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The "Sovereign Individual" and the "Ascetic Ideal": On a PerennialMisreading of the Second Essay of Nietzsche's On the Genealogyof Morality

Matthew Rukgaber

The Journal of Nietzsche Studies, Volume 43, Number 2, Autumn 2012,pp. 213-239 (Article)

Published by Penn State University Press

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JOURNAL OF NIETZSCHE STUDIES, Vol. 43, No. 2, 2012.Copyright 2012 The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA.

213

The Sovereign Individual and the Ascetic Ideal

On a Perennial Misreading of the Second Essay of NietzschesOn the Genealogy of Morality

M ATTHEW R UKGABER

A BSTRACT : This article supports Lawrence Hatabs and Christa Davis Acamporasinterpretation that the sovereign individual is not Nietzsches positive ethicalideal. I draw on overlooked evidence from the Nachlass that bears on the notionof sovereignty, in conjunction with offering a close reading of the passages con-cerning this figure within the second and third essays ofOn the Genealogy of Morality. I argue that the second essay is not concerned with the fundamentals ofagency; rather, it is focused on promising as a moral phenomenon. I demonstratehow the ambiguous traits attributed to the sovereign individual are deconstructedone after another, resulting in this figure appearing to be the culmination ofthe history of asceticism and moral responsibility. The sovereign individual isthe modern individual who only stands apart from the herd insofar as the herdinstinct has been perfectly internalized.

Introduction

The sovereign individual (hereafter, the SI) is almost universally held to be part of Nietzsches positive ethical ideal.1 Focus on this isolated descrip-tion at the start of the second essay ofOn the Genealogy of Morality results in

a reconstruction of Nietzschean personhood and ethics based on the capacity tomake and keep promises. For example, the SI has been used to understand usas self-conscious beings capable of standing in autonomous ethical relations toourselves with a fundamental duty to do so and with a duty to act ethically withregard to each other.2 Attempts to reconstruct a Nietzschean ethic based on theSI passage have resulted in uncharacteristically Kantian results, because of thedeontological nature of promising in the SI passage.3 The SI is not Nietzschesideal and embodies key traits that Nietzsche associates with the Enlightenmentand of which he is highly critical.4

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214 M ATTHEW R UKGABER

The fact that this passage results in two conflicting interpretations is noaccident. Nietzsche obscures who and what the SI is, thereby enabling it to appear both as a positive ideal and a target of criticism. This ambiguity is acknowledged

at the close of the essay when he asks, Is an ideal actually being erected hereor is one being demolished? (GM II:24; KSA 5, p. 335).5 The answer is thelatter. The ambiguity of the SI aides in its demolishment by seducing readersinto acceptance before it is systematically undermined.6 Moreover, introducingthe object of the second essays criticism in the opening sections makes moresense than introducing an ethical alternative prior to what it is an alternative toand prior even to showing why an alternative is needed.

Lawrence Hatab and Christa Davis Acampora have been, until recently, thesole critics of the identification of the SI with Nietzsches positive ethical ideal.7

I agree with the Hatab-Acampora position that the SI represents the modernideal of individual rational autonomy that one tends to associate with Kant.8 Yetthat description of the SI is not entirely accurate. The SI represents Nietzschesown critical take on the moral philosophy of the Enlightenment, and it is only theSIs self-deceived self-representation that is the ideal of individual autonomy.The element of irony that accompanies the description of the SI resides in theapparent praise given to an ideal that is impossible because of its opposition toour natural selves. Hatabs and Acamporas position has not been persuasive forseveral reasons. They have not made it clear enough who the SI is, instead merelygesturing at a vague Kantian ideal. They have also failed to identify how the textofGM itself provides a point-by-point deconstruction of each apparently positivetrait of the SI. Instead, they have primarily relied on inconsistencies between theSI passage and other Nietzschean doctrines such asamor fati, freedom, determin-ism, individualism, selfhood, the value of creativity, the bermensch, and eveneternal recurrence.9 But such contentious issues only double the interpretativechallenges rather than provide convincing evidence of how to read the SI. I focuson the SI passage in context and draw on several overlooked passages from the Nachlass to support my reading. To fail to understand that the SI is Nietzschestarget rather than his ethical ideal inevitably results in confusion about the aim,structure, and argument ofGM II as a whole.10

Sovereignty in the Nachlass

Given that theOn the Genealogy of Morality passages are well known, I beginwith passages from the Nachlass that support my interpretation and that haveremained unmentioned in the debate. There are a mere sixty-eight mentions ofthe word sovereign or sovereignty in Nietzsches published and unpublishedworks. The word appears in political and aesthetic contexts consistent withordinary, nontechnical usage. Several uses are clearly positive, most notably in

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T HE S OVEREIGN I NDIVIDUAL AND THE A SCETIC I DEAL 215

the published works. In Human, All too Human, Nietzsche defines his sense ofsovereignty as having the capacity to revere the bad, too, and to embrace it,if it pleases us ( AOM 329). InThe Gay Science, the debtor-creditor relations

discussed inGM II are anticipated when he claims that his sense of sovereigntydemands that one be a debtor rather than pay with a coin that does not bearour image (GS 252). These remarks are notable in that they appear to conflictwith the notion of sovereignty as rigid promise keeping found inGM II bylicensing the breaking of promises.11

Acampora says that the scant references to the notion of sovereignty inthe Nachlass support her reading.12 Mentions of sovereignty in passages onthe fiction of the will and the illusion of being free and sovereign that arisesfrom ignorance of the origins of action certainly do not conflict with it.13 But

Nietzsches published works make similar claims and have not moved those whoregard the SI as an ethical ideal to reinterpret it. One discussion of sovereigntyin the Nachlass from 1887, titled The Three Centuries, strongly supportscriticisms of the SI ( KSA 12:9[178], p. 44043). In it, Nietzsche characterizesthe seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries in terms of different sov-ereignties or dominant sensibilities.

The seventeenth century is essentially Cartesian and is described as aristo-cratic and ruled by reason and the sovereignty of the will.14 Arrogant in its rejec-tion of our animality and the heart, this period and its representative figuresare averse to what is natural. They are sovereign because of their rejection ofthe past and their belief in themselves.15 The age and its embodiment is said to be a beast of prey at heart, an age that touts adhering to many ascetic habitsand practices in order to be sovereign. Although there are strong wills, there arealso strong passions requiring asceticism. The era of the sovereign will is themost antinatural of the centuries and thus the most problematic.

The SI inOn the Genealogy of Morality also shares features of the eighteenthcentury, although the seventeenth centurys antinaturalism and focus on thewill are most like the canonical SI description. The antinatural rationalismof the previous century leads to a sovereignty of the senses and of feeling. Nietzsche identifies this period with Rousseau and calls it mendacious becauseall authority is undermined.16 Nietzsche also identifies Kant with this century.Kantian moral fanaticism and the idea of practical reason are completely ofthe eighteenth century while at the same time being completely outside of thehistorical movement.17 Kant ignores the spirit of his time and is in many waysretrograde in how he tries to bury the conative under the cognitive. But the spiritof Rousseau and the liberal ideals that Nietzsche associates with modernityand decadence do exist within Kants thought (e.g. KSA 12:9[3], p. 34041).In Nietzsches eyes, seventeenth-century rationalism (sovereignty of the will)is transformed by Kant and Rousseau to a zealous moralism rooted in asceti-cism, religious faith, and dogmatism. These two descriptions of the sorts of

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sovereignty characteristic of early and late Enlightenment provide a guidinginterpretive framework for the SI passage fromOn the Genealogy of Morality.

The characterization of the sovereign attitude of the nineteenth century is

significant in that it shares little with the SI fromGM II and is clearly a more posi-tive stage in our development. Even so, what the sovereign of this stage retainsfrom the previous centuries, concepts that are central to the characterization ofsovereignty inOn the Genealogy of Morality, keeps it from being Nietzschesethical ideal. The nineteenth century is identified with an honest but gloomySchopenhauerian sovereignty of animality and the rule of desire.18 This period,unlike the previous eras and the SI fromOn the Genealogy of Morality, lacks thenotion of will in either the rational- or sensible-volitional terms. Rather the notionof will refers to desire.19 The individuals who embody this sovereignty are

animalistic, subterranean, ugly, realistic, vulgar and, therefore, better and morehonest, but also weak willed, pessimistic and fatalistic.20 Progression past thissort of sovereignty is necessary as a determinist conception of the will attendsit and the notion of morality is reduced to the instinct of pity. What is needed isto overcome the notion of will altogetherto deny that it is an efficient causeof action and then to rechristen it so as to indicate something altogether outsidethe traditional debate about the will. The description fromOn the Genealogyof Morality cannot be said to point to such a radical revision of the notion.21

