Are We all Really Bad People deep down
I've been reflecting on a thought: if people were given the chance to do things society and general are considered "bad" or "evil" with no one ever finding out, and with zero chance of anyone suspecting them, most would likely take it(correct me if i am wrong). Theyd indulge in the act, reaping all the pleasure and benefits. Different people might choose different "evils" some might commit serious crimes like rape, while others would say no to that but still engage in something like a major theft to become a billionaire. Does that make them a bad person? If so, doesnt that mean were all bad people deep down?
Comments (67)
He didn't require you do bad, just that you'd hypothetically do bad if you could get away with it. So, if you never committed a bad act, and in fact lived a super moral life, helping others in all instances, but you did it for the fame and failed to do bad because you knew you'd get caught, are you a bad person?
I'd also argue that even if you did commit a bad act now and then, you're not a bad person necessarily. You can do bad and still be overall good
So basically you are saying that even if a person decides to do bad act when there is 0 chances of him getting caught he still overall is a good person. I kind of get where you are coming from but I think you are taking acts that are not too evil. What if he commits rape. Would you still say he is overall a good person (i used rape as one example of serious crime you might argue all people wouldn't rape people even if given the chance but they can do other serious evil acts. And i think most people eventually do a serious evil act if given a chance. Especially in this era when people are reading and watching fiction which romanticizes rape and stuff)
The roots of mistakes are the lack of education, genes, and uncertainty about what the very far future brings. We can only fix education.
If we are basing the question of the OP on a hypothetical, experimental world, then Im sure we can find that not all of us are bad.
But actually, we all do things we have already decided are bad - we do them anyway. I think that is objectively bad. So we are all bad.
I'd still maintain that all that can be concluded is that we all do bad things, not that we're holistically bad. Like if a murderer, rapist, liar, cheater, etc. helps an old lady across the street, he's not a good person. He's a bad person who did a good thing. The opposite holds true for good people who do bad things from time to time. If you didn't allow any bad acts, there'd be no good people, but clearly there are people we consider good.
I don't think so. The main reasons we make mistakes are a lack of education, genetics, and uncertainty about the future. We can only fix the education. Once that is done, there is nothing bad at all. I also don't think we're bad at all right now. We mainly lack education.
But, sure, I'd like to know that it's not the prisons that keep people honest, but it's the people's honesty that keeps them honest.
I don't think that will is true or will be true in the future. I think it is the punishment that keeps people honest and act good. Some people might fear worldly punishments and religious ones fear the punishment that god will give them in afterlife so thats why they are all acting goodly. Even if we reach a point where people's honesty will keep them honest and not a fear I think that era wont last long because It will take one guy to abuse power and mess up everything
But don't you think we that we usually don't consider a person who says if he had 1 million he would give it to poor a good person because we don't know if it is his real intent or he is just trying to do so. So comparing these 2 things is invalid. Let me give a new comparison. If a person gets 1 million right now hypothetically and he decides to give it to the poor doesn't that make him a good person? similarly a guy who would do rape if there are no consequences he would be a bad guy in that case.
Question by me: i dont understand why people here are kind of saying that the person wouldn't be bad. Like how isn't he a bad guy
I'm reflecting on why people in an impossible thought experiment would be more real and deep than moms and dads and kids in this world.
And I've decided that they are not real or deep at all, but imaginary beings with no connections or relations to one another. But other people here seem to prefer to think that good and bad and human relations are imaginary.
A "bad" or "evil" society considers things that are virtuous and just as the opposite. Similar to how kindness is equated with weakness or honesty is equated with treachery (ie. snitching). Oddly parallels many modern societies, interestingly enough. So, by that strictly verbose interpretation at least, muddies the larger issue quite well in my opinion.
Quoting QuirkyZen
How, with a beating? :grin:
It's not so much you're wrong, it's more you've made a claim, a very large and broad one at that, without even attempting to prove it in any way. We call that "bad form" or "in poor taste" where I come from.
Quoting QuirkyZen
Well, hypothetically speaking of course, it depends who you rape or who you rob. Maybe you decide to rape a serial rapist. That'd be kind of funny, come to think of it. Or maybe you rob someone who only has his wealth due to him or someone before him committing acts or robbery and murder. It's all relative, friend.
Bad and good are so subjective these days. Let's invoke something more absolute and universal. A hypocrite (which is in fact considered bad), someone who does something to another yet would get upset if it were done to them. That's a good starting point to determine if something is "bad" or "good" and to what degree.
