Origins of Ressentiment and Sources of Normativity

Mathias Risse John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University March 16, 2003

But the outcome of that first experiment whereby man became conscious of his reason as a faculty which can extend beyond the limits to which all animals are confined was of great importance, and it influenced his way of life decisively. (Immanuel Kant, Conjectures on the Beginning of Human History)1 1. Introduction 1.1 Ressentiment plays a crucial role in each treatise in Nietzsches Genealogy. In the first treatise Nietzsche claims that the slave revolt in morality occurs when ressentiment becomes creative. In the second he offers an account of the development of guilt, a process to which the ascetic priest contributes significantly. This priest, in turn, is the subject of the third treatise, and is there characterized as leading a life of ressentiment without equal (GM III, 11). But how does ressentiment arise? That is the question explored in this study. This question may seem unmotivated since the occurrence of ressentiment does not appear puzzling: after all, slaves and priests are oppressed by the masters, and what more is required to explain their anger and resentment? However, the development of ressentiment does pose a puzzle. In GM II, Nietzsche develops a

Kant, Immanuel: Conjectures on the Beginnings of Human History. In: R. Geuss and Q. Skinner (eds.): Kant: Political Writings. Cambridge 1970; p.223. I am indebted to Jonathan Lear, Brian Leiter, Alexander Nehamas, Michael Della Rocca, Werner Stegmaier, and a reading group consisting of Arash Abizadeh, Lori Gruen, Sankar Muthu, and Jennifer Pitts for discussion or comments on earlier versions. I use in general the Kaufmann translations (or Kaufmann and Hollingdale, for UM, A, TI, and D), except for GM, where I use Clark/Swensen; however, I have sometimes modified the translations and do not in general document precisely where. 1

sketch of a philosophical anthropology to trace guilt to its non-moral origins. Yet ressentiment is as complex a phenomenon, and, in view of the elaborate machinery used to explain how the mind comes to harbor guilt, cannot be left unexplained. Once Nietzsches speculative anthropology is in place, we must make sure that his remarks about ressentiment can be derived from it, or are at least consistent with it. Otherwise they would remain unsubstantiated. Guided by the emotional lives we experience, we may or may not find the emergence of ressentiment puzzling, but Nietzsche must account for it. For one significant goal of the Genealogy is to develop the kind of animal psychology (GM III, 20) that explains why our emotions are what they are. Explanations must end somewhere, but Nietzsches cease too early if he cannot ground ressentiment within his anthropology. The secondary literature has not yet offered an account tracing the origins of ressentiment within Nietzsches anthropology and thus fails to investigate whether he is entitled to his claims about ressentiment and its importance for morality. This study attempts to close that gap.2 My account of the origins of ressentiment ties those origins to the minds becoming conscious of itself and thus leads us to the contemporary debate about the sources of normativity.

This question may have been neglected because is arises clearly only once Nietzsches speculative anthropology in GM II is in sight; cf. Clark, Maudemarie: Nietzsches Immoralism and the Concept of Morality. In: Schacht, Richard (ed.): Nietzsche, Genealogy, Morality. Berkeley 1994; and Risse, Mathias, The Second Treatise in On the Genealogy of Morality: Nietzsche on the Origin of the Bad Conscience. In: European Journal of Philosophy 9 (2002): pp.55-81. Williams raises the same question: The needs, demands, and invitations of the morality system are enough to explain the peculiar psychology of the will. But there is more that needs to be said about the basis of that system itself. Nietzsche himself famously suggested that a specific source for it was to be found in the sentiment of ressentiment a sentiment which itself had a historical origin, though hardly one that he locates very precisely (Williams, Bernard: Nietzsches Minimalist Moral Psychology. In: Schacht: Nietzsche, Genealogy, Morality, loc. cit., p.244). My account differs from the brief one suggested by Williams, and is shaped by the concern to embed it into Nietzsches anthropology. 2

If ressentiment is tied to the minds capacity to be aware of itself, then so is the distinction between good and evil, and morality to the extent that it is based therein. Korsgaards Kantian account also derives morality from the minds capacity to be aware of itself, conceiving of obligation in terms of what undermines the reflective agents unity.3 Emphasizing the similarities, Korsgaard finds support for her account in Nietzsche. Yet in light of the pivotal role of ressentiment, it would be peculiar if the Genealogy supported a Kantian account of normativity. Some clarification of the relationship between the Kantian and the Nietzschean account is in order. I suggest to regard Nietzsches person who turned out well (der Wohlgeratene the character standing in opposition to the person of ressentiment) as an ideal of unified agency inconsistent with Korsgaards.4 So the discussion in this paper should not be of merely exegetical interest, but also brings Nietzschean ideas to bear on a discussion in contemporary moral philosophy.

1.2 Sections 2 through 4 introduce three criteria of adequacy for an account of the origins of ressentiment. Section 2 surveys Nietzsches discussion of ressentiment in GM I and GM III, which are the main sources for remarks on ressentiment. In that survey the question arises why it should be ressentiment, rather than some other sentiment (such as resignation, sadness, or apathy) that slaves and priests feel towards masters. The first criterion of adequacy for an account of the origins of ressentiment is that it must answer that question. Section 2 also leads to questions we must address within Nietzsches philosophical anthropology in GM II. Section 3 discusses that
3

Korsgaard, Christine: The Sources of Normativity. Cambridge 1996.

Our concern is not with Kant exegesis, but with a connection to contemporary ethics (one that happens to be shaped by Kantian concerns) that emerges from our discussion of ressentiment. While I refer to Korsgaards account as Kantian, the reader should keep in mind that this comes with the qualification that we do not subject Korsgaards reading to any scrutiny. 3

anthropology. The second criterion for an account of the origins of ressentiment is that it can be embedded into that anthropology.5 While GM discusses ressentiment as a sentiment individuals primarily have towards others, section 4 argues that Nietzsche also offers a recognizable and significant discussion of ressentiment towards oneself. Discussing that aspect of ressentiment will increase our understanding of the phenomenon Nietzsche tries to capture, but will also make our task of locating its origins more difficult. The third criterion of adequacy is that the account explain both the ascent of ressentiment towards others and of ressentiment towards oneself. Section 5 presents the account itself. The core idea of this account of the origins of ressentiment is to connect anger and resentment with the development of the mind and to account for the origins of ressentiment in terms of a state of mind that arises when the mind becomes self-conscious while already filled with anger and resentment. Section 6 compares Nietzsches account with that of Korsgaards Kant. A methodological remark is in order. This essay is shaped by my view that Nietzsche (at least in the late 1880s) is a naturalist. Following Darwall, I define metaphysical naturalism as holding that nothing exists beyond what is open to empirical study; consequently, ethical thought and feeling are empirically ascertainable facts about the world. Among the metaphysical naturalists, the ethical naturalist is distinguished by his belief that value is an aspect of nature. I regard

Section 3 also sets the level of sophistication at which we discuss biological, psychological, and matters pertaining to the philosophy of mind. While parts of Nietzsches account lead into areas in which philosophers are not competent, we need to pursue his ideas where they lead if we are to take him seriously as the naturalist thinker I think he is. Yet I do not aim at any sophistication in those areas much beyond Nietzsches own. This move, however, should not deprive this inquiry of interest any more than the corresponding move would with regard to Rousseaus Discourse on Inequality, Kants Conjectures on the Beginning of Human History, and Freuds Civilization and Its Discontents. 4