Several passages in the Nachlass mention the phrase the sovereignty ofthe individual (die Souvernitt des Einzelnen) but do not suggest that itis an important philosophical notion.22 An exception is the only other usageof the exact phrase as is found inGM IIDie souvernen Individuen ( KSA 10:24[25], p. 659). Written three years beforeOn the Genealogy of Morality,it concerns the weakness that results in a culture when it adopts the modernideas of fairness, universal suffrage, and leniency toward crime and stupidity.23 The result, in the long run, is to bring victory to the stupid and the thought-less.24 The consequences are an age of wars and revolutions accompanied byan ever-increasing weakening of humanity.25 This weakening results in twosorts of barbarians. Initially the barbarians embody the previous culture, andthe representative figure is Eugen Dhring.26 Nietzsche regards Dhring as amoral fanatic filled with ressentiment and a desire for revengea physiologi-cally failed priest of the weak, sickly herd (GM III:14; KSA 5, p. 370). Thenext stage is said to be the sovereign individuals, but their relationship to theoverall weakening of humanity and to the previous sort of barbarian is not clear.All that is said is that these people have the same barbaric quantity of power asthe previous weakened barbarians but that they now have liberty from all that previously existed, that is, the culture under which they were bound.27

One could try to construe this SI as a positive achievement; however, Nietzschehas bookended the remark, first, by saying that the ultimate result of weakeningis stupidity and thoughtlessness and, second, by identifying the age in which

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they emerge as one of great stupidity, brutality, and misery for themasses andthe highest individuals.28 A natural reading of this passage is that the first barbarians are the ascetic priests whose work consists not just in herd formation

but also in the development of individuals out of ascetic aversion to himself(GM III:18; KSA 5, pp. 38384). This creation of die souvernen Individuenis not antithetical to the herd; rather it is a redirection of ressentiment inwardin an effort to overcome suffering, boredom, and the lack of meaning. The SIis distinguished from the herd, but perhaps only insofar as it no longer needsexternal powers (priests, external law, punishments, the past) to keep it withinthe herd: it has internalized the process.29

Nothing in the notebooks supports a strong positive reading of the SI, yetseveral passages suggest that Nietzsche is critical of it. Hatab and Acampora both

place some weight on the fact that the SI shows up nowhere else, but absence can-not prove Nietzsches intention inOn the Genealogy of Morality.30 Nevertheless,sovereign individuals with sovereign wills do appear in the Nachlass and supportthe rejection of the SI as Nietzsches ethical ideal.

Suppression, Promising, and Hominization

Before the SI is even introduced, a fundamental interpretative mistake is oftenmade that inevitably leads interpreters to evaluate it positively. That mistake isto take Nietzsche to be providing an analysis of the very emergence of human-ity, with its unique form of agency, out of animality. If this were Nietzschestopic, then the culmination of hominization in the SI would be a praiseworthyhuman being who is most fully and completely an agent.31 But the text showssomething different. The SI is the realization of the capacity to be bound by promises, and severalalready human capacities provide the groundwork forthis specialized agency.

The second essay begins with an analysis of forgetfulness, which allowsthe nobler functions of humans to emergethe ordering of experience andthought, the clearing of consciousness, the making of judgments and evaluations,and the abilities of ruling, foreseeing, [and] predetermining (GM II:1; KSA 5, p. 291). Theseuniquely human capacities are preconditions for promising andare a function of active forgetfulness rather than of the process called memoryof the will (GM II:1; KSA 5, p. 291). This positive faculty of suppressionis said to keep things from entering into consciousness and, therefore, mustitself be largely unconscious (GM II:1; KSA 5, p. 291). Yet Nietzsche does nothesitate to describe it in intentional and agential terms as the act of closingthe doors and windows of consciousness (GM II:1; KSA 5, p. 291). Whetherentirely unconscious or having some degree of consciousness, active suppres-sion is crucial to self-conscious activities of all sorts, including the digestion

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or processing of and learning from experience, hope for the future, pride in the present or the past, and even having a reflective present in time (GM II:1; KSA 5, pp. 291, 291292).32 Active suppression is a discerning perception that blocks

access to consciousness, presumably with the aim of serving our natural valuesor general health. But this form of strong health and its consequences are not Nietzsches main concern (GM II:1; KSA 5, p. 292). His focus is the oppositefaculty, a form of memory that actively disconnects forgetfulness in caseswhere a promise is to be made (GM II:1; KSA 5, p. 292).

This contrasting faculty is not memory in general, anymore than activesuppression is mere passive, physiological forgetting.33 Mere memory is apassive no-longer-being-able-to-get-rid-of the impression once it has beeninscribed or a sort of physiological indigestion (GM II:1; KSA 5, p. 292).

Active no-longer-wanting-to-get-rid-of is a continual rewilling of what oneonce willed (GM II:1; KSA 5, p. 292). This faculty blocks the active discernmentof what enters into consciousness and leaves one unable to make space for newthings, even those that are in ones best and natural interests (GM II:1; KSA 5, p. 291). No matter how much one wants and needs to suppress something, thereis now a counterintentionality that will not allow it. Rather than a mere intel-lectual memory, like remembering a rule, the opposing faculty is a memory ofthe will or a semiautonomousdesire (GM II:1; KSA 5, p. 292). Unlike otherdesires that can naturally run their course or that we can forget as they becomeirrelevant, the memory of the will is a desire that obligates one to attend to iteven against other significant forces in the will. This recalcitrant desire allowsone without reservation to populate the will with other acts, intentions, anddesire (GM II:1; KSA 5, p. 292). Otherwise one could only complicate oneselfreservedly, if one did not want to risk loss of some desires to newer ones.Although Hatab recognizes that forgetting might be part of the solution to the problem of ressentiment, he does not analyze the notion of memory of the willenough to recognize the rudiments of ressentiment within it.34 A desire in thewill that derails the natural, healthy discernment of what should and should notenter into conscious concern is a necessary component of ressentiment.

Rather than addressing the birth of human agency out of mere animality, Nietzsche addresses a force in the will that binds it in a way that it cannot escape,even when doing so is in the persons best interest. This can be called com-mand over the future because that to which one binds oneself against oneselfcontinues to reiterate itself within ones will (GM II:1; KSA 5, p. 292). A memorythat creates a force that can block some vital function of the will seems to me to be the paradoxical task nature has set for itself in creating promising animals(GM II:1; KSA 5, p. 291). A promising animal is not paradoxical unless onerecognizes promising to be essentially antinatural in this way. This self-bindingis not so primitive that it constitutes the emergence of humanity itself. The expertuse, in regards to oneself and the world, of the concepts of necessity, contingency,

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causality, temporality, means, and ends is required in order to be able to vouchfor oneself as future, as one who promises does (GM II:1; KSA 5, p. 292).Promising requires the precondition that we are regular and necessary and that

we have an image of ourselves as such (GM II:1; KSA 5, p. 292).Many scholars regard this opening section as concerning the birth of agency

itself. For example, Richard Schacht takes the memory of the will to be theformation of humans with personal identity. Nietzsche is said to offer an anthro- pological study of how we graduate from beings whose existence is little morethan a succession of episodes in which one responds in an immediate way to beings with a consciousness that transcends the immediacy of absorption inthese circumstances in the moment.35 Owen argues similarly, contending thatwhat is under discussion is the question of the conditions under which doings

(events) are deeds (actions), in particular how we become ethical agents,that is, agents who act in accord with a conception of ourselves.36 Schachtdescribes Nietzsches concern to be how we come to think for ourselves, ratherthan merely acting and reacting as one is moved in the moment to do, but thattransformation is not what comes about by producing in us the memory of thewill by which we are able to make a promise and shut down the natural andhealthy irregularity enabled by forgetting.37 The memory of the will is thecapacity to promise and enter into contractual relations; it is not our evolution beyond being mere creatures of the moment.38

Nietzsche does not provide an explicit analysis of promising, yet an obviousfeature of a promise is that it is binding on the will. A promise is not just a vol-untary norm, rule, or conception of ones self, insofar as these do not create adesire that can then resist active attempts to purge it.39 Oneought to keep ones promises and cannot ignore them at will. Promising is not simply future-directedagency.40 Echoing Rousseau, promising is contract making. If suppression issomething like valve control over what floods consciousness, then promisingcreates sticky valves that allow consciousness to continue to be flooded evenif it would be better for them to be closed. A promise is elective, but it thenreduces ones power of election: if it does not, it is not a real promise.41 Onemay want to forget a promise, evenneed to forget, but it inhabits the will andcannot be eliminated.42 A broken promise brings remorse, regret, and guiltthehallmarks of bad conscience.

Nietzsche says that the precise moment at which promising occurs, when the preconditions finally give rise to it, is during contract relationships betweencreditors and debtors (GM II:5; KSA 5, p. 298). Nietzsches genealogical inves-tigation into moral obligation begins with the economic contracts made betweencreditor and debtor, and he calls these the very source of guilt and of personalobligation (GM II:8; KSA 5, p. 305). Promising or contracting is the source of allmoral phenomena for Nietzsche, and the memory of the will is the capacity toenter intomoral relationships, relations that bring feelings of obligation (duty)

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and personal responsibility (guilt) (GM II:6; KSA 5, p. 300). The memory ofthe will creates desires that spring not from our own nature but from the needsof others and the community. What is created is a wanting that suppresses the

power to suppress ones promises, a desire to keep ones promises (duty) andto avoid breaking them (guilt).

