[lbo-talk] Nietzsche: Free will

Miles Jackson cqmv at pdx.edu
Sat Jun 9 12:37:55 PDT 2007


Ted Winslow wrote:


>
> These are knowledge claims, i.e.they implicitly assume a "subject"
> able to be "responsible" for its claims. The claim that there is no
> such subject contradicts this assumption.

Only if you assume that knowledge is produced by subjects responsible for their claims. That's not N's position, so there is no contradiction here.


>
> The psychological "analysis" self-contradictorily traces the
> assignment of "responsibility" "back to will, to motives, to
> responsible choices" and is itself "moralistic" i.e. assigns the
> assignment to a bad motive, namely "to justify punishment through the
> pretext of assigning guilt."

Again, N is not saying this is a bad motive; in fact, I think he kind of relished the idea that the powerful use tricks like this to maintain their power. No contradiction.


>
> There is a psychology that can explain these self-contradictory
> claims and the related inability to imagine any motive other than a
> sadistic "will to power" and any ethics that isn't merely a more or
> less disguised expression of this. In particular, it can explain the
> inability to imagine Marx's ethics of "mutual recognition" having its
> starting point in the idea of "love" found in Socrates, Plato and
> Aristotle.

You need to read some more Nietzsche if you think he is unable to imagine any motive other than "sadistic will to power".

Miles



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