Nietzsche as an ethical naturalist.6 In keeping with this approach, I take it for granted that Nietzsches texts can be interpreted in accordance with criteria such as consistency and adequacy. I believe that, ultimately, this approach does most justice to his writings, and at the same time also establishes Nietzsche as a philosopher whose thought is of tremendous interest to contemporary ethics. While this essay is meant to illustrate these claims (progressing from an exegetical discussion to a contemporary debate), I cannot here defend these methodological assumptions; for a defense of this approach, readers may consult chapter 1 of Leiters Nietzsche on Morality.7 Since I do not present a comparative discussion of different approaches to the Genealogy, the literature that I discuss has been included because it speaks to the issues at stake in this essay. Thus I neglect a fair amount of commentary on GM in what has come to be known as continental philosophy. The questions pursued here do not arise in many of these approaches.8
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See Darwall, Stephen: Philosophical Ethics: Oxford 1998, chapter 3. For discussions of naturalism, cf. also Railton, Peter: Naturalism and Prescriptivity. In Paul, Ellen/Miller, Fred Jr. (eds.): Foundations of Moral and Political Philosophy. Oxford 1990. See Leiter, Brian: Nietzsche on Morality. New York 2002. I agree with Leiters general approach to Nietzsche. I myself explore Nietzsches naturalism in Risse, Mathias, Nietzsches Joyous and Trusting Fatalism. Forthcoming in: International Studies in Philosophy 2003, and in particular in my forthcoming essay Nietzsches Naturalistic Ethics. For illuminating statements of Nietzsches naturalism, cf. BGE 230 and A 14; cf. also TI, Anti-Nature, 2 and Skirmishes 33; and EH Destiny 7. As Richardson notes, Nietzsches commitment to naturalism goes at least as far back as 1872 (Homers Contest). (Cf. Richardson, Henry: Nietzsches System. Oxford 1996, p.46, note 59.) For a guide to publications on Nietzsches Genealogy in general and ressentiment in particular as of 1994, with a special emphasis on publications drawing on the traditions of continental philosophy, see the bibliography in Stegmaier, Werner: Nietzsches Genealogie der Moral. Darmstadt 1994; for a bibliography that emphasizes approaches drawing on analytical philosophy, as of 2002, cf. Leiter: Nietzsche on Morality, loc. cit. The following contributions appeared after the publication of Stegmaiers book and are not listed in Leiters book, and thus should at least be mentioned here: Brusotti, Marco, Willen zum Nichts: Ressentiment, Hypnose, Aktiv, und Reaktiv in Nietzsches Genealogy der Moral. In: Nietzsche Studien 30 (2001): pp.107- 132; Joisten, Karen, Ressentiment. In: Filozofska Istrazivanja 15 (1995): pp.697-707; 5
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1.3 I conclude this introduction with two remarks. First, it is useful to relate my approach to recent characterizations of ressentiment. For instance, Reginster writes: Ressentiment [...] cuts off the conditions of satisfaction of a desire from the conditions of enjoyment of that satisfaction. [...] [T]he man of ressentiment is thus left pathetically hanging between the impossibility to enjoy the satisfaction of desires he does not really have, and the impossibility to enjoy the satisfaction of desires he has, but cannot embrace.9 Readers accustomed to thinking about ressentiment along the lines suggested by Reginster and others may find my account of the origins of ressentiment strange at first. Yet taken by themselves, such characterizations are insufficient because they do not answer the crucial question of how ressentiment arises, and why Nietzsche might be entitled to give it such a prominent role. Taken by themselves, such accounts do not take seriously enough the speculative anthropology I take Nietzsche to develop in GM II. So I take no issue with Reginsters and similar characterizations of the phenomenology and the impact of ressentiment, but explore Joisten, Karen, Ressentiment: Nietzsches and Schelers Contribution to the Basic Condition of Mans Being. In: Synthesis Philosophica 11 (1996): pp.65-77; Nealon, Jeffrey, The Most Dangerous of All Explosives: Ressentiment. In: International Studies in Philosophy 31 (1999): pp.91-100; Siemens, Herman, Nietzsches Agon with Ressentiment: Towards a Therapeutical Reading of Critical Transvaluation. In: Continental Philosophy Review 34 (2001): pp.69-93; Small, Robin, Resentment, Revenge, and Punishment: Origins of the Nietzschean Critique. In: Utilitas 9 (1997): pp.39-58; Smith, Richard, Nietzsche: Philosopher of Ressentiment? In: International Studies in Philosophy 25 (1993): pp.135 - 143. Other secondary literature will be discussed as we go along. Reginster, Bernard, Nietzsche on Ressentiment and Valuation. In: Philosophy and Phenomenological Research (LVII) 1997: pp.281-305, p.305. Poellner characterizes it as follows: Ressentiment is a condition in which an apparent good is desired by an individual avowedly for its own sake, but in fact in order to negate or denigrate something else which is perceived as hostile or oppressive to that individual (Poellner, Peter: Nietzsche and Metaphysics. Oxford 1995, p.7). May claims that Nietzsches ressentiment differs from ordinary resentment in three ways: first, its object of hatred is universal in scope [...]; second, it thoroughly falsifies that object in order to render the latter inescapably blameworthy [...]; third, since such universal resentment is impossible to satisfy, its revenge must be, at least in part, imaginary (May, Simon: Nietzsches Ethics and His War on Morality. Oxford 1999, p.42/43). 6
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how such a frame of mind could arise within the confines of Nietzsches anthropology in the first place. In an earlier piece on GM II have argued that Nietzsche explains the bad conscience as we understand it nowadays (i.e., a feeling of guilt) by tracing it from an earlier from of the bad conscience, which at that stage is no more than an early form of the mind itself. I suggest that the account of the origins of ressentiment that I propose in this essay be understood as relating to the account given by Reginster and others of the phenomenology of ressentiment in much the same way in which I suggested in my earlier essay that this early form of bad consciousness is related to the conscience as a feeling of guilt.10 Does this account respond to the question of what ressentiment actually is? It does, with the qualification that it answers that question from the standpoint of Nietzschean animal psychology, which, again, is a standpoint from which it has not yet been discussed. Second, I need to clarify my usage of ressentiment, resentment, and anger. Our usage of terms for emotions is shaped by the complexity they have obtained through the process of socialization, while Nietzsches concern is to trace the origins of such emotions. The use of terms that denote emotions as we know them is therefore ill-suited for his purposes. One rationale for Nietzsches employing a French term that still pertained to the vocabulary of German-speaking readers of his time is to have a term related to anger and resentment as they (and also we) understand them while allowing for that term to be explicated by his anthropology, rather than by our intuitions, which are shaped by the emotional lives we experience.11 In this study, again, I stay So this piece should be understood as a companion piece to my earlier essay on GM II (Risse, Nietzsche on the Origin of the Bad Conscience, loc. cit.); cf. also section 3 of this essay. Although ressentiment is a French word (and thus missing from the Grimms dictionary), the German educated elite had used it since the 17th century. The word was presumably adopted because German lacks a good word for the English resentment and the 7
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largely neutral with regard to the details of an account of the phenomenology and the impact of ressentiment (of the sort that Reginster and others offer), but offer an account of the physiological origins of ressentiment. To this end, I use anger and resentment along rather colloquial lines. Dictionary definitions will do for clarification.12

2. Ressentiment in the First and Third Treatise of the Genealogy 2.1 This section follows Nietzsches discussion of ressentiment in GM I and III, which treat ressentiment primarily as a sentiment towards others. What remains puzzling is why it should be ressentiment, rather than other feelings, that evolves under the relevant circumstances. To resolve this puzzle, we resort to insights from Nietzsches anthropology, which appears in GM II and which we discuss in section 3. Two of the protagonists of GM gain center stage in Nietzsches statements about

French ressentiment. (There is the word Groll, which, however, does not characterize a frame of mind or an attitude, but tends to arise with regard to a specific event or person.) At the same time, these words serve reasonably well as translations of each other, except that the French word seems to possess a stronger connotation with memory. Cf. de Gruyters 1977 Deutsches Fremdwrterbuch. Cf. also the usage in TI, Ancients, 4, where Nietzsche claims that Christianity is guilty of ressentiment against life. In this case, ressentiment just means resentment. Bittner distinguishes between a German word ressentiment and a French world ressentiment, which is spelled and pronounced alike and is the source of the former. He suggests the French word expresses a more straightforward annoyance, less of a grudge than the German word does. (Bittner, Rdiger: Ressentiment. In: Schacht: Nietzsche, Genealogy, Morality, loc. cit.). I take this to be compatible with my suggestion above. Scheler remarks that he uses the word ressentiment because he could not translate it into German (Scheler, Max: Das Ressentiment im Aufbau der Moralen. In: Scheler: Vom Umsturz der Werte. Bern 1995, p.36); he emphasizes that the word ressentiment denotes a repeated re-living and re-feeling of the past. The New Oxford American Dictionary defines anger as a strong feeling of annoyance, displeasure, or hostility, and resentment as bitter indignation at having been treated unfairly. For a discussion of the contemporary understanding of anger and resentment cf. Solomon, Robert: The Passions. Emotions and the Meaning of Life. Indianapolis 1993. 8
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ressentiment: priests and slaves.13 We say only as much about them as needed for the story of ressentiment. The priests are introduced in GM I, 6 and I, 7 as members of the highest caste and contrasted with the other members of that caste, knights or masters. Those knights are characterized by a powerful physicality, a blossoming, rich, even overflowing health, together with that which is required for its preservation: war, adventure, the hunt, dance, athletic contests, and in general everything which includes strong, free, cheerful-hearted activity (GM I, 7). As opposed to that, driven by powerlessness and hatred, the priests insist that the miserable alone are the good; the poor, powerless, lowly, alone are the good; the suffering, deprived, sick, ugly are also the only pious, the only blessed in God, for them alone is there blessedness. (Nietzsches example is Tertullian, quoted in GM I, 15.) The slaves (the herd) are introduced in GM I as the subjugated

While the priests are also discussed in the Antichrist, no new insights about ressentiment arise there. My claim that both slaves and priests are characterized by resssentiment and that the slave revolt is their joint work is controversial. Reginster thinks that only the ascetic priests are characterized by ressentiment (cf. Ressentiment and Valuation, loc. cit.). Yet this view is inconsistent with Nietzsches claim that the ascetic priest is the direction-changer of ressentiment for ressentiment in that context is not his own, but pertains to the slaves (GM III, 15). The priest must be related to the slaves (the herd) in appropriate ways to be their leader, and he is so related by sharing their ressentiment. Bittner tends to neglect the fact that the priests also have ressentiment and thus finds the slave revolt harder to explain than it is when explained through the interaction between slaves and priests (cf. Bittner: Ressentiment, loc. cit.). The most extensive recent discussion of the characters in the Genealogy is Ridley, Aaron: Nietzsches Conscience. Six Character Studies from the Genealogy. Ithaca 1998. I cannot do justice to his discussion here, but I should register disagreement with a few important claims he makes. To begin with, Ridley downplays the role of the priests for the slave riot, though he concedes that they might be credited with inspiring one phase of it (p.44). As Reginster points out, downplaying the role of the priests conflicts with Nietzsches insistence in BGE 261 that the slaves cannot be creative. (I suggest that we read that as the slaves by themselves.) Second, Ridley also downplays the similarity between the slaves and the priests. Discussing GM III, 15, he quotes Nietzsche as saying about the priest that [h]e must be himself sink, but as then retracting by saying that he must be profoundly related to the sick. Ridley claims that the priests relation to the sick is one of imagination, imaginative identification (p.50). This, however, seems an odd reading of the relevant passage. Nietzsche does not seem to retract anything there, but further to explicate. 9