The History of Responsibility and the SI as Its Ideal

GM II:2 describes the history of promising as the story of the origins ofresponsibility. The SI is the culmination of that history, the most responsible being. Although Nietzsche does want to eventually salvage the notion of respon-

sibility to self, there is no reason to think that he has in mind anything but thenotion ofmoral responsibility at this point in the text. Becoming calculable,rather than promising and responsibility, is identified with human historysmeaning, its great justification (GM II:2; KSA 5, p. 293). Human prehis-tory can be seen as a condition and preparation for firstmaking humanityto a certain degree necessary, uniform, like among like, regular, and accord-ingly predictable via the morality of custom and the social straightjacket(GM II:2; KSA 5, p. 293). The notion of being personally responsible is not yeton the table and only arrives through the emergence of voluntary contractualrelations and promises. For the longest period of human history, social relationsand punishments were independent of any concern for personal responsibility(GM II:4; KSA 5, p. 298).

The question is inevitably raised whether [the SI] is a creature alreadyachieved or one yet to come.43 The SI is already achieved, insofar as the figureembodies the sovereignties of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries discussedin the Nachlass.44 Yet the SI is something of an idealization, portrayed as hav-ing acomplete sovereignty of will. Nietzsche says that such a piece of perfec-tionthose who keep their promises even under the assault of personal injury,derision, accusationis something one would be prudent not to expect here, inwhich one in any case should not all too easilybelieve precisely because eventhe most righteous have passions and desires that can emerge and motivate breaking a promise (GM II:11; KSA 5, p. 311). To say that the SI is an idealof the Enlightenment might provoke the objection that the SI does not appearto appeal to reason and the categorical imperative. But Nietzsche thinks of theKantian as a passionate moral dogmatist that simply appeals to absolute dutiesand an antinatural conception of the will. The SI ultimately suffers from thestupidity and inability to weigh the relevant concerns of the situation for which Nietzsche criticizes Kantian practical reason ( A 12).

Christopher Janaway recognizes that the consequence of identifyingthe SI with the Kantian ideal is that the SI has never existed, but he finds it

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difficult to read the passage in this way.45 Janaways difficulty stems from thenon sequitur that if the sort of freedom that the SI represents is an ideal that hasand will never be, then we must at least be in doubt whether there has ever

been any prerogative to promise, responsibility, or conscience.46 There is noreason to think that the impossibility of the SI invalidates these notions entirely.The SI is a figure who promises perfectly, who will not break her promise nomatter what, even if the world should perish.47 To criticize such an ideal with itsradically sovereign will does not mean that there might not be some alternativenatural foundation on which to ground humanly possible senses of responsibil-ity, promising, and conscience.

When Nietzsche depicts his own ideal inOn the Genealogy of Morality, it iswith hesitation: an end still by no means in sight, a great promise that may be

possible someday (GM II:16; KSA 5, p. 323). The SI is introduced as something plainly in sight: Placing ourselves at the end of the enormous process [. . .] wefind the sovereign individual (GM II:2; KSA 5, p. 293 translation modified).48 At the end ofGM II, Nietzsche proclaims that redemption from the curse thatthe previous ideal placed upon reality is possible (GM II:24; KSA 5, p. 336).Yet the only other ideal in the second essay is the SI, the formation of which,as Nietzsche makes clear, can be summarized as the entirety of asceticism(GM II:3; KSA 5, p. 295).

The final section ofOn the Genealogy of Morality gives a summary of moralhistory. Humanity was faced with suffering and could find no meaning: therewas a need to justify, to explain, to affirm itself (GM III:28; KSA 5, p. 411).The ascetic ideal was the solution and, so far, has been the only meaning(GM III:28; KSA 5, p. 411). The reigning ascetic ideal provided a justification oflife: armed with it, humanity couldwill somethingno matter for the momentin what direction, to what end, with what [it] willed:the will itself was saved (GM III:28; KSA 5, p. 412). The conception of the will that results expresseshatred of the human, still more of the animal, still more of the material byturning away from all appearance, change, [and] becoming [. . .] (GM III:28; KSA 5, p. 412). The ascetic ideal is themere willing of willing, willing for itsown sake emptied of all natural values, willing nothingness and rebellingagainst the most fundamental presuppositions of life in order to overcomedepression and listlessness through self-anesthetizing flurries of feeling(GM III:28; KSA 5, p. 412).

Nietzsche provides an organic metaphor of the SI as the fruit produced bythe tree of the history of responsibility (GM II:2; KSA 5, p. 293). On the onehand, the analogy between the production of the SI and the production of fruit by a tree suggests that the SI is a lawful outcome of the social straightjacket thatcreates moral responsibility. Interpreting the SI as Nietzsches inversion of thehistory of moral responsibility and its reigning ascetic ideal is not supported.On the other hand, the idea that history even progresses in such a lawful way,

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like the natural process of fruiting, is something that Nietzsche deconstructsin GM II:12, arguing that within historical development and the struggle for power there is a continual reinterpreting, transforming, obscuring, conquering,

and elimination of previous meanings and purposes (GM II:12; KSA 5, p. 314).The history of responsibility, he ultimately says, is not the story of a gradualorganic growth but of a break, a leap, a compulsion (GM II:17; KSA 5, p. 324). Therefore, the metaphor is unrepresentative of Nietzsches long viewof history.

The metaphor is apt if we read everything on the tree to be the social straightjacket, which was prepared and in the process of growing towards the certainend of the SI (GM II:3; KSA 5, p. 295). But surely we cannot interpret the tree to be our becoming human, which is not Nietzsches topic. Besides this ambiguity,

the organic metaphor is misleading because an inversion of some sortmusthave occurred if theherd mentality producedindividuals rather than justmoreof the herd . Nietzsches great insight into the promising animal inGM II and theascetic animals inGM III is how it is that the herd persists and even thrives throughconstruction of the modern individual. The break in history whereby the socialstraightjacket creates individuals is therefore in plain sight, spoiling the metaphoreven as it is being stated. That break is the creation of the ability to be ones owntorturer (through guilt or bad conscience), which individualizes while weakeningand which internalizes what was external coercion. There is little reason to think,given the omnipresence of the ascetic ideal in history, that the creation of the willwithin the SI is what redeems and finally helps us step beyond our ascetic history. Nothing said about the SI gives us reason to think that this is the opposing willin which anopposing ideal [to asceticism] expresses itself (GM III:23; KSA 5, p. 395).

The SI and the Morality of Custom

Before introducing the SI, a question of translation is in order. Sittlichkeit,sittlich, and bersittlich should not be translated as morality, moral, andsupramoral. Nietzsche uses the words Moral or Moralitt when referringto morality. There are fewer than three hundred uses of Sittlichkeit and allits derivates in the entirety of Nietzsches published and unpublished writings,whereas there are almost a thousand uses of the word Moral alone, three hun-dred of Moralitt, and innumerable instances of derived words. Sittlichkeitrefers specifically to social ethics or the customary norms (Sitte) of a society.This is the sense in which the term is used in Daybreak (see D 18). Nietzschewas surely aware that Sittlichkeit indicates the initial development of socialmores, the first stage in Hegels objective spirit. Morality, in the Kantian sense,does not emerge until the final state of objective spirit in Hegelian philosophy.

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to power (GM II:18). Again, nothing in the SI passage suggests that this it is Nietzsches alternative conception of will.

In both descriptions of the SI mentioned so far, the phrase being allowed or

permitted (drfen) to promise is used. Poor translations have rendered thismore positive sounding (having the right to promise) than it is.54 The phrase of being permitted to X itself is not especially significant: it peppers Nietzsches published and unpublished works in a way indicative of ordinary German usage.However, the phrase appears, relative to the rest of his writings, with unusualdensity inGM II. If the SI isallowed to promise or is granted permission, thenthe question arises, who permits? The natural answer is that permission derivesfrom the SIs actual ability to live up to the standard of keeping ones promise,although that raises the question of why a far more ordinary construction indi-

cating ability (knnen, to be able) is not used.One possibility is that the permission to make promises and contracts comes

from the herd once one sufficiently acquires bad conscience or the pang ofconscience (GM II:14; KSA 5, p. 318). The language of permission appearswhen discussing the economics of debt that permits one to vent power on the powerless and to hold a being in contempt and maltreat it (GM II:5; KSA 5, p. 300). The same sort of permission appears again, making it clear that it isthe community that permits (GM II:10). However, there is simply too littleevidence in the description of the SI to claim that the permission granted the SIcomes from the community and that the SIs supposed independence from thatcommunity is, thereby, undermined.