Quoting QuirkyZen
Generally speaking, intelligent beings are creatures of opportunity. You wouldn't be alive today, likely, if you believe solely on evolutionary theory, if someone before you didn't embrace, at least partially, the characteristics required to continue one's genetics in a physical world of hardship and chaos. As to what that actually means, when it comes to morality and beyond, varies from person to person.
I suppose to vindicate the human condition, one might wish to subscribe to something along the lines of "all men are capable of great good and great evil, as to which we choose and even our ability to have a choice and knowledge of the two, depends greatly on the society and set of circumstances one is born in."
Quoting Outlander
This was very funny I laughed a lot on this
Yes. Your question removes all the give and take of social interaction and mutual dependence, and then suggests that humans in that condition would be immoral, and that this is "deep". I'm saying it is very very shallow unrealistic and a mere thought. What makes us human is not independence but dependence; it is our shared language and customs that give rise morality, because for instance, if we did not by and large tell the truth, then talk itself would have no meaning. So to strip away all that and then ask what is our morality is like asking what we would breathe in a vacuum. It is a wrong question, and any answer would mislead.
For sure, people can be evil, and sometimes they can be very powerful too, and 'get away with it'. But this is not a basis for generalising that every person in power and every person that might be in power will become evil. Most people, most of the time are polite, considerate, and kind to each other without any coercion, and without any fear, but just because it is a more pleasant way to be together.
There are people who continue to commit crimes after they are caught and punished. most people don't commit crimes, so do not experience punishment.
It would appear that something else affects behavior beside punishment / no punishment.
I think that properly raised children who grow up with a sense that their efforts will improve life for themselves are unlikely to commit most kinds of crime most of the time. In other words, we call them good people.
Some people do not benefit from good parenting, good schools, and a good environment and they grow up with low expectations that their efforts will benefit themselves. Not all of these people will commit crimes, but quite a few people in this group will. Growing up with bad parenting, crappy schools, and low expectations makes people unfortunate rather than bad.
People tend to maintain cognitive harmony. They try to act in conformity with who they think they are. Behaving in ways contrary-to-my-real-self creates cognitive dissonance, and people tend to avoid dissonance.
Quoting AmadeusD
Sort of like "We're All Bozos on This Bus".
Yes. We're all just people doing stuff. Goodness and badness are not our primary characteristics. We might be good. We might also be stupid; or handsome; or have bad breath; be very smart but very impractical; be a ballet star or a klutz; or maybe be a complete asshole.
yeah surely it is more pleasant way if you DON'T HAVE POWER. People tend to live together like this to be strong as whole and they act kind because they are dependent on each other. When they are not dependent then the situation changes a lot
So, if you make a thread on the thought then you are not a really bad person deep down.
If at least one person is not a really bad person deep down then not all people are all really bad people deep down.
QED.
Such a illogical thing to say. you are justifying your claim by saying most people haven't done crimes, so they haven't experienced punishment thus they are not restraining them because of fear of punishment.
Fear is not something that you will have only after experiencing the real thing. you can have it even by seeing other guy face the consequence. It is like saying i wont get scared watching a horror movies cuz i am not in the movie. And yeah take religious people as and example they haven't experienced hell but they do fear it. (Either your argument is dumb or i misunderstood it, the second being more likely)
By the argument that I provided that that person is self aware as being a bad person means they're not bad deep down -- they may never become good, but that recognition is enough.
And if even that knave with a heart of gold isn't bad deep down, then surely there's more than the knave?
So we are not all really bad people deep down?
People who have not put themselves at risk of punishment have no need to fear punishment. What many people feel when they see other people being punished is not fear, but rather schadenfreude. Others feel satisfaction that justice is being done. Some people don't give a rats ass about other people.
Quoting QuirkyZen
You could have put that more tactfully. But never mind, have no fear. You will not be severely beaten for it.
Fear can be learned and unlearned, quite apart from the matter of punishment.
Then basically they avoid evil acts and stuff because of fear of "fear of punishment"
I find this to be a bit of a misconception. Surely you can understand why.
People who are law abiding and do not perform criminal acts need not have a fear of being punished.
In some countries, saying the wrong thing about the maximum leaders is sufficient to get one punished. People in those countries have reason to fear punishment for speaking their minds the way free people do.