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caste. In GM I, the slaves are discussed mostly in the context of the slave revolt, which starts when ressentiment becomes creative (I, 10). Ressentiment creates values, and is operative in individuals condemned to inactivity who resort to imaginary revenge. The person of ressentiment,
is neither sincere, nor naive, nor honest and frank with himself. His soul looks obliquely at things; his spirit loves hiding places, secret passages and back doors, everything hidden strikes him as his world, his security, his balm; he knows all about being silent, not forgetting, waiting, belittling onself for the moment, humbling oneself. (GM I, 10)

It is in the eyes of such a person that precisely the good one of the other morality, precisely the noble, the powerful, the ruling one comes to be regarded as evil (GM I, 11), and reversely, it is the person of ressentiment who comes to be seen as good. The older master morality has been turned around, and the original distinction between good and bad, has given rise to the distinction between good and evil. GM III elaborates on the relationship between priests and slaves and the role of ressentiment in the revolt. We learn that the priests true feat (GM III, 15) is to be the direction-changer of ressentiment: they keep ressentiment from tearing apart the herd. They achieve this by re-directing ressentiment so that it targets the slaves themselves.14 While GM I introduces priests as members of the ruling class and emphasizes what they share with knights, GM III stresses their affinities with slaves, insisting that they must be sick in the same way as slaves to understand and rule them. (This contrast should not be overstated, though: already in GM I, 6 we learn that Nietzsche thinks of the priests as sick.) Thus priests emerge as intermediate figures between knights and slaves, sharing creativity and determination with the knights and powerlessness and frustration with the slaves.

It is in this derivative sense that ressentiment is present in GM also as a sentiment individuals have towards themselves; but as we shall see in section 4, there is a different (nonderivative) sense in which that is also true, which is a sense neglected in GM. 10

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Putting together what we learn in GM I and III, we see that ressentiment affects both priests and slaves; that it arises in response to their inferior status viz-a-viz the knights; that it cannot be discharged against knights and threatens to tear apart the herd; and that, in order to prevent this, the priest takes measures that cause the slaves to feel ressentiment against themselves, rather than against each other. The slave rebellion presumably occurs when the priests preach to the slaves the Christian metaphysical and ethical world order about which we say more in section 3. It is ressentiment that motivates the priests and it is their hateful creativity that enables them to act, and it is ressentiment that makes the slaves receptive to their teachings. Thus the revolt is the joint accomplishment of slaves and priests driven by ressentiment in ways appropriate to each group.

2.2 But how does ressentiment arise? GM I suggests an answer that is satisfactory as long as one considers that treatise in isolation: since slaves and knights relate to each other like lambs and birds of prey (GM I, 13), anger and resentment seem appropriate reactions for slaves. Similarly, priests share certain features with knights, but find themselves powerless; so again, anger and resentment seem appropriate. No further explanation seems needed, nor does Nietzsche offer one in GM I. However, he is not entitled to leaving the origins of ressentiment unexplained. For the purpose of his genealogical inquiries is to explain why our emotional lives are what they are. Thus appeals to what we find intuitively clear are illegitimate.15 Why does the role of knights in the lives of slaves lead to ressentiment rather than to some other emotion (resignation, sadness, euphoria, Cf. Kant: The beginning of history does not have to be invented but can be deduced from experience, assuming that was experienced at the beginning of history was no better or worse than what was experienced now an assumption which accords with the analogy of nature and which has nothing presumptuous about it (loc. cit., p.221). Kant may be right that what was experienced at earlier stages was neither better nor worse than what is experienced, but it is not safe to assume that our own emotional experiences provide good guidance. 11
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melancholia, apathy, or madness)? This question gains urgency once we have Nietzsches philosophical anthropology in place, which appears in GM II and which we discuss in section 3. For then answers to our questions about ressentiment must be consistent with that account. If these questions cannot be answered within Nietzsches approach, he fails to account for the origins of the distinction between good and evil in ways compatible with his own anthropology. Suggesting a way of integrating ressentiment into the philosophical anthropology of GM II, GM III offers potential for a more sophisticated account. Nietzsche begins to make a connection between ressentiment and his anthropology when he takes up the process of civilization, claiming that process entails diseasedness (GM III, 13). We have not yet introduced enough material to explain why Nietzsche thinks of the process of civilization as entailing diseasedness, and what sort of diseasedness that could be. Yet he emphasizes that this diseasedness is normal (GM III, 14). He presumably thinks of it as a disease in the same way in which he regards pregnancy as a disease (GM II, 19). These remarks take us to the point where Nietzsche makes the most significant statement about the origins of ressentiment in GM:
It is here alone, according to my surmise, that one finds the true physiological causality of r e s s e n t i m e n t, of revenge, and of their relatives that is, in a longing for anesthetization of pain through affect this causality has been commonly sought, very mistakenly to me, in the defensive counterblow, a mere reactive protective measure, a reflex movement in the case of some sudden harm and endangerment, of the kind that a frog without a head still carries out in order to get rid of a corrosive acid. But the difference is fundamental: in the one case, one wishes to prevent further damage, in the other case, one wishes, by mean of a more vehement emotion of any kind, to anesthesize a tormenting, secret pain that is becoming unbearable and, at least for the moment, to put it out of consciousness (GM III, 15) [my emphasis].16

This passage bears a curious similarity with WS 33, Nietzsches most extensive discussion of revenge. There he distinguishes between two kinds of revenge: one of them is a 12

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So Ressentiment arises as a physiological reaction against the pain due to the process of civilization: ressentiment numbs that pain. As will become clear later, this discussion goes a long way towards answering the questions of why ressentiment arises and why it is ressentiment that numbs that pain rather than any other mechanism that might do so. Yet before we are in any position to present an account of the origins of ressentiment answering those questions we must introduce Nietzsches philosophical anthropology, in section 3, and his discussion of ressentiment towards onself, in section 4. Suffice it to record for the time being that a satisfactory answer to those questions is a criterion of adequacy for the account of the origins of ressentiment to be developed in section 5.

3. Nietzsches Philosophical Anthropology 3.1 So far we have focused on GM I and III, which include most of Nietzsches statements on ressentiment, but now we must include GM II, which contains his speculative anthropology.17 While the declared subject of GM II is the bad conscience as a consciousness of guilt, it is by way of accounting for the bad conscience that Nietzsche develops this anthropology, including, crucially, his speculations about the origins of the mind.18 Nietzsches account of guilt contains three components: To begin with, there is an early form of the bad conscience, which has nothing to do with guilt but is an early form of consciousness, or the inner world (GM II, 16). The second defensive mechanism, whereas the other one is a mechanism of restitution or restoration. For a more extensive development of Nietzsches account of guilt see Risse: Nietzsche on the Origin of the Bad Conscience, loc. cit.; see also Clark: Nietzsches Immoralism, loc. cit. In German-speaking countries, reference to the schlechtes Gewissen is more common than reference to the bad conscience in English-speaking countries. The term tends to be used in a quasi-institutional way, which suggests a translation into English with a direct article. 13
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element is an indebtedness to ancestors and gods. This indebtedness shows first in rituals of worship, but is later transformed into a domineering feeling that turns into guilt. Nietzsche characterizes this transformation as a pushing-back of the indebtedness into the original form of the bad conscience, which is brought about by Christianity. So Christianity is the third component. While for us the early bad conscience is crucial, I also sketch the other components to develop both an account of Nietzsches anthropology and an example of how GM accomplishes one of its goals, namely, to provide pieces of animal psychology, that is, to trace moral emotions to their raw state (GM III, 20). Section 5 offers such an account of ressentiment. The early form of the bad conscience originates in people oppressed by the pack of blond beasts of prey, a conqueror- and master-race, which puts its terrible claws on a perhaps numerically vastly superior, but formless, still spreading population (GM II,17). Like in Rousseaus Discourse on Inequality, individuals initially live without tight communal organization, following their instincts for food, shelter, sex, and their drives for aggression. Then more organized clans start oppressing less organized groups. The oppressed are prevented from letting their instincts act against others, in particular the aggressive instincts for enmity, cruelty, the lust for pursuit, for raid, for change, for destruction (GM II,16). Nietzsche calls this inward-direction of previously outward-directed instincts the internalization of man. He regards it as the origin of any form of mental life. The term bad conscience at this stage refers to a rudimentary form of the mind. Prior to the oppression, the inner world is merely thick as extended between two skins, but as a consequence of the oppression this inner world has spread and unfolded, has taken on depth, breadth, height to the same degree that mans outward discharging has been inhibited (GM

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II, 16).19 This painful process leaves man in the position of an incarcerated animal that beats itself raw on the bars of its cage (GM II, 16). Nietzsche describes the evolution of this early form of the bad conscience and thus the development of the mind like the outbreak of a disease, just as Dostoevskis man from the underground states that not only too much consciousness but even any consciousness at all is a disease.20 This development also provides the foundations for selfconsciousness. As Nietzsche puts it, it is only now that a person gives himself a shape and can envisage ideal and imaginative events (GM II,18) as part of a vision. Only when the appropriate kind of inner life exists can individuals think about themselves and about themselves in relation to the world around them and others in it.21

3.2 The second element in Nietzsches account is indebtedness towards ancestors and gods. One variant of this relationship is the debt (in the form of sacrifices) of offspring towards ancestors for their contributions to the flourishing of the tribe (GM II, 19). These debts grow the more the tribe succeeds; eventually, ancestors transfigure into gods. There is no element of guilt in this indebtedness. Moralization occurs through the pushing-back of those notions into the conscience, or more specifically, through the involvement of the bad conscience with the concept of God (GM
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The image of the skins is curious. Clark/Swensen, suggest that one may think of two layers of an onion. It is important that Nietzsche assumes that there already is a small inner world. For that deprives him of the task to explain how there could be any form of inner life at all, as opposed to explaining how it could be expanded. (See Clark, Maudemarie/Swensen, Alan (eds): Nietzsches On the Genealogy of Morality. Cambridge 1998, p.147. Plausibly, Nietzsche thought this bit of the development of consciousness happened at a pre-social stage. For the development of consciousness under social pressure, cf. also GS 354, and see also BGE 19.
20

Dostoevsky, Fyodor: Notes from the Underground. New York 1993, p.7.