It is clear from the history of contractual relations that Nietzsche offers inthe rest ofGM II that he believes that our promises continue to be haunted bythe coercion of the past. He says that whenever we are serious, the terriblecruelties of the past well up within us, echoing the ancient I will nots inconnection with which one has given ones promise in order to live within theadvantages of society (GM II:3; KSA 5, pp. 29597). Besides casting doubton the SIs liberation from the past, the physiology and origin of promising isimportant given the description of the SI. We find in him a proud consciousness,twitching in all his muscles, ofwhat has finally been achieved and become fleshin him, a true consciousness of power and freedom, a feeling of the completionof man himself (GM II:2; KSA 5, p. 293).55 It is difficult to ignore the idea of promises cut into the flesh of tamed humanity in this description. The doublemention of consciousness, a crucial Enlightenment concept, implores us to con-sider Nietzsches views of this notion. In the very next section of the essay, hescornfully calls reflective consciousness gloomy and a showpiece of man(GM II:3; KSA 5, p. 297). When discussing bad conscience, Nietzsche identifiesits source as the reduction of strong drives in human being and the eventualcondemnation and punishment of those drives, leaving humanity to thinking,inferring, calculating, connecting cause and effect, [. . .] to their consciousness,

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to their poorest and most erring organ (GM II:16; KSA 5, p. 322). This descrip-tion of the SI is also very antinatural, given that it is consciousness in everymuscle instead of the multifarious drives and instincts that Nietzsche believes

make us up.56 The veracity of the SIs consciousness of power and freedom isquestionable simply because one surely has no conscious awareness of whetherone is free or not. It is even less likely that one can have a veracious feeling of being the completion of humanity.57

As for the pride being taken in such consciousness, one can hardly over-look a passage that prefigures this discussion. In that passage from Daybreak ,reason and the feeling of freedom that are our pride are undermined bythe description of its historical development, essentially the same story givenin On the Genealogy of Morality ( D 18; KSA 3, p. 31). Nietzsche explicitly

mentions two different ideals. The first is the most ethical person [sittlichstenMenschen] of the community who possesses the virtue of the most frequentsuffering, of privation, of the hard life, of cruel chastisement for its own sakeor for the sake of being moral ( D 18; KSA 3, p. 30; translation modified). Thisindividual is the figure of self-chosen torture who appears as an individual,responsible, and moral agent but one whose actions have been directed towardthe good of the community and toward promotion of belief in themselves( D 18; KSA 3, p. 31). The other ideal has some of these traits, but they are inservice of discipline, of self-control, of satisfying the desire for individualhappiness ( D 18; KSA 3, pp. 3031).

These two ideals can become easily confused, as they share some features.But the former simply aims at being moral: the reason for the ethical personsself-torture is the good of the herd. By contrast, the figure that pursues her desireactually aims at self-perfection and has positive, life-affirming values. The twoideals, the ascetic individual whose actions support the herd and the selfishindividual whose actions aim at satisfying her desires, mirror precisely the battle between ideals inGM II. YetOn the Genealogy of Morality hardly says anythingabout the positive alternative ideal and is focused instead on undermining theascetic ideal. Both ideals feature discipline, self-control, will, and responsibil-ity: identifying such traits in the SI does not identify which ideal it is. It is only by looking at thecontent of the will that we can determine whether it is or isnt part of the ascetic ideal.

The SIs Standard of Value and Relations to Others

The relationship between the SI and the rest of the world is introduced first in

terms of the SIs superiority and then in terms of the affects of others that are provoked. Nietzsche asks, How should he not know what superiority he thushas over all else that is not permitted to promise and vouch for itself, how much

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trust, how much fear, how much reverence he awakenshe earns all three[. . .] (GM II:2; KSA 5, pp. 29394). Nietzsche asks how the SI is supposednot to know of its superiority, presumably over the rest of nature and not just

over persons who are not permitted to promise. But even if this superiority isover just the less adept promise keepers, what is important is the standard bywhich the SI is said to be superior over others. It has nothing to do with any ofthe innumerable traits and capacities that Nietzsche regularly praises butwiththe ability to promise. If the SI is the perfect internalization of social ethics(Sittlichkeit), such that he now is a self-regulating and self-punishingmoral agent, then he is indeed superior to similarly weakened but less active beingswho simply follow the herd.

The three affectstrust, fear, and reverencelead one to ask who it is that has

these affective responses to the SI. The affects are awakened within those whoare inferior promise keepers. The less able promiser can trust the SI to keep her promise, has fear of the SIs response to a broken contract, and can easily suc-cumb to the SIs merely apparent godlike transcendence of human inconsistency.So there is a legitimate sense in which the SI does awaken these affects in theinferior promisers, the mere herd members who still simply follow the ethics ofcustom and who have not ascended to full-blown morality and become a self-regulating member, even leader, of the herd. I believe that Nietzsches stressand use of scare quotes in stating that the SI earns these affective responsessuggests doubt about the SIs responsibility for who and what she is. However,such subtleties might strike one as convoluted and are not necessary for bringingthe SIs responsibility for these affects into question. The history of the SIsemergence brings it into question already. I do find it troublesome, however,that Nietzsches scare quotes in the SI passage are regularly ignored, as if herandomly peppers his text with them without reason.

The next passage is, in my opinion, the most problematic for anyone whoclaims that the SI is Nietzsches positive ethical ideal:

The free human being, the possessor of a long, unbreakable will, has in this possession his standard of value: looking from himself towards the others, hehonors or holds in contempt; and just as necessarily as he honors the ones like him,the strong and reliable (those whoare permitted to promise),that is, everyonewho promises like a sovereign, weightily, seldom, slowly, who is stingy with histrust, whoconveys a mark of distinction when he trusts, who gives his word assomething on which one can rely [. . .]. (GM II:2; KSA 5, p. 294)58

The SI is said to havewithin the possession of this long unbreakable will astandard of valuenamely of having such a will (GM II:2; KSA 5, p. 294). Itis wrong to think that what is being said here is that the SI has some positive

valuesfor example, those surrounding the notion of life as will to power.59

Whatis being said is that the SIs ultimate standard of value is simply the havingof this will. To say that a will that cannot be broken and that keeps a promise

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regardless of the consequences and changes in circumstances is the ultimatestandard of value by which persons are judged not only has no precedence in Nietzsches thought but stands quite opposed to his fundamental value system.

The SIs value system is clearly Kantian, in which the unconditional value ofthe good will grounds all else. Nietzsche criticizes the formalism of such anethics, its progression to an evermore impersonal appraisal of deeds leadingto the notion of things being in themselves bad or good, which is devoid ofall sense (GM II:11; KSA 5, p. 312).60 This is precisely the problem with Kantsdefense of promise keeping. Kant argues that one cannot make a false promiseto someone however great the disadvantage to him or to another that mayresult from it because, although I may do no wrong to any particular person,I do wrong to humanity generally by bringing it about, as far as I can, that

statements [. . .] in general are not believed, and so too that all rights which are based on contracts come to nothing and lose their force.61

The SIs standard of value undermines the trait of resembling only himself,unless we read that only to mean divorced from tradition. The SI is nowseen to be a part of a group of like-minded, reliable persons. The SIs seldom,slow, and stingy trust and promise making with similar persons may seem likea natural trait to have, given the seriousness of the SIs promising. Little elsecould be said about this trait, if it did not reappear later inGM II. The actualeffect of punishment is said to be a sharpening of prudence, in a lengtheningof memory, in a will hereafter to proceed more cautiously, more mistrustfully,more secretively, in the insight that one is once and for all too weak for manythings, in a kind of improvement in self-assessment. Generally what can beachieved among humans and animals through punishment is an increase infear, a sharpening of prudence, mastery of the appetites: punishmenttames man, but it does not make him better (GM II:15; KSA 5, p. 321). Given thesimilarities between this description and the SI, I find it hard not to see the SIas a fearful, tame, and narrowly prudent soul who is too weak to live up to theidea of Nietzschean sovereignty and responsibility in which one risks pursuitof a complex and even contradictory field of desires.

The earlier affect of fear is now explained in more detail. Just as necessarilyhe will hold his kick in readiness for the frail dogs who promise although theyare not permitted to do so, and his switch for the liar who breaks his word alreadythe moment it leaves his mouth (GM II:2; KSA 5, p. 294). This cruelty is clearlyin line with the history of cruelty that creates modern morality, indicating thatthe fruit has not fallen far from the tree. The sort of radical revaluation that isassociated with Nietzsches positive ethical ideal is not on display here. Instead,we find a continued cruelty directed at imperfect promisers, perhaps even thosewho are mischievous in their promising.62 Although cruelty is not bad in itself,this is not cruelty aimed at reattaching a good and valuing conscience to thenatural inclinations.

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The SI as Master of Nature and Fate

Of the SI, it is also asked how should he not be aware of how this mastery over

himself also necessarily brings with it mastery over circumstances, over nature,and all lesser-willed and more unreliable creatures (GM II:2; KSA 5, p. 293).If one wanted to praise the SI, one could argue that the SIs resoluteness makesexternal circumstances irrelevant. Of course, ignoring changing circumstancesthat might necessitate the breaking of a promise seems to indicate the most rabiddeontologist. The rhetorical question becomes more difficult to take seriouslywhen the SI is said to be master over nature and all unreliable persons.63 AsHatab and Acampora have pointed out, Nietzsches ideal is preciselynot that ofa being who has mastery over all of nature and fate, in the sense of being able

to completely shut it out of his will. Nietzsches ethical ideal is described as a being who refuses to stand apart or beyond nature and instead submersesand buries himself within nature to ultimately redeem its value (GM II:24; KSA 5, p. 336).