Quoting Outlander
If you are consistently law abiding, Outlander, why would you fear punishment for wrongdoing?
You want a fear-based system? Fine. Enjoy.
Oh come now. No innocent man has ever been framed. No bad thing has ever happened to a good person? What fanatical idealism is this? And yes, you know quite well I'm religious but even in my eyes such a sentiment is a stretch far beyond any sort of rationale.
There is nothing evil about taking food if you are starving. Rather it is evil to refuse to share food when others are starving. At this point property law is not the arbiter of goodness.
Oh yes, bad things happen to the innocent and the good. And good things happen to the guilty and the bad. "The rain falls on the just and the unjust alike." That's life. Adults understand this and do not go berserk when it happens to other people. When it happens to them is another story, of course.
Quoting QuirkyZen
Fear of punishment and guilt is a key experience for children: it's the essential route to developing a strong moral sense. However, once the moral sense has developed (in childhood, before adulthood) the individual is likely to be consistently law abiding the rest of his life. True, there may be lapses, but billions of people go through life without becoming fearful criminals.
Psychopaths and sociopaths, however, don't develop the usual fear + guilt = moral facility the rest of do. Why don't they? Apparently, the pathways between the emotional centers of the brain and the prefrontal cortex are defective. As a consequence, they don't feel guilt, and consequently perform far more criminal acts than normal people.
Adults can manage belief and behavior to minimize fearfulness and guilt. Healthy people don't like fearfulness and are able to do something about it. Most adults will not attempt to steal the expensive watch. It isn't just fear of "punishment". It's the potential loss of 'place' in the community; the intense cognitive dissonance between their sense of moral self and criminality. The expensive watch will, in almost all cases, not become an irresistible object of desire.
What about the fires of hell? Fear-driven hellfire and damnation works if you accept the premise that a loving god will punish souls forever for sins committed. For many people hell is simply incompatible with their view of god and/or the cosmos and it doesn't work. BUT, if you like that kind of thinking and focus on it, it can be the dominant theme of one's life.
Should the usual strong guardrails fail, and the normal person commits a serious crime (like a felony with mandatory prison time), they will fear the punishment.
Not all political / legal systems are fair and just. If specific groups of people (like blacks, for instance) are subjected to arbitrary arrest and punishment, fear of law enforcement makes sense. If one is a Mexican working in a meat packing plant where many undocumented aliens work, it makes sense to fear an ICE raid.
One of the benefits of living in a more or less just political and legal system, is that the law-abiding, norm-conforming citizen need not live in fear. This doesn't work for everybody, as I just explained above.
Yeah but why does the individual mostly becomes a law abiding person because the fear gets ingrained in him. You are literally saying the thing i said at first. I don't know why it took you so long to understand this and at start you weren't even considering fear as reason for law abiding. I guess people on this forum debate to prove others wrong than getting to the truth
I'm trying to forward the idea that there is a difference between walking around in fear most of the time, on the one hand, and on the other hand having the normal experience of consistent mild discipline as a young child -- from whence comes a conscience, a moral backbone, and confidence that one can resist the impulse to do wrongful acts--in other words, live a decent life.
Some people have very unpleasant anxiety disorders where they often feel anxious, threatened, and fearful without any external cause. Usually there isn't any clear cause, other than brain dysfunction (neurotransmitters, etc.). A little anxiety is normal, like if you don't pass oral exams, all your work toward an advanced degree may be down the drain. Maybe a snake scares you. That's normal. But fearfulness all the time isn't normal.
The ability to feel guilt is another critical part of having strong morals, and being able to resist the temptation to do bad things that land us in trouble which we quite properly fear. As the saying goes, "Guilt is the gift that keeps on giving." I got a lot of training in guilt as a child, and it took years of effort on my part to get it under control. A little guilt is good; a lot of guilt (without any cause) is disabling.
For some people, bad acts may not lead to fear and guilt: those who regularly do bad things (drive by shootings, felony theft, felony assault, (attempted) murder and manslaughter, wife (or husband) beating -- all that crap -- have other concerns, like maintaining their standing as gang members; maintaining their reputation as 'tough'; acquiring goods that are markers of success in the culture at large, but which they can not obtain through high levels of productive behavior -- like the expensive watch. They haven't had a job in 10 years, so the gold watch is pretty much not going to happen, unless one does a smash and grab theft.
