The error of free will

Friedrich Nietzsche, Die Götzen-Dämmerung, The Four Great Errors.

"The error of free will. Today we no longer have any tolerance for the idea of "free will": we see it only too clearly for what it really is — the foulest of all theological fictions, intended to make mankind "responsible" in a religious sense — that is, dependent upon priests. Here I simply analyze the psychological assumptions behind any attempt at "making responsible."
Whenever responsibility is assigned, it is usually so that judgment and punishment may follow. Becoming has been deprived of its innocence when any acting-the-way-you-did is traced back to will, to motives, to responsible choices: the doctrine of the will has been invented essentially to justify punishment through the pretext of assigning guilt. All primitive psychology, the psychology of will, arises from the fact that its interpreters, the priests at the head of ancient communities, wanted to create for themselves the right to punish — or wanted to create this right for their God. Men were considered "free" only so that they might be considered guilty — could be judged and punished: consequently, every act had to be considered as willed, and the origin of every act had to be considered as lying within the consciousness (and thus the most fundamental psychological deception was made the principle of psychology itself).
Today, we immoralists have embarked on a counter movement and are trying with all our strength to take the concepts of guilt and punishment out of the world — to cleanse psychology, history, nature, and social institutions and sanctions of these ideas. And there is in our eyes no more radical opposition than that of the theologians, who continue to infect the innocence of becoming by means of the concepts of a "moral world-order," "guilt," and "punishment." Christianity is religion for the executioner."

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• Götzen-Dämmerung
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• four
• great
• errors

[adararocks]

Dude, I LOVE this little robot dude... he straight up laid it DOWN. hahaha.

[schizoapriori]

Back when the copyright insanity wasn't so bad, I had plenty of videos concerning Nietzsche. The ones I have now are of no real importance, I'll be the first to point that out. Like I mentioned, I had to remove the videos due to a few seconds of music at the beginning and/or the end of the videos.

[schizoapriori]

My bad. 'It' pertains to the double meaning of the word 'schuld'.

Secondary literature? Sure, I've read plenty. Always willing to read more. See my channel for the books that I have 'about' Nietzsche and/or his philosophy.

I've been reading Nietzsche and 'about' Nietzsche ever since I first starting reading him; back in late '96, early '97.

What are a few of the seeming contradictions that you've noticed in the second essay?

[schizoapriori]

Yes and no. Yes, I study philosophy and no, I am not in college.

[Thresholds]

Unfortunately, there are also plenty of bad book on Nietzsche. I can definitely recommend these for a star, though: Clark's "Nietzsche on Truth and Philosophy," Nehamas' "Nietzsche: Life as Literature," and Leiter's "Nietzsche on Morality."

Do you study philosophy? Are you in college?

[Thresholds]

What do you mean by the last sentence there: "It kind of presupposes that whomever has read the second essay hasn't fully experienced what Nietzsche had to say"? What's "It"?

The more times I read the second essay, the more complex it seems. I think there are other seeming contradictions and problems in there besides guilt/debt.

I'm just curious, but have you read any of the secondary literature on Nietz.? If not, you should start digging in. There are tons of great books.

[schizoapriori]

IMO, Kaufmann's footnote explains enough. Having a decent, basic knowledge of german, it's never posed a problem... for me, that is. Others I can't speak for. It kind of presupposes that whomever has read the second essay hasn't fully experienced what Nietzsche had to say.

I have that book in my book list on amazon. I may bump up the priority on it, though.

[Thresholds]

I love the whole Genealogy, but the issue with guilt and debt does effect Nietzsche's claims in the second essay, especially in section 20 and 21, where "Schuld" should be translated as "debt" rather than "guilt." Nietzsche explains in those sections how a consciousness of debt can turn into a feeling of guilt; how debt became moralized. That's a major part of GM.

Maybe you should read Brian Leiter's "Nietzsche on Morality," where he explains this stuff?

[schizoapriori]

That, being taken from Kaufmann footnote, makes clear from the outset the differing meaning or translations. Personally, I've always liked the second essay.

[schizoapriori]

Section 6 "To ask it again: to what extent can suffering balance debts or guilt?"

"Debts or guilt": "Schulden."