Compare Kant: He discovered in himself an ability to choose his own way of life without being tied to any single one like the other animals. (Conjectures, loc. cit., p.224). 15

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II, 21). To explain this pushing back of the indebtedness, we need to introduce Christianity. As Nietzsche puts it in GM III, 20, only in the hands of the priest, this true artist of the feeling of guilt, did it take on form oh what a from! Sin for thus reads the priestly reinterpretation of the animals bad conscience cruelly turned backwards. The priest invents an ethical world order (sittliche Weltordnung; A 26), a divine order according to which all beings have their special place in the creation, and according to which character traits are good and actions right insofar as they are in harmony with the divine will. Many of mans natural instincts come to be seen as dispositions to violate this order, that is, as sins (GM III, 20).22 The suffering the instincts cause through being dissatisfied and through their struggle with each other is explained as pain from the struggle of good inclinations against bad ones, or as preliminary punishment for bad dispositions. Christianity provides a meaning for misery by explaining why it is in order. The pushing back is a psychological consequence of accepting Christianity. Its endorsement generates a new sentiment, guilt, which is so strong that it generates a new kind of inner life (and which can only emerge because of the presence of the original form of the bad conscience). The original indebtedness turns into a deep sense of failure with respect to what one is first and foremost, namely, Gods creature: that is, indebtedness turns into guilt. The bad conscience then fixes itself firmly, eats into him [addition: the debtor, MR], spreads out, and grows like polyp in every breadth and depth (GM II, 21).23 Cf. A 26: What does moral world order mean? That there is a will of God, once and for all, as to what man is to do and what he is not to do; that the value of a people, of an individual, is to be measured according to how much or how little the will of God is obeyed; that the will of God manifests itself in the destinies of a people, of an individual, as the ruling factor, that is to say, as punishing and rewarding according to the degree of obedience. It is about that kind of guilt that Kierkegaard is then able to say that [t]he totality of guilt-consciousness in the single individual before God in relation to an eternal happiness is the 16
23 22

Thus the consciousness of guilt has arisen from the interaction of components that have nothing to do with guilt. This discussion answers questions left open in section 2. In particular we can see now what pain ressentiment is supposed to numb: it is the pain arising in reaction to forced socialization. It is also this suffering for which the herd is in search of a meaning (GM III, 28). Most importantly, GM II offers the framework within which any account of the origins of ressentiment must be embedded. It is our second criterion of adequacy for any such account that it be possible to embed it in this way.

4. Resenting Oneself 4.1 In GM, ressentiment appears primarily as a sentiment slaves and priests feel towards knights and thus towards others. Only when the priests redirect it does it becomes an emotion slaves have towards themselves. Yet in Ecce Homo, Nietzsche also talks about ressentiment towards ones own past, that is, towards oneself, and such ressentiment exists independently of any redirection orchestrated by the priests.24 This aspect of ressentiment and the corresponding contrast between the person of ressentiment and a character whom Nietzsche calls the person who turned out well, der Wohlgeratene, also appears in other writings, but Nietzsche does not use the term

religious (Kierkegaard, Sren: Concluding Unscientific Postscript. Two Volumes: eds. and trans. H. Hong and E. Hong. Princeton: 1992; Vol. 1, p.554; my emphasis). This aspect of ressentiment has not been prominent in recent writings on ressentiment, but it needs to be appreciated for us to come to terms with the phenomenon Nietzsche was concerned with. On the other hand, this aspect of ressentiment appeared in discussions of Nietzsche influenced by Heidegger (see 4.5). Koecke distinguishes between ressentiment in the broader sense and ressentiment in the narrower sense; in the narrower sense it is like the German word Groll and is directed against others, while in the broader sense it is directed also against onself (Koecke, Christian: Zeit des Ressentiments, Zeit der Erlsung. Berlin 1994; p.62 f). 17
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ressentiment prior to GM. That contrast is also of interest once we explore the relationship between the Kantian and the Nietzschean account of the origins of normativity since the person who turned out well expresses Nietzsches ideal of unified agency. Acknowledging the importance of ressentiment towards oneself increases the constraints on an account of the origins of ressentiment. For while it is plausible already, in light of the discussion in sections 2 and 3, that our account must assign an important role to oppressed instincts turning into anger and resentment, it is puzzling that such feelings should also be directed against the individual herself. After all, aggressive instincts were not so directed. Yet our third criterion of adequacy on any account of the origins of ressentiment must be that it explain both the ascent of ressentiment towards others and of ressentment towards oneself.25 To motivate this inquiry, consider section 6 in Ecce Homo, Why I am so Wise. Discussing ressentiment, Nietzsche writes: One cannot get rid of anything, one cannot get over anything, one cannot repel anything everything hurts. Men and things obtrude too closely; experiences strike one too deeply; memory becomes a festering wound. And further down in the same paragraph: Nothing burns one up faster than the affects of ressentiment. Anger, pathological vulnerability, impotent lust for revenge, thirst for revenge, poison-mixing in any sense no reaction could be more disadvantageous for the exhausted. Anger, pathological vulnerability and the other sentiments are reactions of a person who does not get rid of anything or get over anything. This

Solomon suggests that resentment cannot be directed against oneself: direction: outerdirected, emphatically, avoiding attention to ones own attitudes and stature, motives and intentions, infirmities and (lack of) achievement (The Passions, loc. cit., p.291). In light of that claim, Nietzsches idea that there is ressentiment towards oneself becomes both more interesting and even more demanding on any account of ressentiment. 18

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connection between the inability to get over anything and ressentiment deserves investigation.26

4.2 To see why the ability to get over things concerns Nietzsche, recall his discussion of memory in GM II. Forgetfulness, he claims, is mans natural state. [A] solitary human being who lives like a beast of preydoes not need consciousness (GS 354), nor does he need a memory. The creation of memory accompanies socialization, which requires man to become calculable, regular, necessary (GM II, 1). Socialization is painful. Memory, in particular, is created by cruel means, while forgetfulness is a bliss:
To close the doors and windows of consciousness for a time; to remain undisturbed by the noise and struggle of our underworld of utility organs working with and against one another; a little quietness; a little t a b u l a r a s a of the consciousness, to make room for new things, above all for the nobler functions and functionaries, for regulation, foresight, pre-meditation [...] that is the purpose of active forgetfulness, which is like a doorkeeper, a preserver of psychic order, repose, and etiquette: [...] there could be no happiness, no cheerfulness, no hope, no pride, no p r e s e n t, without forgetfulness. The man in whom this apparatus of repression is damaged and ceases to function properly may be compared [...] with a dyseptic he cannot have

Regarding the theme of not-getting-rid of anything, cf, also BGE 244, where Nietzsche discusses the Germans and says: The German drags his soul along: whatever he experiences he drags. He digests his events badly, he never gets done with them; German profundity is often merely a hard and sluggish digestion. On the subject of being sick of oneself see also GM III, 14, 16, 20, and see Koecke: Zeit des Ressentiments, loc. cit., p.67, for a list of references to passages where Nietzsche talks about the triumph of integrating ones past into ones life. The German expressions that Nietzsche uses in such contexts (such as mit etwas fertig werden) are not as colloquial as English translations. The discussion of ressentiment in section 6 in Why I Am So Wise is intertwined with a discussion of disease in general and Nietzsches own disease in particular. The conflation of these two discussions culminates in the statement that disease is in fact a form of ressentiment. It is interesting to compare this passage with an earlier fragment of this passage (see Nachlass 1887/89, KSA 13, 24[1], p.617) from October or November 1888. There Nietzsche starts with a discussion of disease and then states how bad ressentiment is for one who is sick. So at this stage, the discussions are not as intertwined as they are in the published version. His decision to publish these thoughts in that intertwined manner may be interpreted as capturing his own struggle with harmful emotions in response to his illness. 19

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done with anything. (GM II, 1)

At the end of this quote we again encounter the inability to get rid of anything. As this passage suggests, the ascent of memory leads to a new mode of life: it compels individuals to live with their memories. Individuals may fail to integrate memories into their life in a healthy manner and find themselves unable to get over things: they cannot release themselves from the grip of memories and are incapable of giving a shape to their life that allows for an integration of the past without hampering the present or obstructing the future. Such persons are painfully tied up with the past: they keep re-feeling it, which is what re-sentire means literally in Latin and which is preserved in the French re-sentir more than in the English resent. New events are seen from within this pattern of painful memories, and thus there are going to be ever more of them. A consequence of the inability to get over things is to develop the reactions Nietzsche mentions in section 6 of Ecce Home, Why I am so Wise the affects of ressentiment.27 Yet there are also those who turned out well (die Wohlgeratenen), as Nietzsche says in Ecce Homo (Why I am so Wise, 2):
He [addition: the well-turned-out person, MR] has a taste for what is good for him. [...] Instinctively, he collects from everything he sees, hears, lives through, h i s sum: he is a principle of selection, he discards much. [...] He believes neither in misfortune nor in guilt: he comes to terms with himself, with others; he knows how to f o r g e t -- he is strong enough; hence everything m u s t turn out for his best.28