The same idea appears again and sounds just as impossible and anti- Nietzschean: the free human being, the possessor of a long, unbreakablewill, [. . .] he knows himself to be strong enough to uphold [his promises] evenagainst accidents, even against fate (GM II:2; KSA 5, p. 294). The idea ofan unbreakable will so committed to its promise, to the fundamental valueof promise keeping, speaks to a will that will stand by its obligation even atthe expense of life.64 Although the SI is said to have strength, something that Nietzsche values, strength here is synonymous with the unbreakable will thatis upheld in the face of all accidents that might occur and even againstfatethat is, against all intrusions of reality and life (GM II:2; KSA 5, p. 294).65 The scare quotes suggest that Nietzsche is skeptical that this iseven possible, given that Nietzsche goes on say that our animal instinctsare inescapable (GM II:22; KSA 5, p. 332). But this is nevertheless howthe radical, antinatural freedom of the SI is conceived. So obviously opposedto Nietzsches positive ethical ideal, the SI passage causes more interpretive problems than it solves.66

One might argue that it is hard to envision the SI as Kantian given thefailure to mention reason as the ground that permits true promising. But inGM II:3, Nietzsche argues that through the social straightjacket and its vio-lent punishments one retains in the memory of the will a few I will notsor promises that then make the bedrock of reasonalthough Nietzsche places scare quotes around reason to cast doubt on whether this is really being rational (GM II:3; KSA 5, p. 297). The move from engrained, almostmechanical promises to reason and mastery over the affects seems to be the leap from the social straightjacket to the SI who is apparentlymaster of all of nature.

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The SI and Conscience

The final lines of the SI passage summarize several of the previous claims:

[T]he proud knowledge of the extraordinary privilege ofresponsibility, theconsciousness of this rare freedom, this power over oneself and fate, has sunkinto his lowest depth and has become instinct, the dominant instinct:whatwill he call it, this dominant instinct, assuming that he feels the need to havea word for it? But there is no doubt: this sovereign human being calls it hisconscience . . . (GM II:2; KSA 5, p. 294). What has not been mentioned is theidea that now, at the lowest depth of the person, responsibility has becomethe dominant instinct. These claims are remarkable in that they are so completely opposed to Nietzsches philosophy that it is mind-boggling that they

have been considered to be a characterization of his ethical ideal.67 The ideathat there isnothing more fundamental or deeper in the person than sense ofresponsibility and of ones freedom over all other aspects of ones person (andeven fate) is at odds with Nietzsches most basic conception of our being. Thisidea, of conscience as the dominant instinct, sovereign and tyrant, is regardedin the Nachlass as a fundamental distortion and weakening of humanity ( KSA 10:3[1].176, p. 74). To say that conscience is the dominant instinct is to saythat all other instincts must seek permission from conscience before beingallowed to manifest.

Although Nietzsche may want to modify the notion of conscience, adoptinga good conscience that affirms life and natural values, it would be rather oddto mention such a fundamental inversion of the phenomenon of conscience before even stating what conscience is and why such an inversion is needed.Conscience coemerges with contract law and carries with it the ideas of guilt,[. . .] duty, [and] sacredness of duty (GM II:6; KSA 5, p. 300). The SI issaid to be the highest, almost disconcerting form of conscience, which doesnot suggest an inversion of its origins (GM II:3; KSA 5, p. 294). The previouslymentioned traits of having pride and being permitted to vouch for himself arenow identified with being permitted to say yes to oneself too (GM II:3; KSA 5, p. 294). Presumably conscience, whether good or bad, is the ability to lookat oneself and ones actions and say yes or no to them, either intellectuallyor at an affective level. Although the SIs saying yes to himself may seemlike Nietzsches affirmative, antipessimistic response to life, I do not believethat this is so. What must be asked is exactly to what one is saying yes and, in particular, how is one identifyingthe self . What is so devious about the asceticformation of the modern individual is that an attitude antithetical to life, andtherefore to the individual, masquerades as an affirmative one. This can be seenin the way that bad conscience or consciousness of guilt is able to take allthe no that one says to oneself, to nature, naturalness, the facticity of ones being and casts it out of oneself as a yes as existing, as corporeal, real, as God,

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as holiness of God, as judgeship of God, as executionership of God, as beyond,as eternity, as torture without end, as hell, as immeasurability of punishmentand guilt (GM II:22; KSA 5, p. 332). So the final direct reference to the SI in

GM II:3 is another ambiguous description that is undermined by the history ofconscience that Nietzsche soon provides.

In conclusion, the ability of the SI passage to sustain two completelycontradictory interpretations cannot be denied. Either this ambiguity is unin-tentional and Nietzsche is a failure as a writer or else it is intentional and thereading provided here is the correct one. Nietzsche would have no other reasonto intentionally construct such an ambiguous passage if it were not to entice uswith an ideal that is then exposed as fraudulent. I can find no reason to supportthe SI as a representative of Nietzsches ethical ideal, except that on the surface

it appears positive. But that is hardly a sufficient reason when faced with thedifficulties within the textespecially, the SIs general antinaturalism and stan-dard of valueand its subsequent deconstruction withinGM . Passages fromthe Nachlass indicating that the sovereign will is a relic of the Enlightenment, Nietzsches own conception of the will, responsibility, and his own redeemingnatural ideal, and his criticisms of notions central to the SIthese all seem likeinescapable evidence for not only the ambiguity of the passage but also for itsinterpretation as part of the ascetic ideal that has dominated human history upuntil this time.

Eastern Connecticut State [email protected]

N OTES1. In his translation ofOn the Genealogy of Morals, Kaufmann, in a footnote, identifies

the SI with Nietzsches ideal and with the opposite of an inner-directed Kantian ideal, but theSIs focus on promise keeping seems to be inner-directed (i.e., focused on the intention ofthe promiser) in precisely the way Kaufmann characterizes Kants ethics (On the Genealogy of Morals [New York: Random House, 1967], 59).

2. David Owen, Equality, Democracy, and Self-Respect: Reflections on Nietzsches AgonalPerfectionism, Journal of Nietzsche Studies 24 (2002): 11516.

3. For example, Richard Whites book on the problem of sovereignty in Nietzsche is plagued by Kantianism because of the SI-passage. White claims that the SI contains all the connotationsof self-mastery and self-legislation that one would typically associate with the ordinary ideal ofautonomy ( Nietzsche and the Problem of Sovereignty [Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1997],7). Sensing the implausibility of such a reading, White backpedals and states that Nietzsche hardlyaccepts an ordinary notion of autonomy.

4. Although Kant is a leading figure of the Enlightenment, the SI represents several errorsof Enlightenment thought and is not intended as a charitable representation of Kant or any otherspecific thinker. In an earlier version of this article I simply identified the SI with a Kantian ideal,whereas I should have said that the SI is Nietzsches critique of Kant and Rousseau as moraldogmatists masquerading under the banners of reason and feeling. Thanks to an anonymousreviewer for motivating me to clarify this.

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5. I use the Maudemarie Clark and Alan J. Swensen translation ofOn the Genealogy of Morality (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 1998), although Carol Diethes translation (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 1997) is in some ways superior. KSA citations are given for Nietzsches unpublished writings and for longer passages in the published works. The othertranslations I use are by Walter Kaufmann The Antichrist , in The Portable Nietzsche (New York:Penguin Books, 1954), Ecce Homo (New York: Random House, 1967), andThe Gay Science (New York: Random House, 1974)and by R. J. Hollingdale Daybreak (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1982) and Human, All too Human (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,1996).

6. I am grateful for an anonymous reviewer pointing out to me Nietzsches own descriptionof how On the Genealogy of Morality functions in Ecce Homo: Every time [in each essay, thereis] a beginning that is calculated to mislead and that is even ironic and deliberately in theforeground, before it undergoes gradual unrest ( EH BooksGM ; KSA 6, p. 352).

7. Brian Leiter has recently offered some support for the Hatab-Acampora position, stating

that it seems to me a mistake, however, to read this passage as articulating a kind of ideal ofagency or selfhood; in context, I think it is far more plausible to understand the passage as beingwholly ironic and mocking (review of Beyond Selflessness, by Christopher Janaway, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, June 3, 2008, http://ndpr.nd.edu/news/23543-beyond-selflessness-reading-nietzsche-s-genealogy). Paul Loeb has also voiced a qualif ied support; however, he arguesthat the SI is not responsible and autonomousenough (Finding thebermensch in NietzschesGenealogy of Morality, Journal of Nietzsche Studies 30 (2005): 7879;The Death of NietzschesZarathustra [New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010], 225n). Loeb makes several points thatsupport my reading, including, for example, that the SI is described in terms of an ideal criticizedin Thus Spoke Zarathustra and that the SIs supposed power is illusory (Finding thebermensch in NietzschesGenealogy of Morality, 81). Although Loeb is correct that the Nietzschean ideal

SI does have some sort of responsibility and autonomy, he is mistaken to characterize this as acontinuous quantitative increase of the same sort of responsibility and autonomy that founds theSI. The radical nature of Loebs reconstruction of Nietzsches ideal suggests that a qualitativelydifferent sort of responsibility is needed (The Death of Nietzsches Zarathustra, 219).

