Narziss

Audio:

Nietzsche on Morality (Christopher Janaway)
Philosophy Bites published this podcast in which Janaway discusses the role of guilt in On the Genealogy of Morality.

Nietzsche’s Myths (Brian Leiter) 
Philosophy Bites published this podcast in which Leiter dispels myths about Nietzsche.  This is an excellent podcast for someone getting introduced to Nietzsche’s ideas. 

Nietzsche on Morality (Brian Leiter)
Elucidations published this podcast in which Leiter discusses the scope of Nietzsche’s critique on morality.

Nietzsche on Freedom (Brian Leiter)
Oxford University published this podcast in which Leiter discusses his article, “Who is the Sovereign Individual? Nietzsche on Freedom”. 

Nietzsche’s Value Monism (John Richardson)
Oxford University published this podcast in which Richardson, in the spirit of the conference’s theme: Nietzsche on Mind & Nature, discusses the merger of mind and nature in Nietzsche’s value monism. 

Nietzsche on Art & Truth (Aaron Ridley)
Philosophy Bites published this podcast is which Ridley discusses the role of the Apollonian and the Dionysian in Nietzsche’s earlier philosophy and the metaphysical, epistemological, and psychological implications of these two concepts.

Nietzsche’s Metaphysics (Galen Strawson)
Oxford University published this podcast in which Strawson lays out the metaphysical assumptions in Nietzsche’s writings. 

Schopenhauer (incl. Janaway)
In Our Time published this podcast in which Janaway, Grayling, and Han-Pile collaborate on explaining the basics of Schopenhauer’s philosophy in The World as Will and Representation. 

Video:

Nietzsche on Mind & Nature (incl. Leiter, Richardson, Reginster)

Among Brian Leiter’s essays, the one that has generated the greatest amount of productive discourse is probably “Nietzsche’s Theory of the Will” (in addition, his essay “Nietzsche’s Philosophy of Action” is basically a shorter version of this essay).  “Nietzsche’s Theory of the Will” is an important essay in the study of Nietzsche’s moral philosophy, philosophical psychology, and his philosophy of mind and action.  My goal in this article is to summarize this important essay and to explain my reasons for why I believe the reading Leiter presents is mistaken.

Leiter argues that Nietzsche’s task in BGE 19, a task supported by the surrounding aphorisms, is to show how willing is causally ineffective.  Leiter adds an additional qualification: even if the will does have some causal force, it is at least “not causally connected in a way that would underwrite ascriptions of moral responsibility” (2).   

According to Leiter, Nietzsche believes that either the will is epiphenomenal and is “casually inert with respect to [] action” (i.e., token-epiphenomenalism) or the will is “casually effective only in virtue of other type-facts about the person” (i.e., type-epiphenomenalism) (11).  (Type-facts “are either physiological facts about the person or facts about the person’s unconscious drives or affects” (7).)  However, even if the will is “casually effective […] in virtue of other type-facts about the person” (11), Leiter believes that the will is “not causally connected in a way that would underwrite ascriptions of moral responsibility” (2; emphasis mine).   The following figure shows token-epiphenomenalism (or simply, epiphenomenalism) on the left and type-epiphenomenalism (or will as secondary cause) on the right:

α — deep cause / drives
β — will / consciousness / thought
γ — action

Not only do I believe that Leiter’s stronger argument (token-epiphenomenalism) is an untenable reading of BGE 19, I also believe that his weaker argument (type-epiphenomenalism) is not sufficient to “underwrite ascriptions of moral responsibility”.  I personally believe Nietzsche has something else in mind when he presents us with BGE 19 (an aphorism mirrored by the unpublished version: 38[8] of his Late Notebooks; click here to see the two aphorisms); Nietzsche does not want to make us believe that willing is causally ineffective; rather, he wants to present us with an analysis of willing so that we understand how it is tied to our nonconscious drives.  I will now describe the problems with Leiter’s essay as I go through a summary.

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