People who work in organized crime are likely to be fearful, because the Organization doesn't punish failure by firing you and giving you a bad reference. They are more likely to kill you if your performance is poor. Intermediate level drug dealers may get drugs on credit, and pay for them after sales are made. IF, for any reason, cash is not produced when it is due, the drug dealer has every reason to sweat bullets and try to find the cash, even if that means robbing a bank. No cash? No life.
We could have been having this discussion in Washington state in 2011, at the time 9% of folks there smoked weed, one could suppose that lots feared the illegality of Marijuana, however currently only 30% of Washingtonians smoke weed, so about 21% wanted to smoke weed AND were not doing so because it was illegal. 70% just aren't interested in Marijuana. I'm not interested in murder and rape.
If this were a conversation to determine a governmental system or a certain governments effects on right and wrong it would be fine.
However, this is about right and wrong the government has little role in my mind.
To begin with the government is made by the hand of the people and is thus imperfect in anything other than being able to use the hand of the people. (Win for democracy)
That is not my main point; each person has their own sense of right and wrong and their views of others (whether they are good or bad is based on this) The same cannot be said for the laws, their are bad acts that are completely within the law and vice versa.
For example, businesses are usually able to set their own prices for goods. This way they can take advantage of people, this is completely within the law but I would consider it bad.
I'm sure that most people can think of a bad person who is on the right side of the law.
The main point is that law is not a perfect measure of right and wrong.
I wouldn't consider a schemer a good person, just not yet a criminal.
There needs to be a separation between government and self. The government is the will of millions or billions of people and you are a singular will and are more pure in a way. There is no problem in following your own will.
Personally I believe that fear is not the way to create a moral person. (That is not to say that it does not create a person who follows morals) Guilt is however a major part, but so is sympathy. Fear puts you below something, and sympathy equal to.
How could you possibly know that? At best you know (apparently) that you would do those things if you had the chance. Be wary of projecting your own badness onto others.
Quoting QuirkyZen
Well, theres a few maybe unexamined premises here. I take one to be that morality works based on predetermined standards that merely need to be implemented (judged on). Thus, if there is no one to do that (judge), because they never find out, we are free to do whatever we want. This would also include other sources of oversight, like God or a (separate) conscience.
Also, it appears there is the implication that even the (pre)determination of our standards is up in the air, perhaps because, if no one is there to enforce them, it doesnt even matter if they are there to begin with; thus there appears to be no basis for action, leaving whatever worst-possible scenario you want: anarchy, whim, indulgence, evil. I believe we can use the traditional catch-all: self interest.
In addition, we are assuming not only that norms are decided, but that, either who we are is in place already and determines the choices we make, and/or that the decision about, and judgment of, standards is not just about right and wrong, but implicates our very nature (not just our actions), thus:
Quoting QuirkyZen
Nietszche suggests we move beyond good and evil not as an argument for some other standard (or just self-interest) but as an observation about the structure of morality. If you decide a thing is right, or good, and I dont follow it, I could either be bad or just wrong. Good and evil assumes an inherent intention (beforehand) behind our acts and/or a constant nature or self that is the cause of them, instead of our just being responsible for our actions after the fact. Thus why there are excuses, extenuating circumstances, bad acts for good reasons, etc. (This also allows for the possibility someone does something horrible because of something inherent in them, and/or for our categorizing who they are for us as part of something they have donebut not in every instance as a function of morality as a whole.)
We do have social norms, but sometimes there is no guide for what we should do (they come to an end or a new situation), and we have to insert ourselves into the moral future as it were, not based on whether we are good or bad, or having decided what is right or wrong, but in so doing we stand up for what is important to us. Wittgenstein saw that our common standards reflect our shared interests in our practices, so (correct) judgment of a novel act is based on the extension of those interests (standards), not a judgment of the individual (their nature or intention), say, their selfishness, or selflessness, etc. If we were certain about what was right beforehand (and of all instances), there would be no cases where defying a norm was the right thing to do, or any error or fickleness in our praise and condemnation (mere moralizing).
On some older views that have fallen out of fashion, what defines a state of "virtue" is that the virtuous person both tends to do what is right, and enjoys doing what is right. On this view, enjoying evil would, in some sense, denote a lack of perfected virtue.