While Nietzsche does not develop the theme of forgetting any further in GM, his discussion bears resemblance to his most extensive discussion of how to relate to the past, the discussion in the Second Untimely Mediation, On the Use and Disadvantages of History, of which we will hear more in 4.3. Cf. also BGE 217: Blessed are the forgetful: for they get over their stupidities, too. For Nietzsche on memory and forgetting, cf. WS 40, D 126, 167, 278, 312. For an illuminating and related discussion of Wohlgeratenheit, see also Nachlass 1888, KSA 13, 15[39], p.432. Nietzsche praises this type of person not only for her ability to refrain from blame (she does not believe in guilt), but also for not acknowledging anything as a misfortune. Wohlgeratenheit also appears in the Antichrist, in particular in the final section 62, where it is listed alongside health, beauty, courage, spirit, benevolence of the soul, and life itself 20
28

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Those who turned out well give unity and independence to their lives by dropping harmful memories. They do not resent their own past because they are not excessively caught up in it.29

4.3 The idea of ressentiment towards oneself and the contrast between the person of ressentiment and the person who turned out well can be traced through Nietzsches writings. An early and illuminating appearance is in the Second Untimely Meditation, On the Use and Disadvantages of History for Life. While Nietzsche does not use the term ressentiment there, that Meditation captures the distinction so lucidly that the relevant passages deserve quoting. In UM II, 1, Nietzsche discusses a character with obvious similarities to the person of ressentiment of his later works:

as opponents of Christianity (cf. also A 24, A46, A52, and also TI, Errors, 2 ). For the connection between Wohlgeratenheit and Nietzsches bermensch, see EH, Books, 1, where Nietzsche says that the latter just is a type of highest Wohlgeratenheit. EH, Destininy, 4, puts a particular spin on Nietzsches use of that term: there he points out that he rejects the type of the Wohlwollenden and the Wohlttigen, which are the more traditional moral ideals of the benevolent and the beneficent. The one who turned out well is supposed to replace those types. Dostoevskys Notes from the Underground capture the person of ressentiment well, and the following passage in particular captures ressentiment towards ones own past:
There, in its loathsome, stinking underground, our offended, beaten-down, and derided mouse at once immerses itself in cold, venomous, and above all, everlasting spite. For forty years on end, it will recall its offense to the last, most shameful details, each time adding even more shameful details of its own, spitefully taunting and chafing itself with its fantasies. It will be ashamed of its fantasies, but all the same it will recall everything, go over everything, heap all sorts of figments on itself, under the pretext that they, too, could have happened, and forgive nothing. It may even begin to take revenge, but somehow in snatches, with piddling things, from behind the stove, incognito, believing neither in its right to revenge itself nor in the success of its vengeance, and knowing beforehand that it will suffer a hundred times more from all its attempts at revenge than will the object of its vengeance, who will perhaps not even scratch at the bite. On its deathbed it will again recall everything, adding the interest accumulated over all that time, and.... (p.11).
29

For discussion of Dostoevskys novel in this context, see Sugarman, Richard: Rancor Against Time. The Phenomenology of Ressentiment. Hamburg: 1980; chapter 1. Recall the story that Rousseau relates of himself towards the end of the second book of his Confessions: Rousseau, as a young man, took a ribbon and accused a maid of stealing it. He says that not a single day passes without the memory of this offense returning to him. See also chapter 5 of Wollheim, Richard: The Thread of Life. New Haven 1984, which is aptly called The Tyranny of the Past. 21

A human being who would like to feel historically through and through would resemble the one who would be forced to deprive himself of sleep, or resemble the animal that should live on ruminating and ever repeated ruminating. So: it is possible to live almost without memory, even to live happily, as the animal demonstrates; yet it is entirely impossible to live without forgetting. Or, to explain myself even simpler about my topic: there is a degree of sleeplessness, of ruminating, of historical sense, at which the living is harmed, and ultimately perishes, be it a human being or a people or a culture.

The person of ressentiment discussed in Ecce Homo is much the same character captured here. In particular, that character fails to integrate her memories into her life in a healthy manner. The contrast between the person of ressentiment and the person who turned out well is captured further down (where the strength is the strength to grow out of oneself in a characteristic way, to restructure and incorporate what is past and alien, heal wounds, replace what has been lost, to recreate broken forms out of oneself):
There are human beings who possess this strength to such a small degree that bleed to death on a single event, on a single pain, often on a single tender injustice, as on a tiny bloody crack; on the other hand, there are those, who are touched by the wildest and most atrocious accidents of life and even acts of their own viciousness to such a small extent that in the midst of all that or briefly afterwards they achieve a decent well-being (Wohlbefinden) and a kind of calm conscience. The more stronger roots the inner nature of a person has, the more will he appropriate the past or force it to suit him. [...] What such a nature does not overpower, it knows how to forget; it is not there any more, the horizon is closed and completely so, and nothing manages to recall that beyond that same person there are passions, teachings, and ends. [...] Every living being can only be healthy, strong, and fertile within a horizon; if it is incapable of drawing a horizon around itself [...], it will fade away or rush into timely destruction.

The similarity of these ideas to those expressed in Ecce Homo is obvious. In particular the idea of a healthy living being as one who can draw a horizon around itself is useful: as opposed to the person who turned out well, the person of ressentiment cannot isolate himself from disturbing

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influences, including harmful memories. The person who turned out well, for Nietzsche, forms the individual counterpart to a people to whom one attributes a culture; such a people has to be a single living unity and not fall wretchedly apart into inner and outer, content and form(UM II, 4).

4.4 So the idea of ressentiment towards oneself and the opposing character of the person who turned out well are important for Nietzsche long before he starts using the word ressentiment. It is striking that the work in which he arguably found his own voice captures the same distinction he still draws in his autobiography written right before his collapse. It should be clear also that, indeed, this form of ressentiment does not arise because ressentiment towards others is redirected, but is a phenomenon sui generis. This discussion, then, looks at the person of ressentiment from a different angle from the story of slaves, priests, and masters in GM. The person of ressentiment as he emerges in this discussion lacks unity and independence of character: a person unable to come to terms with the influences of his environment and the memories of his past, or unable to overcome the inner turmoil of instincts and inclinations to build her character into a unified self; a person who cannot close herself off sufficiently much to become whole. Instead, unable to rest in herself, the person of ressentiment lives both an excessively retrospective and an excessively other-directed life.30 Let us look at two examples of persons who Nietzsche (at the respective time) believed turned out well. We will return to both of these examples in the remainder of this study. Consider first the following remark about Wagner:
The dramatic element in Wagners development is quite unmistakable from the moment when his ruling

This idea of an excessively other-directed life is also the key to the intriguing remarks that Nietzsche makes on the redeemer mentality in the Antichrist; see A 30-35 (cf. also Nietzsches remarks about the physiological facts on which Buddhism rests in A 20). 23

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passion became aware of itself and took his nature in its charge: from that time on there was an end to fumbling, straying, to the proliferation of secondary shoots, and within the most convoluted courses and often daring trajectories assumed by his artistic plans there rules a single inner law, a will by which they can be explained. (UM IV, 2)

By way of contrast with such self-mastery, note what we read in the Twilight about the degeneration Socrates finds in Athens: no one was any longer master over himself, the instincts turned against one another (TI, Socrates, 9).31 The Twilight also contains the other passage I would like to discuss:
G o e t h e not a German event, but a European one [...] He bore the strongest instincts within himself: the sensibility, the idolatry of nature, the anti-historic, the idealistic, the unreal and revolutionary (the latter being merely a form of the unreal). He sought help from history, natural science, antiquity, and also Spinoza, but, above all, from practical activity [...] What he wanted was t o t a l i t y; he fought the mutual extraneousness of reason, senses, feeling, and will (preached with the most abhorrent scholasticism by Kant, the antipode of Goethe); he disciplined himself to wholeness, he c r e a t e d himself. (Skirmishes, 49)32

These passages throw light on the counter part of the person of ressentiment in a context different from the slave/master stories of GM. The person who turned out well is a person with the unity and independence of character the person of ressentiment lacks. We can now see why the characters Nietzsche admires include artists like Goethe and Wagner, on the one hand, and the masters of GM I, on the other. Both types are more whole human beings (BGE 257) than the person of

Cf. TI, Socrates, 11: to have to fight instincts is the formula for decadence: while life is rising, happiness equals instincts. Cf. BGE 200, BGE 208. BGE 258 describes as corruption the expression of a threatening anarchy within the instincts. A 6 states that an animal, an species, an individual is corrupt if it loses its instincts, if it chooses what is detrimental. The passage from EH, Wise, 2 at the end of 4.2 provides a third example; as Nietzsche says at the very end of that section (which I think is one of Nietzsches most beautiful), he is describing himself. That passage has strong similarities in particular with the Goethe passage. 24
32

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ressentiment, but in different ways. One way of being more whole than a tormented character is not to have been exposed to the process leading to the inner turmoil (and one difference between masters and slaves, as Richardson says, is that masters can act on their instincts, whereas slaves cannot;33 another way is having overcome and mastered that turmoil.34 In light of these insights about ressentiment that become visible only if once focuses on ressentiment towards oneself, we need to formulate a third criterion of adequacy for our account of the origins of ressentiment, namely, that it illuminate both ressentiment towards others and ressentiment towards onself.