8. Lawrence Hatab, Nietzsches On the Genealogy of Morality: An Introduction (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 2008), 76, 80.

9. Hatab, Nietzsches On the Genealogy of Morality, 7782; Lawrence Hatab, A Nietzschean Defense of Democracy: An Experiment in Postmodern Politics (Chicago: Open Court Press, 1995),38; Christa Davis Acampora, On Sovereignty and Overhumanity: Why It Matters How We Read NietzschesGenealogy II:2, in Nietzsches On the Genealogy of Morals: Critical Essays, ed.Christa Davis Acampora, 14761 (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield), 152.

10. For example, Schacht claims that the whole burden ofGM II is to contrast theconscience and special sense of responsibility of such an individual [the SI] both with thementality of those who are merely sittlich [following social norms] and with the bad conscienceof others in whom a different sort of psychology has been cultivated (Nietzschean Normativity,in Nietzsches Postmoralism, ed. Richard Schacht [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,2001], 178). I hold that the SI does move beyond the mere following of social norms to the stageof morality. But morality and its bad conscience consist merely of social norms abstracted fromtheir origins.

11. Although the defender of the SI passage inOn the Genealogy of Morality might counterthis passage fromThe Gay Science by observing that the SI never promises in a way that does notfully represent itself, that is, it never becomes a debtor because its debts and promises are alwaysmade on its own terms.

12. Acampora, On Sovereignty and Overhumanity, 153.

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13. Der Wille als Erdichtung. [. . .] man glaubt, da er frei und souvern ist, weil seinUrsprung uns verborgen bleibt und weil der Affekt des Befehlenden ihn begleitet ( KSA 11:27[24], p. 282). Interestingly, this aphorism also suggests that the affect of sovereignty is thefalse unification of different affects into the will ( KSA 11:27[24], p. 282). This passage also countsagainst those who would argue that expert, unreflective, and virtuoso action is a feature of the SIand constitutes a veracious affect regarding our freedom.

14. A r i s t o k r a t i s m Descartes, Herrschaft der V e r n u n f t, Zeugni von der Souverainettdes W i l l e n s ( KSA 12:9[178], p. 440).

15. Das 17. Jahrhundert ist a r i s t o k r a t i s c h, ordnend, hochmthig gegen das Animalische,streng gegen das Herz, ungemthlich, sogar ohne Gemth, undeutsch, dem Burlesken unddem Natrlichen abhold, generalisirend und souverain gegen Vergangenheit: denn es glaubt ansich. Viel Raubthier au fond, viel asketische Gewhnung, um Herr zu bleiben. Daswillens s t a r k eJahrhundert; auch das der starken Leidenschaft ( KSA 12:9[178], p. 44041).

16. F e m i n i s m Rousseau, Herrschaft des G e f h l s, Zeugni von der Souverainett der

Sinne (verlogen) ( KSA 12:9[178], p. 440).17. Kant, mit seiner praktischen Vernunft, mit seinem M o r a l - F a n a t i s m ist ganz18. Jahrhundert; noch vllig auerhalb der historischen Bewegung; ohne jeden Blick fr dieWirklichkeit seiner Zeit z.B. Revolution [. . .] ( KSA 12:9[178], p. 442).

18. A n i m a l i s m Schopenhauer, Herrschaft der B e g i e r d e, Zeugni von der Souverainettder Animalitt (redlicher, aber dster) ( KSA 12:9[178], p. 440).

19. Schopenhauer sagte Wille; aber nichts ist charakteristischer fr seine Philosophie, alsda der Wille in ihr fehlt, die absolute Verleugnung des eigentlichen W o l l e n s ( KSA 12:9[178], p. 441).

20. Das 19. Jahrhundert ist a n i m a l i s c h e r, unterirdischer, h l i c h e r, realistischer, pbelhafter, und ebendeshalb besser ehrlicher, vor der Wirklichkeit jeder Art unterwrfiger,

w a h r e r, es ist kein Zweifel: n a t r l i c h e r; aber willensschwach, aber traurig und dunkel- begehrlich, aber fatalistisch ( KSA 12:9[178], p. 441).21. [. . .] die Leugnung des Willens als wirkende Ursache; endlicheine wirkliche

Umtaufung: man sieht so wenig Wille, da das Wort f r e i wird, um etwas Anderes zu bezeichnen( KSA 12:9[178], p. 442).

22. One passage that is relevant is a summary of the argument ofGM II. It begins by claimingthat the psychological error from which the dichotomy moral/immoral (selfless/selfish) emergesis dogmatism about the ego. Nietzsche then describes how the distinction between I and non-Ileads to a sort of dialectic in which value is located in one or the other. Sovereignty is tentativelymentioned as an opposing force to the herd instinct. Yet Nietzsche goes on to argue that insofar asthe idea of sovereignty includes the notion of an individual in-and-for-themselves, then all valuelies in self-denial ( KSA 12:10[57], p. 48687).

23. E u r e B i l l i g k e i t, ihr hheren Naturen, treibt euch zum suffrage universel usw., eureMenschlichkeit zur Milde gegen Verbrechen und Dummheit ( KSA 10:24[25], p. 659).

24. A u f d i e D a u e r b r i n g t i h r d a m i t d i e D u m m h e i t u n d d i e U n b e d e n k l i c h e nz u m S i e g e ( KSA 10:24[25], p. 659).

25. u e r l i c h: Zeitalter ungeheurer Kriege, Umstrze, Explosionen. I n n e r l i c h: immergrere Schwche der Menschen ( KSA 10:24[25], p. 659).

26. 1) D i e B a r b a r e n, zuerst natrlich unter der Form der bisherigen Cultur (z.B.Dhring) ( KSA 10:24[25], p. 659).

27. 2) Die s o u v e r n e n I n d i v i d u e n (wo barbarische K r a f t - M e n g e n und dieFessellosigkeit in Hinsicht auf alles Dagewesene sich kreuzen) ( KSA 10:24[25], p. 659).

28. Zeitalter der grten Dummheit, Brutalitt und Erbrmlichkeit der M a s s e n und derh c h s t e n I n d i v i d u e n ( KSA 10:24[25], p. 659).

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29. In an earlier version of this article, I explained that the SI can be seen as the tame animalwho is the perfect instantiation of social norms insofar as these agree with rational norms. Thiswas my way of unifying the idea of the SI as the Kantian ideal of a self-legislator with Nietzschescritical perspective on the SI as the embodiment of the ascetic tradition. I have made this aspectof SIs inclusion within the herd more explicit based on Nietzsches remarks inGM III about theactivity of the ascetic priests and the Nachlass.

30. Hatab, Nietzsches On the Genealogy of Morality, 76; Acampora, On Sovereignty andOverhumanity, 152.

31. I certainly do think that Nietzsche has a conception of the self and of agency, but evenif I did not, such grand and interpretatively contentious claims are not the best way to make therelatively straightforward textual point that the SI is criticized inGM II. Acampora argues that Nietzsche rejects the unity of the self and of being in favor of notions of plurality and becoming,and Hatab makes a similar point (Acampora, On Sovereignty and Overhumanity, 150, 153;Hatab, Nietzsches On the Genealogy of Morality, 7879). Such claims partially explain why

their reading has not been more influential.32. Acampora properly stresses the positive nature of forgetting, which those who praise theSI seem to forget (On Sovereignty and Overhumanity, 149). I do not see that Acamporas praiseof forgetting is either out of touch with Nietzsches text or that it radically suggests some sort ofatavistic return, which is a criticism Loeb raises of her interpretation (Finding thebermensch in NietzschesGenealogy of Morality, 78). Loeb, although rightly being skeptical of the SI as Nietzsches ideal, is quite mistaken when he suggests that what Nietzsche is claiming here is thatconscience is what allowed the emergence of the human animal from the mere animal (75).

33. Conway mistakenly regards Nietzsches discussion of memory here to be elevatatinghumans above a mere animal existence that relies entirely on instincts ( Nietzsches On theGenealogy of Morals [London: Continuum, 2008]: 55). Conways discussion does seem to cast

the SI in a positive light, but he nevertheless regards this figure as the pre-historic progenitorof the nobles described in Essay I (57). If the SI is prehistoric, then he is not Nietzsches ideal.Conway does not equate the SI with the ideal ofGM II:24. On the other hand, he does see the SIas a positive accomplishment, a being with a robust, independent, self-reliant will and consciencethat has not been polluted by the moral tradition and bad conscience (58). This is a rather uniqueinterpretation, equating the SI, perhaps, with some of the ancient Greeks that Nietzsche valorizes.But the values of the SI are not those of the more naturalistic, premoral Greeks.

