In the genealogy of morality, I find Nietzsche’s account of the development of guilt an attempt to overthrow the moral norms that govern society. In describing the origin of guilt, Nietzsche claims that responsibility is not achieved through individual volition, but by punitive punishments, coercion, and conditioning by laws. He refers to the debtor-creditor relationship in particular, where the former is left at the mercy of the latter. Nietzsche errs gravely in saying that the sovereign individual, by being independent of social norms, is held accountable by the authority of his promise, reason why the debtor should over his body to be tortured by his creditor.
This is a horrendous claim that insults man’s humane nature, which is not governed by the dictates of the conscience and promises alone, but by his inherent human quality to differentiate right from wrong. He erroneously claims that the individual is an independent sovereign, the master of free will and therefore not subject to societal demands. But the outrageousness of his moral excursion is in his emphasis that by themselves, (without coercion instruments) human beings could not develop a sense of responsibility in society. Similarly, his changing historical perspective of man’s conception of morality (transition from promise to conscience, to punishment and civil laws) suggests that our understanding of individual responsibilities to society is not fixed and will keep on changing. This claim implies that righteousness or evil is arbitrary, since man has held different notions of the same over time.
Nietzsche’s first assault on morality as a social norm is rather indirect, for he glorifies the supreme being with the autonomy to decide on his own the standards he will uphold, and he promises he will keep. Accordingly, guilt is not suffered in the event that either by omission or commission justice is compromised, since the person did not make any promise to act in any respect. Nietzsche argues that a person is only responsible for what he promises to uphold.
At this point in his genealogy of responsibility, he implies that individuals were held responsible if they promised to act in a certain way or committed themselves to a given course, and then failed or reneged on their promises. Consequently, one becomes guilty of theft if that person steals after promising that he/she will never steal. But now that he is independent, master of free will and has the right to recognize his own standards, he can decide that a little thieving and pinching of public coffers is right. Before he withdraws this promise, he is as innocent as an unconscious toddler of any wrongdoing related to theft.
The second claim that stems from his insight- if I dare call it that- is that the sovereign being identifies with and respects those like him. He says, “And just as it will be necessary for him to honor those like him, the strong and dependable (who are entitled to make promises)- who makes promises seriously, rarely, and slowly…” (Nietzsche, 123). If people were to solely commit themselves to the promises they make as independent sovereigns to gain a sense of guilt, then society will be plagued with individual conflicts and blatant violation of societal norms which contradict individual promises. At the same time, the individual becomes a victim of his own promises, upon which he is judged. Thus, while Nietzsche’s argument ignores the role of social norms in shaping people’s attitudes and behaviors, it also argues against itself since, in the end, the individual is not master of his promises, but subject to them as they must be fulfilled.
But to fulfill these promises, Nietzsche posits, the individual needs a painful reminder that he is responsible for this and that. Accordingly, he hails the history of Germany, for the shameful (Nietzsche doesn’t see it as such) distinction of inventing the cruelest design of human torture. He brags, “we Germans certainly do not think of ourselves as an especially cruel and hard-hearted people, even less as particularly careless people who live only in the present…our penal code shows how much trouble it takes on this earth to breed a “People of Thinkers” (Nietzsche, 158). Indeed, more than half a century later, the world witnessed human cruelty and brutality in its extreme, when Hitler tortured and massacred millions of Jews in gas chambers.
Finally, Nietzsche’s conception of responsibility reflects the harsh Grecian form of justice, portrayed in Shakespearean literature. In Merchant of Venice, the character Shylock refuses financial compensation from his debtor Antonio, preferring instead to chop a pound of flesh from his victim. The same twisted view of justice and responsibility is seen in Nietzsche’s long history of morality when he suggests that punishment and cruelty are necessary ingredients of justice, if not for responsibility, then for the sake of massaging the wronged person’s ego. If punishment and cruelty make responsible citizens, then the purpose of Nietzsche’s genealogy of responsibility is to create a society governed by fear and malice.
Works Cited
Nietzsche, Friedrich. “Good and Evil, Good and Bad.” On the Genealogy of Morals. 2009. Web.