4.5 We cannot leave the subject of ressentiment towards oneself without drawing attention to the reception this problem has received within the Heidegger-inspired discussion of Nietzsche and thus to a passage in Zarathustra, which also bears on the subject of ressentiment towards onself. Specifically, the problem that has received such attention is that of a persons resentment towards his own finitude and temporality, or, to use the title of Sugarmans book on that subject, her rancor against time. Relevant passages for this discussion are in Zarathustra, especially in the section on Redemption in Part II:35
To redeem those who lived in the past and to recreate all it was into a thus I willed it that alone should I call redemption. Will that is the name of the liberator and joy-bringer [...] Willing liberates; but what is it

33

Richardson: Nietzsches System, loc. cit., p.62.

Cf. also GS 294: Noble individuals are not afraid of themselves, so Nietzsche tells us. The noble are the one who come to terms with their past; see BGE 211 and BGE 287. Nietzsche creates no illusions about the masters of the first treatise: Roman, Arabian, Germanic, Japanese nobility, Homeric heroes, Scandinavian Vikings, they are not much better than uncaged beasts of prey in the world outside where the strange, the foreign, begin (GM I, 11). See also the Tarantula passage in part II; Nietzsche says there: For that man be delivered from revenge, that is for me the bridge to the highest hope, and a rainbow after long storms. The tarantula is the spirit of revenge. 25
35

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that puts even the liberator himself in fetters? It was that is the name of the wills gnashing of teeth and most secret melancholy. Powerless against what as been done, he is an angry spectator of all that is past. [...] This, indeed this alone, is what revenge is: the wills ill will against time and its it was.

Heidegger dwells a lot on this and adjacent passages, in particular in his essay Who is Nietzsches Zarathustra? and his lectures on What is Called Thinking? 36While it is obvious that the theme of rancor against time was of interest to Heidegger, we cannot pursue this theme and its connection to other topics (e..g., eternal recurrence). Yet we should briefly address one claim that has been made in this context: the claim that Nietzsche asserted that the ultimate ground of ressentiment was mans relation to his own finitude and temporality. 37 On this reading, ressentiment originated in rancor against time, and ressentiment towards others derives from it. Yet there does not seem to be any textual evidence that Nietzsche thought that rancor against time was the ultimate ground of ressentiment. At any rate, this seems rather implausible. However, it will be easier to say why after we have presented an account of the origins ressentiment. Let us proceed to that account, then, without further ado.38

5. The Origins of Ressentiment 5.1 This section presents an account of the origins of ressentiment that meets the three criteria of adequacy: it answers the question of why it is ressentiment, rather than any other emotion, that Heidegger, Martin: What is Thinking? New York 1954; and Heidegger: Who is Nietzsches Zarathustra? In: D. Allison (ed.): The New Nietzsche. New York 1977.
37 36

Sugarman, Rancor Against Time, loc. cit., p.97.

For more discussion, see Sugarman, Rancor Against Time, loc. cit.; Koecke, Zeit des Ressentiments, loc. cit.; Mller-Lauter, Wolfgang: Der Geist der Rache und die Ewige Wiederkehr Zu Heideggers Spter Nietzsche-Interpretation. In: F. W. Korff: Redliches Denken, Stuttgart 1981, and references therein. Cf. also the end of chapter 2 of Staten, Henry: Nietzsches Voice. Ithaca 1990. 26

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arises within Nietzsches story; it is embedded into Nietzsches anthropology developed in GM II; and it explains why both ressentiment towards others and ressentiment towards oneself arise. While this section bears on issues in the philosophy of mind and in biology and psychology, the level of sophistication at which we pursue them will not transcend that of section 3. As is customary in such reconstructions motivated by normative concerns, we make the undefended assumption that, in principle, it is possible to translate this discussion into those terms. The account is not only speculative in the sense in which Nietzsches anthropology is; it is speculative also in the sense that what I can show is that this account is consistent with what Nietzsche says and kept in that spirit. I claim my account is Nietzschean in just that way; I do not claim it is Nietzsches, strictly speaking. I do not take that to be a problem.39 Ressentiment originates in a state of mind that arises when the mind becomes conscious of itself under circumstances in which deep-rooted anger and resentment are already present in the mind. Anger and resentment arise because the mind evolves in response to the oppression of aggressive instincts. For the mind to become conscious of itself means for it to become able to refer to and reflect upon itself, perhaps by forming representations of itself or beliefs, emotions, or other entities inside or constitutive of it, perhaps in other, non-representational ways. Once the mind

On the general subject of proposing conjectural history, consider Kants introductory words to his Conjectures on the Beginning of Human History, which are relevant here:
To introduce conjectures at various points in the course of an historical account in order to fill gaps in the record is surely permissible. [...] But to base a historical account solely on conjectures would seem little better than drawing up a plan for a novel. Indeed, such an account could not be described as a conjectural history at all, but merely as a work of fiction. Nevertheless, what may be presumptuous to introduce in the course of a history of human actions may well be permissible with reference to the first beginnings of that history, for if the beginning is a product of nature, it may be discoverable by conjectural means (emphases omitted). Kant: Conjectures, loc. cit., p.221)

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Note that Kant presupposes that human beings are fully developed to trace what is relevant in human history for ethical purposes (p.223). He also assumes that there is a natural sense of decency, an inclination to inspire respect in others by good manners ( pp.224/25). What Kant takes as given is what for Nietzsche does all the work. 27

is capable of referring to itself, anger and resentment find targets inside the mind, becoming directed against the mind itself. Nietzsche may say of ressentiment what he says of guilt: that it fixes itself firmly, eats into him, spreads out, and grows like a polyp in every breadth and depth (GM II, 21). It is through ressentiment (as much as through guilt) that the human soul became d e e p (GM I, 6) a remark that has a peculiar literalness to it.40

5.2 To see what this means and how it may be plausible, let us elaborate on what it is for a mind to become conscious of itself. The character of the mental changes in response to the internalization (cf. section 3). While Nietzsche does not explain this development in any detail, it is plausible that the process of the mind becoming conscious of itself brings about a perception of itself as persisting through time, and thus as accumulating memories of itself developing, on the one hand, and as being different from other external entities, such as persons and objects, on the other hand. This claim can be spelled out in different ways, depending on whether one is willing to talk about selves and depending on how one understands the embeddedness of the mind both within a chronological sequence of stages of itself (past, present, future) and within an external

A remark on my talk about origins of ressentiment is appropriate at this stage. What I am trying to identify is a physiological state that accounts for the phenomenology of ressentiment prominent throughout the Genealogy, that is consistent with the speculative anthropology I ascribe to Nietzsche, and that also explains how there is both ressentiment with regard to others and with regard to oneself. (These are the three criteria of adequacy.) Depending on ones views on mental ontology, one may think of that physiological state as the origin of ressentiment, or its physiological root, or as ressentiment, as understood from a physiological point of view, or as understood from the standpoint of animal psychology. So does this account provide an answer to the question of what ressentiment actually is? It does, in the sense that it assesses what ressentiment is, again, from the standpoint of Nietzschean animal psychology. 28

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environment.41 All we need for present purposes is that we understand the emergence of the minds awareness of itself as its forming a conception of itself by becoming able to identify itself through time and by being able to demarcate itself from other entities. This elaboration on the nature of self-consciousness provides a framework to offer a proposal for the development of (first) anger and resentment and (then) ressentiment. Plausibly, anger and resentment arise in response to the oppression of instincts. Those sentiments, or rudimentary forms thereof, emerge in virtue of the nature of what is being oppressed, namely, aggressive instincts. Nietzsches image of the animal that finds itself incarcerated and bites itself raw on the bars of its cage is helpful (cf. GM II, 16): where previously instincts could be discharged against other animals, anger and resentment grow. Contrary to Aristotles classic account in the Rhetoric (1378a34), this kind of anger is not directed against any specific individual, any more than the aggression of the earlier instincts was directed against anybody in particular (except in the sense that they would be targets). Once the mind becomes conscious of itself, something new happens: anger and resentment resulting from the oppression of instincts are now directed against mental representations of the mind itself. While any representation in the mind provides internal targets for anger and resentment replacing the former external targets of aggressive instincts now beyond reach, the minds becoming self-conscious increases the range of such internal targets by including representations of the mind itself, including memories of its development. Since the mind is from the beginning on an angry and resentful mind, anger and resentment now spread and start referring to whatever the mind itself is capable of referring. My suggestion is to refer to the state of mind arising in this way as the physiological origin of

This paragraph touches on many issues. To mention just one careful discussion of these matters, cf. Taylor, Charles: Sources of the Self. Cambridge 1989, part 1, and references therein. 29

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ressentiment. Ressentiment, then, arises from a state of mind that in turn emerges in response to anger and resentment when the mind becomes self-conscious. Anger, pathological vulnerability, impotent lust for revenge, thirst for revenge, poison-mixing in any sense arise then as expressions, or, affects of ressentiment (cf. EH, Wise, 6). At the same time, this state of mind numbs the residual pain still present in the mind following the internalization (cf. GM III, 15).42 On this proposal, the person of ressentiment is left damaged by internalization and socialization in a peculiar way. She is unable to develop an inner life that absorbs the pain and anger stemming from the oppression of instincts. The inner life of the person of ressentiment is unhealthily tied up with behavior belonging to the pre-internalization period: neither does he live under circumstances in which he can still discharge the instincts, nor has he managed to bring about the kind of inner life that has eliminated or at least reduced anger and resentment by developing an independent and unified inner life that integrates or absorbs conflicting instincts and those emotions. The person of ressentiment is maladjusted to civilization. By way of contrast, the person who turned out well succeeds either in finding outlets for his instincts, or in transforming his mind