34. Hatab, Nietzsches On the Genealogy of Morality, 70.35. Richard Schacht, Making Sense of Nietzsche: Reflections Timely and Untimely (Urbana:

University of Illinois Press, 1995), 112.36. David Owen, Autonomy, Self-Respect, and Self-Love: Nietzsche on Ethical Agency,

in Nietzsche on Freedom and Autonomy, ed. Kem Gemes and Simon May (Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press, 2009), 205. Owen claims that Nietzsche is advancing the idea of agency freewill, a notion that Owen borrows from Ken Gemes, who also regards this as being Nietzschesconcern in the SI passage. Agency free will is just the notion of that an action can be minewithout carrying with it the weight of moral responsibility (Owen, Autonomy, Self-Respect, andSelf-Love, 205; Gemes, Nietzsche on Free Will, Autonomy, and the Sovereign Individual, in Nietzsche on Freedom and Autonomy, 36). Even more strange is Owens claim that Nietzsche isdiscussing entitlement to represent ourselves to others as holding certain beliefs or attitudes orcommitments (Nietzsche Ethical Agency and Democracy, in Nietzsche, Power, and Politics: Rethinking Nietzsches Legacy for Political Thought , ed. Herman Siemens and Vasti Roodt [Berlin:de Gruyter, 2008], 148). The idea of full competence to represent oneself to the world strikes meas odd for two reasons. First, representing myself to the world is not some power that I master.My representation to the world is largely a matter of how others represent me: I present, act, and behave and others represent me. I represent myself to myself but not to the world. This strange

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phrase contains, I believe, a buried ethical judgment about the need to be honest with others andwith oneself, which grounds Owens notion of ethical agency. My second problem with this ideais that Owen contrasts the SI, who has such competence in self-representing to the world, withthe wanton, who does not (149). Yet the wanton isalso representing themselves to the world ,namely as a wanton.

37. Schacht, Making Sense of Nietzsche, 112.38. Schacht, Making Sense of Nietzsche, 113. In his book on Nietzschean sovereignty,

White defines it extremely generally as the condition of the individualas an individual, or thedetermination of the individualas such, asserting that it is simply the idea of self-commandment( Nietzsche and the Problem of Sovereignty, 6). Even characterizations of it as second-order willing,willing to will, or forming a principle of willing that one will continue to follow in the future,which are other characterizations that White uses, are merely notions of self-directed agency andreflective-normative activity in general (1819). If one does not address how promisingbindsthe will in a way that creates a fundamental tension in the will by which the power to forget is

disconnected and no longer available to us, then one simply is not talking about promising .39. John Richardson helpfully frames the issue in terms of our forming an allegiance to a ruleor norm, assuming that I cant simply break an allegiance (Nietzsches Problem of the Past, in Nietzsche on Time and History, ed. Manuel Dries [Berlin: de Gruyter, 2008], 88). It is unclearif this is what Richardson means because he merely explains it in terms ofmemory of a rule.I do not take the story of memory in the second essay to be the story of our socialization (89).It is the story of a unique stage in human development, in which already social, linguistic, andreflective beings have had imperatives bred and burned into them that then enable them to burnimperatives into themselves, thereby giving rise to the SI. In any case, Richardsons view is that Nietzsche affirms the power and freedom in agency in his account of the sovereign individual(Nietzsches Freedoms, in Nietzsche on Freedom and Autonomy, 142).

40. Owen also regards Nietzsche as simply concerned with second-order volitions (willing towill something) (Autonomy, Self-Respect, and Self-Love, 203). But having express, principledcommitments (second-order cognitions) is not the same as promising. I can be committed tovarious tasks or ideas (second-order volitions) and release myself from them simply by changingmy mind on further reflection. There are many forms of second-order volitions that are not promises: hopes, dreams, whims, expectations, and other variants of future-directed intentionality.Owen also claims that acquiring the ability to have second-order volitions is essential for there be normative expectations regarding the behavior of persons and that therefore it is centralto personhood itself (203). But this seems false: I can have normative expectations about the behavior of my dog without attributing to it second-order volitions.

41. Searles analysis of the speech act of promising is helpful here. The essential conditionis that S intends that the utterance of T will place him under an obligation to do A (WhatIs a Speech Act?, inContemporary Analytic and Linguistic Philosophies, ed. E. D. Klemke,[Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1965], 448).

42. Tracy Strong, for one, at least sees that what is at stake here is to be able to so bindoneself, or to find oneself bound (Nietzsche, the Will to Power, and the Weak Will, inWeaknessof Will from Plato to the Present , ed. Tobias Hoffmann [Washington D.C.: Catholic UniversityPress, 2008], 246).

43. Gemes, Nietzsche on Free Will, Autonomy, and the Sovereign Individual, 37;Ken Gemes, We Remain of Necessity Strangers to Ourselves: The Key Message of NietzschesGenealogy, in Nietzsches On the Genealogy of Morals, 200. Gemes incorrectly argues that because we moderns are inheritors of slave morality and, therefore, have no free will thatwe should regard the SI as an ideal for the future (Nietzsche on Free Will, Autonomy, and theSovereign Individual, 37). He says that we cannot guarantee that we can fulfill our promise because of our disorderly drives and so we must not be the SI. Of course we, the inheritors of slave

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morality and asceticism, are part of a long history of weakening the drives: orderly drives and promising keeping are our expertise. But Gemes is right that no one can live up to the antinaturalrestriction of drives found in the SI. However, that state of affairs indicates that it is a target ofcriticism not of admiration.

44. In his response to Hatab, Janaway posits the SI as an actuality of the past that we mightembody in some way in the future, a view he shares with Conway (Beyond Selflessness inEthics and Inquiry, Journal of Nietzsche Studies 3536 [2008]: 130). But this overlooks theantinaturalism of the SI.

45. Janaway, Beyond Selflessness in Ethics and Inquiry, 130. Strangely, Simon Maysinterpretation is that the SI is unattainable and undesirable as an ideal but also that the SI is thebermensch figure ( Nietzsches Ethics and His War on Morality [Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press,1999], 66, 117). His main point is that the SI does not fit well with Nietzsches life-affirmingvalues, and that is correct. But the identification of the SI and the bermensch seems incorrect tome. May does not think that the SI is presented as the subject of criticism in the second essay but

rather just that Nietzsche is unsuccessful in characterizing his positive ideal in it.46. Janaway, Beyond Selflessness in Ethics and Inquiry, 130.47. See Kants notion to do justice, though the world perish ( fiat iustitia, pereat

mundus) in Toward Perpetual Peace (1795) (in Practical Philosophy, ed. Mary J. Gregor[New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996], 345; for the original German, see ImmanuelKant, Gesammelte Schriften, 23 vols. to date [Berlin: Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1900],8:378). This is echoed by Nietzsche inGM III:7 where the ascetic philosopher proclaims, Pereat mundus, fiat philosophia, fiat philosophus, fiam ! (Let the world perish, let there be philosophy, let there be the philosopher,let there be me!) (GM III:7; KSA 5, p. 351). So I haveto disagree with Acamporas remark that the SI is self-undermining in the sense that radical stresson autonomy and the hypercultivation of memory results in an individual who, as sovereign,

no longer recognizes claims of moral law (On Sovereignty and Overhumanity, 154). There isno reason to think that the SI overcomes morality, especially given the stringency of their dutyto keep their promise.

48. It should be noted that Nietzsche introduces the SI by saying on the other hand(dagegen), without making clear what was on the one hand (GM II:2). There is a contrasthere, but what is it? Nietzsches assertion that when we locate ourselves at the end of the process,we come upon the sovereign individual gives us several options. First, Nietzsche could mean,after the prehistory of making humanity calculable, let us turn now to the present. The second possibility is similar except it would place the SI in the future. The third possible meaning is that Nietzsche means to turn to the perversion of humanity through morality after having identified thetrue work of humanity on itself to be its becoming regular. The fourth possibility is that havingidentified the meaning and justification of history with the preconditions for the SI, Nietzscheintends to turn to that which cannot be justified as the meaning of our human history. Only thesecond option is acceptable for those who argue that the SI is Nietzsches ethical ideal, but it isnot obvious that is the contrast being made.

49. Immanuel KantGroundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, in Practical Philosophy, 83;Kant, Gesammelte Schriften, 4:434.

50. One can find Kaufmanns mistake, for example, in the work of Aaron Ridley (NietzschesIntentions: What the Sovereign Individual Promises, in Nietzsche on Freedom and Autonomy,192) and R. Kevin Hill ( Nietzsches Critiques: The Kantian Foundations of His Thought [Oxford,UK: Clarendon Press, 2003], 219).

51. This point is one of the most significant made by Hatab ( Nietzsches On the Genealogyof Morality, 78).

52. See Acampora On Sovereignty and Overhumanity, 151, Hatab, A Nietzschean Defenseof Democracy, 38, and Lawrence Hatab, Breaking the Contract Theory: The Individual and the

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Law in NietzschesGenealogy, in Nietzsche, Power, and Politics, 7677, 80, for mention of theconflict between the SI and Nietzsches overall philosophy of the agent.