I'd hesitate to say this makes people "bad" though, since this conception is most at home in a metaphysics that assumes that everything, (and particularly every living thing, and among them particularly man) is good, in that they are revelations of infinite being itself (or God in the Islamic and Christian traditions). Rather, it means that everyone is good to some degree, but they can be more or less perfected in this goodness, more or less fully actualized. So, the saint or sage, who prefers only the good, has in a sense more fully actualized their humanity. They are more self-determining and more free because they know their own acts and desires as good, and prefer them as such, whereas the person who doesn't know what is truly better is constrained by ignorance, and the person who does what they know to be evil is divided against themselves.
I think every intentional act, to be properly intentional, aims at some good. In terms of theft, some good is being aimed at. It isn't wrong to seek such goods. It is wrong to prioritize lesser goods over greater ones though. And the idea would be that prioritizing wealth over virtue is a sort of misprioritization that stems from ignorance or weakness of will (both of which are limits on a perfected freedom). I guess there is a notion of harmony here too. Evil is a sort of unintelligibly in action, it is to be out of step with nature (nature as perfected) or to "miss the mark."
Since no one is omniscient or perfectly virtuous, all people would seem to be susceptible to the ignorance or weakness of will, but some moreso than others. I suppose that, wanting nothing, such that one does not want to commit any "perfect crimes," is itself it's own sort of freedom too.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
I understand the concept of ignorance and unintelligibility in the context of knowledge. Such limitations occur in spite of the strongest will to know, due to constraints that exceed individual intention. But what is the genesis and nature of the sort of ignorance and unintelligiblity connected to this magical thing called weakness of will? Isnt it just that, an irreducible mystery?
I'm not sure if I understand the question, but I'll try my best. Weakness of will is when we do something, despite having a strong desire not to do that thing, because we understand it to be a bad course of action. For instance, someone might want to quit smoking, go on a diet, stop consuming pornography, etc., and think that this path is best and what is best for them, and perhaps even pray or meditate on how much they want to not do those things, and nonetheless do them.
Classically, the will is part of the rational soul. It's the appetitive faculty vis-á-vis goodness. So the will targets what is understood as truly best (as opposed to the other appetites, which have particular formal objects, e.g., food, sex, etc.). It's called "weakness of will," because what is understood to be best is not what is acted upon.
By contrast, when someone fails to cheat on his wife, or succeeds in quitting smoking, we don't tend to speak of a "weakness of appetite." In those cases, they might still possess the appetite (e.g. sex, nicotine, etc.), yet it is the appetite of the will that is followed, through the will (which is also the volitional faculty involved in choice).
So weakness of will involves current knowledge, what is understood to be best. If we make poor choices out of ignorance about what is truly best, that would simply be a case of ignorance. Weakness of will is a conflict between different appetites. It's untinelligible in that it doesn't correspond to the intellect. The action is not in accord with what is understood, but is instead contrary to it.
Maybe that answered the question?
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
It seems to be a description without an origin. Do you mean to say that whenever any of us encounter a conflict of appetites, weakness of will arises of necessity? Nietzsche would argue that whatever drive is strongest prevails, but this would not constitute a weakness.
No, weakness of will is when one of the lower appetites, the concupiscible (related to pleasure/pain) or irascible (related to hope/fear), overrules the rational appetite for what is understood as good (the will). I'm not super committed to that exact typology, but it seems to describe a common enough phenomenon. That is, bodily or emotional appetites overwhelming our "better judgement," i.e. our understanding of what would be truly best.
When the will overrules the lower appetites, that is the opposite of weakness of will, i.e., the proper ordering.
That "ordering of the appetites" -- I wonder if that's absent from Nietzsche?
I don't think so, given his general appreciation for master morality.
But I agree with @Joshs in saying that Nietzsche's order is different from the notion of a "weakness of the will", however we parse that.
The ranking of drives would be individualistic, and based on to what extent they enhance life and further creativity and self-overcoming vs encourage passivity, resentment and decay. The rational appetite, or will to knowledge, is itself an expression of , and directed by will to power. If it is used in a way that does not optimize the aims of creative self-overcoming, then they work against life enhancement and constitute self-weakening drives.
So -- rather than there being no ranking, there's a difference in how things are ranked.
Nietzsche orders appetites therefore we can't say something like...
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
Since the tripartite division is not the same.
