far into the semester, but I would prefer these are still observed.  Specifically the following:

6) You are not permitted to use laptops or any other electronic devices during class. Do not bring them to class or turn them off before you enter the classroom. If you have a pacemaker or a hearing aid, please turn them off before entering the classroom. 
7) Attendance will be recorded at the beginning of every class. If you will frequently be late to class, inform the professor. Use the restroom before you come to class and do not leave the classroom during class meetings, unless you must.
So, as for 6, I'm joking about the pacemakers and hearing aids, but I'm serious about cellphones. And unless you are using a computer to look at a PDF reading for the course, you should not have one. And since we're reading books for the rest of the course ...

As for 7, my main concern is in the third sentence. This is not church or high school (i.e., places where your social obligations may require the occasional stroll down the hallway). If you think it is, you need to rethink why you're spending thousands of dollars for this education. While you're doing that, please use the bathroom before class.

Merci beaucoup!

Saturday, November 12, 2011

Kierkegaard’s notion of a “Knight of Faith” is, in other words, the ultimate believer. However, Kierkegaard’s description of these knights is puzzling. Contrary to the enlightened blissful auras emitted by Hindus who has found their Atman, or Buddhists who have obtained nirvana, Kierkegaard’s Knights of Faith exhibit a rather depressing air of resignation. Resignation, however, does not equate to being a true believer but rather, renouncing all things is the final step before achieving faith.

Kierkegaard compares the Knights of Faith with dancers. He claims that they are “dancers with elevation. They make the upward movement and drop down again, and this …strangers in the world” (34). The “ups and downs” described in this quote may very well be metaphors for the states of unbelieving and absolute faith. Kierkegaard also notes in this quote a certain hesitation before the rising. Kierkegaard also notes a similar hesitation in the story of Abraham during the scene before Abraham decides to strike Isaac. Just what was it that allowed Abraham to make his decision? What is it that allows the Knights of Faith to make that upward movement in the dance? The answer lies in the belief of God’s good will. Abraham believed that God would make everything better before he actually had to kill Isaac and true to his belief, God stopped Abraham. So long as one believes in the fact that God would never actually request any actions of vice, then one can safely move from resignation, beyond hesitation and into absolute faith.

Such a concept of definite resignation seems somewhat incompatible with the ambitious character trait of most youths. To this, Kierkegaard responds by saying it is the young generation who erred in their judgments of all things being possible. Spiritually, all things are possible, but in the material world, such a thought does not hold (37). Disregarding Kierkegaard’s jab at the material world, his idea of all things being possible in the spiritual sense is rather perplexing. He argues that to make things possible, the Knight of Faith first expresses it spiritually and to do so, he must first renounce it. By renouncing the possibility, the grievance caused from such an action allows the concept to live on eternally as a powerful imprint in one’s mind. It always is easier to remember the bad things in life compared to the good things. To make things simple, it would seem as though one must renounce everything in order to have complete faith in God and regardless of the situation (no matter how absurd), the belief in God’s good will can dispel all hesitation. Things seem slightly strange, however, that in order to achieve absolute faith, one must first already have some shred of faith in God (no matter how small).