53. At the end ofGM III:10, Nietzsche does seem to praise freedom of the will and a will toresponsibility as a trait of the philosopher, which Hatab takes as evidence against his position( Nietzsches On the Genealogy of Morality, 125). ButGM III:10 argues that there has been no philosopher in a Nietzschean sense so far and that all philosophers have been products of theascetic tradition, so this praise must be scrutinized. The Nietzschean philosopher shares nothingwith the SI, the latters sole concern and value being the keeping of promises.

54. Kaufmanns translation has misled numerous philosophers into valuing the SI becauseof the positive valence of earning the right to be the SI (e.g., Strong, Nietzsche, the Will toPower, and the Weak Will, 24548). Acampora argues that translations of the German phrase asthe right to make promises makes the passage seem to be saying, falsely, that promise makingis an entitlement (On Sovereignty and Overhumanity, 14849). But even the correct translationof being allowed or permitted still carries the sense of its being an entitlement, and supporters

of the SI have generally not relied on the positive valence of having a right to make their case.Her point that promising is a power or depends on a power does not preclude it being alsoconsidered an entitlement: entitlements are a granting of power and of responsibility.

55. One cannot overlook the discussion of bad conscience inGS 117, in which Nietzschestates that today one feels responsible only for ones will and actions, and one finds ones pridein oneself, which points to the person of Enlightenment heritage and the bad conscience inlanguage quite similar to the SI passage. This person is also said to be a self and to esteem oneselfaccording to ones own weight and measure which again is precisely what the SI is said to do.I only mention this to provide evidence that the traits of the SI are said to be a partof the present .

56. Both Ridley and Owen attempt to understand this embodiment of consciousness in the SIin terms of unreflective activity, that is, an activity that one has mastered to such an extent that

there really is no gap between who one is and what one is doing, no reflective distance betweenthought and action (Aaron Ridley, Nietzsches Conscience: Six Character Studies from theGenealogy [Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998], 145). Such an idea seems quite out of place in the discussion of the SI, and it means that when Nietzsche is talking about consciousnessof power and freedom, he is actually talking about unself-conscious action. Strong attemptssomething similar, arguing that the SI is permitted to promise because in so doing one isoffering a fundamental expression of ones nature, a declaration of what I am (Nietzsche, theWill to Power, and the Weak Will, 248). The problem with this line of interpretation is that it isunsupported by the text. The SI has no positive value except promise keeping itself: the SI is notgiven as a unique, artistic self-expressive being but as a brutal, rigid being who cares for nothing but keeping the promise.

57. Leiter gives an excellent, textually based argument as to why Nietzsche rejects the phenomenology of willing as sufficient for determining whether an act or person is free(Nietzsches Theory of the Will, in Nietzsche on Freedom and Autonomy, 10726).

58. Scare quotes are introduced here around the word free. Why else but to bring it intoquestion? Solomon at least notices the scare quotes and recognizes that if this is Kantian freedomthen Nietzsche regards it sarcastically ( Living With Nietzsche: What the Great Immoralist Hasto Teach Us [New York: Oxford University Press, 2003], 198). But he does not conclude that the passage is challenging such an idea of freedom and instead says that Nietzsche is showing herethat he has respect and admiration for the notions of responsibility (199).

59. To say, as May does, that the SIs actions are one of respect of ones own sovereignlylegislated values, those values that our fatedness has, as it were, built into us and whose necessitywe will is completely unsupported by the text (Nihilism and the Free Self, in Nietzsche on Freedom and Autonomy, 104). It assumes that the SI is a nonascetic ideal whose values mayinclude life and the will to power. But all that we know from the passage, the only value that the

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SI is said to possess, is the value of promising itself . The SI is not looking to its nature and itsfundamental passions and values but to the value of promising.

60. This argument applies to willing itself, which is why I object to attempts to put a positivespin on the SI by arguing that Nietzschean autonomy is the will to will (White, Nietzsche andthe Problem of Sovereignty, 72). What must be specified is the content of what is willed. The willto will sounds more like the nihilism of the ascetic priests who want to save the notion of the willregardless of what is willed.

61. Immanuel Kant,On the Supposed Right to Lie from Philanthropy, in Practical Philosophy,612; Kant,Gesammelte Schriften, 8:426.

62. As Hatab points out, it is not at all clear why, from a Nietzschean perspective, such punishment is doled out (Breaking the Contract Theory, 82). Conway envisions Nietzsche assnickering at the idea that the ability to promise ensures freedom and argues that what would becloser to Nietzsches conception of a supramoral sovereign individual is the criminal ( Nietzscheand the Political [London: Routledge, 1997], 17).

63. Elements such as this within the description of the SI conflict in every way Nietzschesactual positive ethic. But this regularly passes without comment, even as such contradictionsenter into the reconstructions of Nietzsches ideal. For example, Janaway can identify the SI withthe ideal ofGM II:24 and with the Dionysian or Goethean ideal proclaimed in theTwilight of the Idols, even though the SI sharesno features with those f igures. Trusting fate and allowing oneselfa multitude of drives and affects, even conflicting ones, are key notions of Nietzsches positiveGoethean ideal and not the SI ( Beyond Selflessness: Reading Nietzsches Genealogy [Oxford:Oxford University Press, 2007], 118).

64. Owen and Ridley argue that the SIs unique form of promising is one whereby a persondoes not just agree to carry out the promise, all things being equal, but to indemnify the promise against theceteris paribus clause altogether, so that the intention is executedregardless

(Ridley, Nietzsches Intentions, 186; Owen, Autonomy, Self-Respect, and Self-Love, 207).I believe that this still misses the way that a promise binds and obligates, creating an obligation inthe will that is no longer simply up to us. The SI promises in a way that is much more radical thanOwen and Ridley propose. Their idea is that of a whole-hearted commitment whereby we do notsimply intend to fulfill the promise as present conditions allow but will to resist changes in futureconditions and still keep our promise (Ridley, Nietzsches Intentions, 186). Yet they also statethat there are conditions that will invalidate the promise, for example, finding that the original promise was unrealizable, given the circumstances as they turned out to be or finding . . .that there was not, after all, an intention on the part of the promiser to do such and such (i.e.,fallibility about the reasonableness and possibility of what was promised and about the intentions/desires of the promiser) (Ridley, Nietzsches Intentions, 190). The problem with this is that goesagainsteverything that is said about the SI. The justification given for their conception of the SIs promising is not that it is supported by the text but rather that it is realistic, makes the SI a human possibility, and fits well with other things Nietzsches says about ethical action. But that just begsthe question against the person who denies that the SI is not Nietzsches ideal at all.

65. I will not dwell on the conflict between the idea of having power over fate and Nietzsches positive ideal of loving ones fate, which is one of the main points made by Acampora (OnSovereignty and Overhumanity, 152) and Hatab ( A Nietzschean Defense of Democracy, 38, and Nietzsches On the Genealogy of Morality, 77). To rely on the interpretation ofamor fati tosupport ones reading of the SI allows the defenders of the SI to provide a more flexible readingof the love of fate (see Janaway, Beyond Selflessness in Ethics and Inquiry, 130).

66. Owens reading of the passages where the SI is said to be necessary and to be the masterof nature, fate, and all circumstances is the following: The sovereign individual is characterized by a degree of prudence in its commitment-making activity (that is, a serious effort to consider, asfar as possible, the types of circumstance in which the commitment is to be honored and the range

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of costs that may arise fulfillment of the commitment as well as its prospects for conflicting withexisting commitments), where this prudence is engendered precisely by an acknowledgment ofones responsibility as extending to those occasions on which the commitment cannot or must not be honored. Upholding ones word even against fate does not mean fantastically committingoneself to the incoherent goal of doing what is causally or ethically impossible for one to do, itmeans willingly bearing responsibility for the damage incurred when ones commitment cannotor must not be kept (Autonomy, Self-Respect, and Self-Love, 207). Owen is correct that thealternative interpretation of these remarks is that they come out to be absurd, but that is why Nietzsche is not endorsing the SI.

67. Regularly, traits are associated with the SI that simply do not fit with the given description.For example, Alan Schrifts analysis of Nietzschean subjectivity as a continual becoming, activity,and progression, simply does not fit with the SI as the promise keeper par excellence, whowill let nothingnot fate, nature, or any aspect of external realityalter his promise. Schriftattributes this conception of subjectivity to the SI nonetheless (Rethinking the Subject; or,

How One Becomes-Other Than What One Is, in Nietzsches Postmoralism, ed. Richard Schacht[Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001], 59). White does the same, attributing to the SIabsolute openness to the world, an attunement to the ecstatic impulses of life, a refusalto be limited by any kind of fixed identity, adopting Goethes approach to life and the cosmos,risking ones identity at every moment, and so on ( Nietzsche and the Problem of Sovereignty, 8,2023). Although all these ideas are part of Nietzsches positive ideal, they are positively at oddswith the SI description.

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