The reader may have a circularity worry here: after all, anger and resentment were taken to be the most basic emotions in this context, but now anger also appears as an expression of ressentiment. However, circularity should not be a problem here, given that we are discussing the evolution of moral emotions. Revenge is a major topic for Nietzsche see D 27, 71, 133, 138, 202, 205, GS 69, 290; HAH 44, 60, 92, 99, WS 33 (which is the longest discussion of revenge in his work), WS 237, 250, 259); BGE 59, 211, 219 TI Socrates, 7; Skirmishes, 34; Ancients, 4. A 20, 40, 62. A phenomenon deriving from (or at least related to) ressentiment not mentioned in GM or EH is vanity see the very astute discussion in BGE 261. Moreover, it has been objected that my account suggests the wrong connection between ressentiment and selfconsciousness: for Nietzsches remarks about the priests being direction-changers of ressentiment (GM III, 15) suggest that it is through this redirection of ressentiment that selfconsciousness arises in the first place. However, there is no indication in GM III, 15 that this redirection of ressentiment has anything to do with the development of self-consciousness. At any rate, this suggestion would presuppose that the priests already possess the sorts of mind required for this kind of effort whereas the slaves, at that stage, are not even self-conscious. That seems rather implausible. 30

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in such a way that it is not dominated by internal turmoil. This second manner of being a person who turned out well is particularly significant to Nietzsche, and both the quote about Wagner and the quote about Goethe above describe persons who turned out well in this sense.43

5.3 This account leaves questions open, but what is crucial does not stand and fall with the details. Crucial is that the mind is a product of socialization; that the development of the mind is a painful process set in motion by the violent oppression of aggressive instincts, so that pain, anger, and resentment are present in the mind from the beginning on and thus when the self-conscious mind develops; and that anger and resentment are directed against the mind itself when it becomes selfconscious. Nietzsches account constitutes the same sort of speculation about socialization and its impact on individuals that Rousseau develops in his Discourse on the Origin of Inequality, Kant in his Conjectures on the Beginnings of Human History, and Freud in Civilization and Its Discontents, despite all the differences. Why is it appropriate to regard this account as Nietzschean? I argue this in two stages, first by suggesting that Nietzsches claims about ressentiment and its impact in GM can be developed

Persons of ressentiment and those who turned out well do not constitute disjoint groups; rather, those notions denote somewhat abstract types, in the spirit of BGE 260, where Nietzsche claims that slave and master morality can occur in the same individual. As Nietzsche says, a distinguishing feature of the higher nature, the more spiritual nature, is to be [...] a battle ground for these opposites (GM I, 16). In GM I, 10, Nietzsche explicitly acknowledges that ressentiment may appear in the noble man, but then it consummates and exhausts itself in an immediate reaction, and therefore does not poison. See the beginning of chapter 2 of Staten, Nietzsches Voice, loc. cit., for an illuminating discussion of anger that cannot be acted on in nobles in the Iliad. Also, it has been objected that, if ressentiment is tied to self-consciousness in the manner I suggest, it becomes rather puzzling how anybody could turn out well. However, my account tells a causal story about this connection, and none that rules out the existence of exceptions. And clearly, individuals unaffected by ressentiment are quite exceptional. 31

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based on this account of the origins of ressentiment,44 and then by showing that this account meets our three criteria of adequacy. As far as the first point is concerned, I only offer a rough sketch. Recall the slaves and the priests. Persons of ressentiment, they lack the self-assuredness and healthy kind of self-centeredness of the person who turned out well. (BGE 265 points out that egoism is a feature of the noble soul.) They become excessively other-directed. The priests are energetic and creative types who nevertheless have failed to turn out well: neither are they in any position to keep discharging their instincts, nor have they mastered their own inner life in the manner of Wagner or Goethe. For these reasons they feel driven to assert their will to power by developing stories depicting a world different from the actual one; a world in which they are successful.45 One such story is the Christian sittliche Weltordnung. Slaves share with priests the ressentiment, but unlike the priests, they are weak and uncreative. However, they are only too willing to endorse the story the priests tell. For it is a story in which their existence obtains a meaning that in their own perception it fails to have. At the same time, slaves provide the following the priests want so badly. Living in a state of ressentiment, slaves and priests suffer from reality (A 15), and are trying to lie themselves out of reality. What we have identified as the origins of ressentiment is what Nietzsche might call the physiological root of morality. Morality arises because of the ensuing interaction between the two types of persons affected by ressentiment, on the one hand, and between the persons of ressentiment and those who turned out well, on the other. The same is true for the phenomenology of ressentiment captured by Scheler: Ressentiment, loc. cit. In the background of this statement is what I take to be a statement of Nietzsches explanatory methodology in the Genealogy:
Every animal [...] instinctively strives for an optimum of favorable conditions in which fully to release his power and achieve his maximum feeling of power; every animal abhors equally instinctively, with an acute sense of smell higher than all reason, any kind of disturbance and hindrance which blocks or could block his path to the optimum (GM III, 7).
45 44

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Next I show that this account meets the three conditions of adequacy. The first criterion is satisfied straightforwardly. It is anger and resentment rather than other emotions that emerge because of the oppression of instincts. Anger and resentment arise when aggressive instincts are pushed back into the early and rudimentary form of the mind (cf. GM, II, 21). The intimate connection of ressentiment with socialization also explains why ressentiment is the basic notion of GM, prior both to the notion of guilt and to the emergence of ascetic ideals. Guilt, for Nietzsche, can be overcome.46 Yet since aggressive instincts characterize human beings as they are by nature, anger and resentment are typical phenomena accompanying civilization, and it is bound to be the exception that an individual has overcome or avoided the tormented state thus produced. Pace Freud, Nietzsche thinks that ressentiment, rather than guilt, is the price of civilization.47 The second criterion is also satisfied: our account proceeds within the confines set and the language provided by Nietzsches anthropology. Anger and ressentiment are explained within that model, just as guilt was earlier. The basic, unexplained component of Nietzsches speculative anthropology is the aggressive instincts. The mind and emotions such as guilt and ressentiment are among the explananda of his genealogy. This account of the origins of ressentiment is therefore fully embedded into Nietzsches attempt to provide an animal psychology (cf. GM III, 20) and thus justifies the prominence that he assigns to ressentiment in GM. Finally, the third criterion is satisfied as well. By tying ressentiment to the emergence of self-consciousness, the account

46

This is argued in Risse, Nietzsche on the Origin of the Bad Conscience, loc. cit.

In Civilization and Its Discontents, Freud writes that the sense of guilt is the most important problem in the development of civilization and that the price we pay for our advance in civilization is a loss of happiness through the heightening of the sense of guilt (Freud, Sigmund: Civilization and Its Discontents. New York 1961, p.97). What is unclear is whether the kind of guilt Nietzsche thought can be overcome coincides with what Freud thought of as the price of civilization. 33

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explains why Nietzsche thinks of ressentiment as directed both against others and against oneself. Ressentiment is directed against others from the beginning on, simply because anger and resentment derive from aggressive instincts. Ressentiment becomes directed against oneself as soon as the mind becomes capable of reflecting on itself. We can now also see why it is implausible to think of rancor against time as the ultimate ground of ressentiment, as Sugarman suggests. For the starting point of our account must be the oppression of instincts, which is the seminal event in the development of the mind and in the process of civilization. But since those instincts are otherdirected from the beginning on, it would be implausible if, after their oppression, a form of ressentiment towards oneself would be fundamental for the development of ressentiment towards others. Suggesting this means misunderstanding what is explanans and what is explanandum in the Genealogy.48

6. Sources of Normativity and Unity of Agency 6.1 Exploring the origins of ressentiment, we have arrived at the debate about the sources of normativity, that is, about what justifies moral claims. In a seminal contribution to this debate, Korsgaard argues that Nietzsches views are harmonious with hers, taking this as providing support for her account.49 Yet while both Korsgaards Kant and Nietzsche tie morality to the emergence of self-consciousness, GM is an exercise in animal psychology detached from the endeavor to deduce the moral law. Thus some clarification of the relationship between the accounts is in order. This discussion further illuminates the nature of Nietzsches account and the contrast

48

It has been objected that this account does not explain Korsgaard: Sources of Normativity, loc. cit., p.158. 34

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between the person of ressentiment and the person who turned out well; it also brings to bear our discussion on a debate in contemporary ethics.50 The guiding idea of Korsgaards account is that the capacity to value is grounded in the reflective nature of the mind: what the mind can and must value is constrained thereby. In virtue of being reflective human beings must view desires and impulses from a position of deliberative detachment and decide which ones to act on. To be able to make such choices and thus to be able to act for reasons presupposes some conception under which the agent finds life worth living. Without such a conception she does not know how to choose to act on some desires rather than any others. This conception constitutes the agents practical identity. While his reasons express an agents identity, obligation stems from what is inconsistent with it. For such an identity to belong to a unified decision-maker there must be a principle governing her choices to guarantee that she makes similar choices under similar circumstances. Otherwise, her choices would merely constitute a set of disconnected phenomena. Thus the reflective nature of the agents consciousness forces her choices to be governed by a law. So far we have disregarded other agents. To make the connection, note that these considerations aim to show that agents have a practical identity in virtue of being animals capable of reflection, which makes them human. Our humanity, then, is the source of our ability to bestow value: we must value our humanity if we are to value anything. But since we must value our humanity, we must also value it in others. This entails that no rational being should ever be used merely as a means, and not as an end. For suppose any rational being is used merely as a means. Then he would be used merely as a means to something that has value only because rational agency confers it. This is a practical perversity at best, and possibly even a

As I pointed out in section 1, in this study, we are not concerned with questions of Kant scholarship. So we will simply take Korsgaards reading of Kants Groundwork for granted. 35

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kind of contradiction. Moral agency, on the Kantian view, is shaped by consistency considerations.51