****
There's a sense in which I can understand akrasia -- where I've dedicated myself to do such and such, like quit smoking, that the "rational" frame makes sense of -- but I'm more inclined that Nietzsche is right in that when I quit smoking it's because my desire to quit smoking was more powerful than my desire to smoke, for whatever reason/cause.
I had to work on not-wanting in order to stop-wanting. And that was a desire I built up in order to stop-want.
I can say that "weakness of the will" -- though perhaps the philosopher is satisfied with such an explanation -- was the worst way of approaching my desire to smoke and not-smoke.
When you want something there's no way to "summon a will" which makes you "not-want" -- you'll want it all the same.
Sometimes this leads into a cycle of sorts -- a sinner sins, asks forgiveness, is saved, sins again, asks forgiveness....
There's an odd pleasure-cycle to redemption which I think the "weakness of the will" at least can feed into, which is counter-productive to anyone who desires to actually change what they are doing.
I say "in particular" since I'm reflecting on quitting smoking -- last one I had was some 7 to 8 years ago.
Which is also to say: In a way the question opens up asking us to confess -- and the confessional was the only way to display skin in the game.
I don't think Nietzsche is really in conflict with the Platonists on this particular point. They certainly allow that different appetites [I]can[/I] be more powerful than the rational appetites.
A key distinction here is that the desire for knowledge/truth (intellect) is not the only rational appetite. The will has the desire for goodness as its formal object. Soand there are difficulties in mixing psychologies of courseI don't think Nietzsche would necessarily deny the desirability of the rule of the will in this respect. For the will not to rule is necessarily for a person to be conflicted about their actions. There is weakness of will whenever someone does one thing, but experiences the [I] understanding [/I] that another course of action was truly better, and desires to have done that instead. Obviously, not many thinkers are "pro-regret."
It would be a mistake to think that the will is always in conflict or competition with the lower appetites. It often isn't. For example, we can be hungry, and also understand that it is good for us to eat. The goal, on the Platonist account, is precisely for the appetites [I]not[/I] to be in conflict. The higher part reaches down and shapes the lower parts through training and habituation in the virtues. The idea here is that this actually allows the lower appetites to be most satisfied as well, because the person functions more as a complete, self-determining whole, less as a collection of warring parts, and so is actually able to succeed at meeting the other desires. The "tyrannical man," by contrast, is prone to confusing "wants" and "needs" and thus making himself miserable. The image in the Phaedrus is a contrast between a chariot with two well-trained horses (the appetites and passions) and one where the horses pull in different directions and the chariot careens around aimlessly, going where neither horse wants to go. (The point, pace some of Nietzsche's portrayals of Plato and Socrates, is not to kill the two horses though lol, but actually to make them better off.)
Where disagreement seems more relevant is in the existence of the will's formal object, that there is a good to know and desire. Another difference is in the subject, although the Platonist tradition is less far away from Nietzsche then it might first seem here, because it's actually in agreement about the competition of the appetites and lack of a stable subject. It's just that this is the state of the soul when it is sick, the "civil war in the soul." So the difference is really more about the capacity to overcome this (and the desirability of doing so).
That's not normally the idea though. It isn't that one simply chooses to not want something, at least not normally. It's primarily a description of the phenomenological experience of conflicted desire and an explanation of why people "do what they know is wrong/what they actively regret." The continent person doesn't suffer from weakness of will (on Aristotle's typology), and yet they still desire vice. By contrast, the incontinent person knows vice is wrong, but does it anyway, and the person in a state of vice acts poorly and prefers doing so.
Certainly, there is the idea that a person can change their desires, or that they can be changed by training, education, etc. That is, desire is not a black box, but can be shaped intentionally. This is Harry Frankfurt's idea of a second order volition, an effective desire to have or not have another desire (something he sees as crucial to freedom and personhood). But this is normally framed in terms of habituation and long-term changes, which is certainly the case for something like smoking.
Quoting Moliere
Exactly. Daniel Smith contrasts the hierarchical relation between rational will and passion that Timothy seems to be describing with Nietzsches subordination of rational will to passion.
Well, that's Nietzsche's account. I think that, whatever his other merits, he is not a particularly accurate (or charitable) student of Plato, and especially not of the Christian Platonist tradition. This sounds to me more like the "buffered self" of the neostoicism of the German Protestant pietism that Nietzsche grew up with. The passions are morally neutral in the Christian Platonist tradition, and essential to the beatific vision. Their proper and harmonious orientation is what matters.
