Response by Christopher Robinson, The Atlas Society | Ayn Rand, Objectivism, Atlas Shrugged

This commentary is part of The Atlas Society's 2000 online "CyberSeminar" entitled " Nietzsche and Objectivism ."

Diana Hsieh criticizes Nietzsche’s genealogical method because it does not start with the right questions, because it is not “likely to be fruitful,” and because it produces “just-so” stories. It could be further argued that it does not address the rightness or wrongness of certain moral actions. I think that these objections are, in some sense, misplaced.

According to W. T. Jones (1975), one can understand a lot about Nietzsche’s thought by reflecting on his experience as a philologist. Philologists study words and texts; they try to determine original meanings of words, or try to construct textual autographs. One other aspect of philology is important in this context: the philologist assumes the existence of words and texts.

Just as evolution really makes no claims about the ultimate origin of life, the philologist makes no claims about the origins of words. Both groups take their subject matter as given and seek to determine how organisms, or words, change over time. So, I agree with Diana Hsieh and others that Nietzsche and Ayn Rand ’s fundamental questions are different. Nietzsche was concerned with the original referents of moral terms--such as whether they referred to the person or the action. Rand’s question, by contrast, was why we have moral terms at all. Nietzsche’s question is “what is the original meaning of this word or form of this text?” By analogy, Rand’s question would be “why do we have words and texts?”

While it might be better to begin moral theorizing with a question more similar to Rand’s, I do not think that Nietzsche’s method to separate subject from content is inherently less fruitful than Rand’s. Indeed, Nietzsche’s method can lead one to Rand’s question.

Nietzsche’s method can lead one to Rand’s question.

The historical method can reveal similarities as well as differences in different moralities. For example, one might observe that different moralities appear to serve different purposes (e.g., preparing one to live in this world versus another), have different circumstances in which they are applicable (e.g., a morality may only apply to how one treats others in one’s group), and focus on different aspects of a situation (e.g., on intention versus effect, or on the actor versus the action). When we find these differences, we can then check the premises of each to determine which better represents moral fundamentals. If we find that different moral codes hold different actions as the good, we are then forced to be clearer about what we mean by the good. Instead of pontificating that this or that is obviously good, we would be forced to say “This is good, because...”

Even if we found commonalties across different moralities, Nietzsche’s method would still be of value. If we found that every single moral theory assumed that un-egotistic actions were the standard of the good, for instance, then we could either simply say, “This is common to all,” or we could ask, “Why is this common to all?” Alternatively, we could observe the similarities and say, “Moral actions must be un-egotistic,” or we could ask, “Must moral actions be un-egotistic?”

There are downsides to the historical method. I think that two of the biggest problems are that knowing history does not always tell us why something is that way now, and knowing history does not give us any insight to whether something really is good. In the above example, we may find that many people ultimately defend their moral code by referencing some deity or another, but that alone does not tell us about the goodness of the action (it may, however, reveal differences in how people defend moral prescriptions).

Since Nietzsche was a philologist, perhaps a philological example might make this point clearer. The modern day English meaning of the word “anathema” is something that is detested. Etymological research, however, reveals that the word actually used to refer to the choicest things that one gave the gods in offering. So, the meaning of this word now is the opposite of its original meaning. Although one could, I believe, construct a plausible “just-so” story to explain this change, the point here is that the etymological consideration did not greatly elucidate the present day meaning of anathema; to see the point, realize that, without any difficulty, anathema could still refer to the choice things given to the gods.

In sum, I think that Nietzsche’s method has benefits and drawbacks. Although the historical method is not directly concerned with the purpose of morality, or of words, this line of reasoning does ultimately nestle up against questions about purpose or origin and provides some fodder with which one can begin considering the purpose or moral terms.

Back to Diana Hsieh, "'Birds of Prey': Freedom of the Will and the Value of Genealogy"