6.2 While both Korsgaards Kant and Nietzsche tie morality to the emergence of selfconsciousness, the differences between their accounts are formidable. To begin with, selfconsciousness enters the accounts in drastically different ways. For Kant, the self-conscious mind (reason) must decide which desires become reasons for acting: the mind enters that account as executing an activity. Yet on our Nietzschean account, reflectivity never occurs as an activity beyond mere self-referentiality. Self-consciousness enters only to explain how anger and resentment turn against the agent herself. Nietzsches report on Wagner discussed above demonstrates the functioning of the mind:
The dramatic element in Wagners development is quite unmistakable from the moment when his ruling passion became aware of itself and took his nature in its charge: from that time on there was an end to fumbling, straying, to the proliferation of secondary shoots (my emphasis). (UM IV, 2)

So Nietzsche and Kant agree that the outcome of that first experiment whereby man became conscious of his reason as a faculty which can extend beyond the limits to which all animals are confined was of great importance, and it influenced his way of life decisively (which is the quote from Kants Conjectures at the beginning of this essay). Yet they differ in what this amounts to. A second contrast stands out. Since the Kantian account grounds morality in reflectivity, a rational agent by herself can reconstruct the shape of morality by deducing the moral law. The social

This is the Formula of Humanity version of the Categorical Imperative; cf. Korsgaard, Christine: Creating the Kingdom of Ends. Cambridge 1996, chapter 4, and also Wood, Allen: Kants Ethical Thought. Cambridge 1999, chapter 4. Many details remain to be filled in here. But the subsequent discussion does not turn on such details. 36

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context becomes important only (possibly) by furnishing facts to which the law must be applied, or (ideally) by facilitating obedience to it. On our Nietzschean account, morality is a social phenomenon shaped by the interaction between the types of ressentiment and those who turned out well. The evolution of the different kinds of mind these types possess is only part of that account.52 While these differences may suggest that there is no fruitful engagement between those accounts, they do engage more than this comparison seems to allow. For both Nietzsche and Korsgaards Kant endorse an ideal of unity of agency. For Korsgaard, obligation stems from what the agents practical identity forbids: violating obligations is jeopardizing ones unity through acting contrary to how one must conceive of oneself in virtue of being a reflective agent. In particular, one jeopardizes this unity by valuing any other rational agents humanity less than ones own. Yet Nietzsche contrasts the person responsible for morality (the person of ressentiment) with the person characterized by wholeness and unity (the person who turned out well). While for Kant moral agency is constitutive of unity of agency, for Nietzsche those two come apart. Exploring the discrepancies between these ideals is our final task. Since Korsgaards picture has gained much visibility, our goal is to make Nietzsches ideal intelligible and to suggest that it is defensible and philosophically interesting.

Schacht argues for a thoroughly social interpretation of normativity according to Nietzsche (Schacht, Richard: Nietzschean Normativity. In Schacht (ed.): Nietzsches Postmoralism, Cambridge 2001.) While I agree with much of his discussion, I think the development of the mind needs to be integrated more than Schacht allows. Note also that Nietzsches account is developed in an entirely different argumentative genre from Korsgaards. Nietzsches account is an exercise in animal psychology, consisting of conjectural natural history. Nietzsche is concerned to detach certain inquiries from philosophical a priori investigation and move them into the realm of empirically-minded inquiries. (As he says in BGE 19, morality (Moral) is to be understood as the theory of the conditions of power under which the phenomenon life arises.) As opposed to that, Korsgaards is a transcendental argument, exploring what is conceptually involved in a rational agents reflectivity. 37

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6.3 What characterizes unity for Nietzsche is the ability to maintain a healthy self-centeredness and self-assuredness, the ability to draw a horizon around oneself (cf. UM I, 1). Too much recognition of others undermines an agents unity. The practical identity of a person who turned out well is shaped by physiological facts about himself, facts that determine what actions are beneficial to him. As far as Nietzsche himself is concerned, Ecce Homo abounds in such facts.53 And in a passage in the Antichrist that is unusually informative about his views on Kant, Nietzsche writes:
One more word against Kant as moralist. A virtue must be o u r o w n invention, o u r most necessary selfexpression and self-defense: any other kind of virtue is merely a danger. Whatever is not a condition of our life h a r m s it. [...] Virtue, duty, the good in itself, the good which is impersonal and universally valid chimeras and expressions of decline, of the final exhaustion of life [...] The fundamental laws of selfpreservation and growth demand the opposite that everyone invent h i s o w n virtue, h i s o w n categorical imperative [...] Nothing ruins us more profoundly, more intimately, than every impersonalduty, every sacrifice to the Moloch of abstraction [...] (A 11)

What constitutes unity for Nietzsche is also captured by the Wagner and the Goethe passage: unity is wholeness, integration of different streaks within one personality, absence of overwhelming internal turmoil. Nietzsches ideal disregards consistency: unity sometimes has to be obtained by closing off deliberations from going where consistently they should go. Consistency cannot account for obligation. Nietzsche does acknowledge that those who turned out well owe duties to each other. Yet when they help the less fortunate, they do so out of strength, not out of pity, and

53

Note EHs insistence on those physiological matters see, e.g., EH, Clever, 1 and 10. 38

not because they are subject to a moral law.54

6.4 I have tried to fill Nietzsches ideal with content, but what has been said remains sketchy. In particular Nietzsches refusal to dismiss duties (and justice) altogether, in light of his other views, requires more elaboration than he offers. At any rate, from a Kantian point of view, the Nietzschean view seems to consist merely of undefended premises running contrary to what in the Kantian argument are conclusions, alas conclusions tied to a picture of the mind that Nietzsche rejects. Yet the Nietzschean account can also gain plausibility in conjunction with an internal objection to the Kantian ideal. This objection is part of the philosophical folklore surrounding the Categorical Imperative, and it benefits a competitor only by highlighting that this competitor avoids the problem at stake. But this objection does accomplish as much, and in combination with what was said 6.3 gives Nietzsches account some plausibility. The objection is that Kants argument fails to show that a rational agent must see his actions as constrained by the idea that she owes equal consideration to every rational being. That is, it fails to show that an agent must respect humanity in every agent as much as in herself and thus can never use any other agent merely as a means. Neither a perversity nor a contradiction arises if I am using you as a means to ends that have value because I have conferred value upon them. Surely, because I have given them value I must

Cf. BGE 226, BGE 260 and BGE 265; also BGE 272 and A 57. Both Kant and Nietzsche acknowledge duties among beings who are relevantly similar, but differ in terms of what that means. Nietzsche also recognizes justice as a virtue, going to some trouble making sure that his readers understand that justice is different from ressentiment (cf. GM II, 11). Nietzsche tells us in the Wanderer and his Shadow that virtues such as moderation, justice, and peace of mind would be regained by every free and conscious mind independently of morality (WS 212). So when Foot assesses the relevance of Nietzsches immoralism in terms of his rejection of justice, she is wrong if she thinks that Nietzsche rejects ideas of justice that merely entail giving to each other what we owe (cf. Foot, Philippa: Nietzsches Immoralism. In: Schacht: Nietzsche, Genealogy, Morality, loc. cit.). 39

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think of myself as having value, and this is true for you as well, mutatis mutandis. Yet this does not show how my acknowledgment of the fact that you confer value constrains how I should relate to you. The argument only shows how you become intelligible to me to me as an agent, how I come to see your actions as more than mere events, namely by coming to realize that, in a fundamental way, we are alike. While our shared humanity creates enough community to make us intelligible to each other, this also exhausts the community thus created; the argument does not make plausible that, in any of my decisions, I should give you as much consideration as I give myself. It does not entail that I should always treat you as an end. The confusion is to take mutual intelligibility to establish a requirement to give equal consideration to each other, or at least to take mutual recognition of intelligibility as entailing such a requirement.55 What is at stake here is the Kantian ideal of consistency in agency. If these considerations are correct, the plausibility of that ideal is problematic, and so is the Kantian ideal of unity of agency of which consistency is constitutive. The Kantian ideal seems to be informed by a fallacious inference, namely the inference from mutual intelligibility to the requirement to give equal consideration to one another. To the extent that the Kantian idea loses plausibility, an ideal that is based on drawing a horizon around oneself looks more attractive. This takes us back to Nietzsches person who turned out well. But Nietzsches ideal not only benefits from this argument by way of this contrast. Once this objection is in sight, Nietzsches ideal can be defended directly in terms of the notion of a practical identity. According to Nietzsche, this identity is shaped by

Korsgaard might, at this stage, make an appeal to Nagel (see Nagel, Thomas: The Possibility of Altruism. Princeton 1970), as in fact she does at a crucial point in her discussion (see Korsgaard: Sources of Normativity, loc. cit., section 4.2.10), to argue that this sort of objection will manoeuver the agent into practical solipsism. But if Nietzsches account of duties can be substantiated the alternative between Kantian duties ranging across all rational beings and practical solipsism would be ill-posed: duties towards peer groups offer an additional alternative. 40

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physiological facts about the agent. These facts determine the agents desires, needs, and reasons for acting. Her humanity contributes little to her understanding of herself. Her identity is shaped by roles she occupies, by goals she pursues, by experiences that have made her who she is. Such features provide her with ways of thinking of herself that make her life worth living, and all of them provide her with reasons for acting. Being human is not among those features. Needless to say, being human is not just a background fact for an agent in much the same way in which our being able to exist only within a certain temperature range is. Being human creates more community than that: recognizing each others humanity does make us intelligible to each other as agents. But what constitutes our practical identity, and thus the source of our reasons, does not tend to give much weight to our being human.

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