Not that Nietzsche is entirely wrong. The Phaedo could be read in this light. I think it's harder to make this case in light of the whole corpus though, and much harder for the Christian tradition generally, granted that [I]some[/I] influential texts do seem to advocate for a sort of war against the body and passions. This is more a predilection of the late-antique Pagans though, particularly an ambivalence towards or neglect of embodiment (we're talking about a tradition that birthed a cult of bodily relics afterall, whose key focus is the resurrection of the body and the embodiment of God).
Would it make just as much sense? People don't generally talk this way at least, right? And my exposure to the Eastern tradition makes me think that this is in not a distinctly Western, Platonist influenced tendency. The distinction between ?tman and Prak?ti for instance.
It would be sort of bizarre for someone to say: "I was tempted on my work trip, and unfortunately my sex drive was not strong enough to make me cheat on my spouse." To me at least, being hungry seems quite phenomenologically distinct as compared to intellectually willing something. There is also a passive element to some appetites; people often talk about the passions as something that happens to them, and I can think of examples of this from literature that spans a lot of different cultures and epochs.
[Quote]
Instinctively, Nietzsche says, we tend to take our predominant drive and for the moment turn it into the whole of our ego, placing all our weaker drives perspectivally farther away, as if those other drives weren't me but rather something else, something other inside me, a kind of it (hence Freud's idea of the id, the itwhich he also derived from Nietzsche).[/quote]
I am not sure about this part either. It seems fully possible to experience weakness of will and not to identify with the dominant desire in this manner. This gets back to the idea of the passions in some sense [I]happening to[/I] us. I would hardly claim that literature has always described things thus, but it seems like it often has, perhaps even usually. Furor descends on Aeneas, a great rage "comes upon" the Trojan women when they decide to burn their own ships. Homer's Greeks are the same way.
Of course, Nietzsche also appeals to the Greeks on this point. I guess I'm just not sure if it might suggest a different take. Certainly other ancient lit does, e.g. Genesis 4:7 "sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it," makes a pretty clear distinction (the passion in this case being wrath, the murder of Abel)or maybe this merely explains why the Jewish tradition and Plato got on so well together.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
Whats the difference between saying occasionally I have a strange impulse and I have an impulse to perform an immoral act? The difference is that the use of moral language like cheating, murdering and stealing as opposed to value-neutral terms like having sex with , killing and taking from follows upon the interpreting of an act as immoral. And Nietzsches point is that we only arrive at such moral interpretations after the stronger drive has won out and we justify its success posthoc as being the moral choice. If we dont consider picking up a cigarette whenever we want to be a moral act, it is because the drive to smoke is in a close battle with the drive to quit. If we became fully convinced that there were no solid reasons to quit (health, economic or hygiene), then we would with good conscience consider our decision to smoke not to be the less moral choice.
Well, a wrinkle here is that weakness of will doesn't necessarily have anything to do with any sort of "moral" consideration, only practical judgements. Actually, pre-modern ethics makes much less of a distinction between the moral and the practical, the former just being part of the latter.
And it isn't the case that we [I]always[/I] engage is such post-hoc rationalization. People will often say that what they are doing is bad (morally, or merely practically) as they are engaging in the act, or shortly after.
That's a difficulty here, sometimes we engage in post hoc rationalization, oftentimes we don't. But weakness of will is simply pointing to the phenomena of knowing/understanding "doing x would really be better," and instead doing y. There isn't any real moral valance to: "I should take the trash out now because I won't want to do it in the snow tomorrow morning, but I'm not going to because I feel tired." It's simply dissonance between the intellectual appetitive faculty (the will) and one of the concupiscible appetites (for rest).
So, I would say that Nietzsche is right about a certain sort of phenomenon. However, the rational appetite is still phenomenologically distinct from the sensible appetites, and this distinction shows up throughout the history of world literature. It is not the case that the "I" is [I]nothing but[/I] warring drives, else people would not so often describe passions and appetites as something that happens [I]to[/I] them. They wouldn't rationalize sometimes and not others. This doesn't make the passions and appetites external of course, it just points to there being different faculties (i.e., the nous is not a sort of Cartesian homunculus, but neither is it indistinct).
The most mindful way to answer the question "Do we come into this world as good or bad?" is that we are neither born good nor bad; we just come into this world as an empty slate, and start shaping our personality by the reactions we give to the acts we face in the outer world.