Thought-Factory.net Philosophical Conversations Public Opinion philosophy.com Junk for code
PortElliot2.jpg
'An aphorism, properly stamped and molded, has not been "deciphered" when it has simply been read; rather one has then to begin its interpretation, for which is required an art of interpretation.' -- Nietzsche, 'On the Genealogy of Morals'
RECENT ENTRIES
SEARCH
ARCHIVES
Weblog Links
Library
Fields
Philosophers
Writers
Connections
Magazines
E-Resources
Academics
Other
www.thought-factory.net
'An aphorism, properly stamped and molded, has not been "deciphered" when it has simply been read; rather one has then to begin its interpretation, for which is required an art of interpretation.' -- Nietzsche, 'On the Genealogy of Morals'

Adorno, Nietzsche, ethics+domination « Previous | |Next »
June 5, 2005

I want to return to Adorno's ethics of the good life. This ethical counterpoint to instrumental rationality can only be addressed by way of negation---as a resistance to our heteronomous socialization, which represses our autonomy that provides the capacity for action and paves the way to freedom.

So how does Adorno's moral philosophy stand in relation to Nietzsche since both are critiques of morality, or a self-overcoming of traditional morality? According to Gerhard Schweppenhauser in The Cambridge Companion to Adorno Nietzsche stands for the cult of nobility and a new aristocratic morality. Hence Nietzsche's critique of conventional ideas of morality is transformed into an affirmative version of domination and social injustice.

So far this reads like a standard Marxist indictment of Nietzsche--eg., that of Lukacs. Does Adorno see, and acknowledge, a rational core in Nietzsche's ethics beyond the shattering of moral conventions? Both question the claim that philosophy is the 'discourse of mastery', as they understand the task of philosophy to disrupt any and every naturalization of the conjunction of the concept and the world as well as every unreflective naivety. Does Nietzsche go beyond this disruption (philosophizing with a hammer) to enable us to think and morally relate responsibly to concrete particulars?

Schweppenhauser says yes--behind the brutalities of Nietzsche's moral philosophy is a conception of the liberated person as a potential model of freedom or autonomy. Is this Nietzsche's free spirits or philosophers of the future? Schweppenhauser quotes a passage from Adorno's Problems of Moral Philosophy(PMP):

Nietzsche failed to recognize that the so-called slave morality that he excoriates is in truth alwys a master morality, namely the morality imposed on the oppressed by the rulers. If his critique had been consistent as it ought to have been, but isn't---because he was too in thrall to existing social conditions, because he was able to get to the bottom of what people had become, but was not able to get to the bottom of the society that made them what they are----it should have turned its gaze to the conditions that determine human beings and make them and each of us into what we are. (PMP, p.174)

Adorno's immanent critique of Nietzsche's ethics is a Marxist critique that understands morality as form of voluntary subordination that nevertheless holds the potential for autonomy.

It is a very minimal account or engagement with Nietzsche, even if it is more sophisticated than standard scientific Marxist accounts that dismiss ethics as irrelevant because a positivist or realist science is all that is necessary.

| Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 5:28 PM | | Comments (0)
Comments