Nietzsche's Anti-Human Humanism

Slonim 1 Jonathan Slonim PHIL 105 Dr.
Nathan Schlueter December 7, 2010 Nietzsche sets out to find meaning for life beyond morality in Beyond Good and Evil, declaring humanity the highest good. However, he recognizes that man is still far from perfect and in need of much change, so he sets the progressive evolution of mankind as his goal. This logically leads to the total dehumanization of man in Nietzsche's philosophy, as he shows in his own work. By setting man as his highest good, Friedrich Nietzsche is ultimately forced to devalue man completely. Nietzsche was an existentialist, convinced that nothing except physical matter was worth considering, which led him to believe that man himself is the highest good. Truth and morality were irrelevant and ridiculous in his view since they are supposed to exist outside of any other goal. He says in Beyond Good and Evil: The falseness of a judgment is for us not necessarily an objection to a judgment; in this respect our new language may sound strangest. The question is to what extent it is life-promoting, life-preserving, species-preserving, perhaps even species-cultivating. (11) Truth does not matter to Nietzsche except for its utility to the ultimate endmankind. If an action works to preserve and cultivate the human species, it is valuable according to the idea that Nietzsche is explicating here. If there is nothing outside of physical matter, then there can be no good or evil, Nietzsche rightly concludes, since no values can transcend physical matter and demand obedience. He criticizes Christians and Platonists in the same breath as nihilists since
Slonim 2 both these groups value the invisibleGod or the Formsas the Highest Good. To avoid being nihilistic by his own standard, Nietzsche is forced to look to nature for his Highest Good. Seeing that man, as the only rational creature, is also the greatest creature, he assumes that man is the highest end of existence. The assumption that man is himself an end seems to make perfect sense for anyone who believes that nothing exists beyond physical matter. The problem with this assumption is that you cannot derive an ought from an is as Nietzsche is trying to do. Just because man is the greatest creature does not mean that we ought to live with the human species as our ultimate end and reason for action. This faulty assumption that man is the highest good eventually forces Nietzsche to reject man's value completely. Because man is imperfect, the progressive evolution of man is the only logical end to aim for if you accept that man is the highest good. Nietzsche understands this. He envisions the history of the human race as a progression toward the overman who will eventually rule over nature completely. Man gets sick, dies, and is bound by the laws of nature and his own ignorance. However, man can advance to conquer nature in all these areas through medicine, science, and technological advances. There is no good reason to prefer an imperfect humanity to a superior one, and thus the perfection of mankind must be the goal of any existentialist who, like Nietzsche, attempts to posit man as an end. Nietzsche therefore concludes that all actions should be directed to the eventual perfection of mankindthrough knowledge and inventionin the overman. Zarathustra says in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, I love him who lives to know, and who wants to know so that the overman may live some day. And thus he wants to go under. I love him who works and invents to build a house for the overman and to prepare earth, animal, and plant for him: for thus he wants to go under. (127)
Slonim 3 Based on his original assumption that man himself is the end of existence, Nietzsche reaches the conclusion that all work, all action, and all of life should be directed toward the ultimate end the evolution of mankind. Through this logical process, Nietzsche is ultimately forced to devalue all of humanity. In Beyond Good and Evil, he says of Christians: [W]hen they gave comfort to sufferers, courage to the oppressed and despairing, a staff and support to the dependent . . . which means, in fact and in truth, to worsen the European race [they had to] stand all valuations on their head.(75) From valuing the human race above all else, Nietzsche has reached the point of only valuing the better elements of the human species. He goes even further when he says in Zarathustra, I love those who do not first seek behind the stars for a reason to go under and be a sacrifice, but who sacrifice themselves for the earth, that the earth may one day become the overman's (127). The conclusion that Nietzsche reaches from his first assumption is that every man should live, work, and be willing to die to evolve the human species. In a complete reversal of his premise, Nietzsche declares that, far from being the highest good, man has no value at all except as an end to the overman. Mankind, which Nietzsche claims to care for above individual men, is comprised of men whom Nietzsche says ought to live for the future of mankind in the overman. By rejecting current man for the undefined future of man, Nietzsche unwittingly falls into the trap of nihilism. His faulty premise leads him into that very philosophy which he vehemently denounces in others. In support of this nihilistic view, he has to dehumanize and devalue the human species as we know it by making all men into no more than tools for his goal. He upholds this dehumanization even though he originally asserted man to be the end of life. Despite the obvious contradiction, this is the only valid conclusion based on Nietzsche's logic. If he were to value
Slonim 4 man for anything outside of his ability to improve the species, he would have to ignore the obvious fact that mankind can improve and has improved itself over time. Since the development of mankind is his goal of action, Nietzsche must get rid of anyone who is too weak to aid this goal, thus dehumanizing a large portion of the population. Those who are left must also be willing to die for Nietzsches goal, since their only value lies in its eventual realizationand they too are dehumanized. Nietzsche's dehumanization of man is indeed the only valid conclusion he or any other humanist can reach based on this logical argument. Most humanists never consciously reach this point of complete dehumanization, but it is the consequence of the fallacious assumption that man is an end in himself. Because man is imperfect, the goal of life must be to achieve the perfection of humanity. It follows from this that the current generation of man has value only insofar as it can help to achieve the overman. It is ironic that when the promotion of human life is the highest good, human life loses all its value, but this is in fact the most logical outcome from that faulty premise.

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Slonim 1 Jonathan Slonim PHIL 105 Dr.

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