Contemporary bio-medicine, which strives to create and enhance the human species, may be considered a vehicle for producing the hitherto but unknown individual of the future. However, with its dependence upon technology and animals the species created may be more than human and less than human in a humanist sense. I am interested in whether Nietzsche’s notion of the higher man or Ubermensch, is useful in considering this human of the future, even though, contra the human produced through biomedical intervention, the superman is a spiritual overcoming, rather than a physiological remaking, one that is, according to Nietzsche dependent upon suffering. I am wondering whether Nietzsche’s call for a morality which is beyond good and evil, is akin to some of the tenets of post ‘humanism’ since post-human theorist’s alert us to the blurring or erasure of the boundaries between male/female, good/bad, human/not human that is occurring in biomedical as well as communication technologies and which challenges some of the basic tenets of secular humanism. What kind of morality might develop out of an erasure of dichotomies and an acknowledgment of our alliances with and dependence upon not human others? How can the morality of Nietzsche’s higher man be used as a model for us to consider a new morality in the twenty-first century? Nietzsche explains:
First of all, one calls individual actions good or bad quite irrespective of their motives but solely on account of their useful or harmful consequences. Soon, however, one forgets the origins of these designations and believes that the quality ‘good’ and ‘evil’ is inherent in the actions themselves, irrespective of their consequences…by taking for cause what is effect. (A Nietzsche Reader, from Human, All Too Human: 71).
And further,
In the most noteworthy passage of his self-portrait…La Rochefoucauld certainly his the mark when he warns all reasonable men against pity, when he advises them to leave it to those common people who need passions (because they are not directed by reason) to bring them to the point of helping the sufferer and intervening energetically in a misfortune. For pity, in his (and Plato’s) judgment weakens the soul. Of course one ought to express pity, but one ought to guard against having it. (Human, All Too Human: 49).
He argues that emotions cloud the issues.
One example we could draw upon is the woman ‘in the boot’ case in 2005 of Maria Korp, who was on life support after being found in a coma after being placed in a boot of a car by a jealous girlfriend. Arguments for taking her off life support and allowing her to starve to death (which could take two weeks), is that she is brain dead. However a response from the medical professional to those who have accused them of intentional euthanasia and cruelty, are that they will have her on painkillers for the period of time they are depriving her of nutrition. My question is, if she is brain dead and presumably has no quality of life, why then do they need to alleviate her of pain if she is so insensate? If she still feels pleasure or pain then does she have the right to live even if that pleasure or pain is incommensurate with individuals who are living normal lives? Are we judging her life to be less valuable because she cannot enjoy life at the same level that we enjoy ours? Is the morality of the crowd defending her position born out of the fear that they might want to live in similar circumstances even if their life is greatly reduced? Those that watch as the medical fraternity determines what is considered alive or not, might fear that life once objectified and described in scientific terms, such as biological functionality does not allow for the value of that once embodied life. What I mean by this is that life, defined purely in functionalist terms disavows the relationship of that person’s life with others. Since we understand life not only as a descriptor of biological function, but also of the relationship or interaction with others and the world, we cannot reasonably separate the life ascribed to a body without reference to that particular individual in the world. Indeed, the body of the individual on life support, whilst brain dead, must be understood in relation to the life of others that his/her life has affected. A life, which had both a rational and emotional relation to others and things and which had similar relationship to her. The reason why Korp was taken off life support is because her brain would never again be alive and she cannot sustain normal function without medical support. We might ask: Why maintain a person in this condition on life support in the first place, if not for the family to hold onto an unreasonable expectation that her condition might change? We as a society value brain function as a measure of who were are as human beings, rather than just the existence of our slave body, however those individuals who are born extremely mentally and physically disabled, are valorized as human beings worthy of life and care. Does removing an individual from life support because they have extremely limited brain function undermine the well fought for rights of mentally disabled individuals? Can we make any claims that brain death is in any way similar to extreme mental disability? What of the individual who is born deaf, dumb, blind and physically disabled, should they be given the ‘good death’ because they have no value for us and are simply a burden to society? Or might we consider that as a society we value from our benevolence to others who are less fortunate than us? Nietzsche maintained:
Pity on the whole thwarts the law of evolution, which is the law of selection. It preserves what is ripe for destruction; it defends life’s {sic} disinherited and condemned; through the abundance of the ill-constituted of all kinds which it retains in life it gives life itself a gloomy and questionable aspect. (The Anti-Christ: 118)
Is he saying that pity for others thwarts our attempts for greatness? I am wondering if what makes us virtuous is that we have an ability to identify and empathize with others less fortunate than ourselves, because we rationally know that given a different toss of the coin we too could have been less than we currently are. We also know that life is fragile and we value it all the more because of this. Yes, we admire the strength born out of the fragility of life’s existence, but this strength of spirit would not have been possible without life’s imperfections in the first place. Perhaps this is what Nietzsche meant when he said:
Zarathustra is gentle with the sick. Truly, he is not angry at their manner of consolation and ingratitude. May they become convalescents and overcomers and make for themselves a higher body! (Thus Spoke Zarathustra: 60).
He wanted to impart the notion that in order to become strong an individual first needed to become sick, in order to experience that condition and to overcome it. It is only by overcoming that one can become better.
He further argued:
spiritual progress depends on those individuals who are less bound, much less certain, and morally weaker; they are men who try new things, and many different things. Where-ever progress is to ensue, deviating natures are of greatest importance. Every progress of the whole must be preceded by a partial weakening. The strongest natures retain the type; the weaker ones help to advance it. (Human, All Too Human: 138).
If we decide to go against the grain of the moral position of keeping someone alive when their condition does not warrant the expense and burden to society and does not afford anyone, particularly them, any pleasure, what if any, is the new morality sustained from this behavior? Is this still a moral position? Is this an argument from ‘the greatest pleasure for the greatest number’? The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few (Star Trek).
Are medical developments born out of pity for individuals who are sick, because the primary aim of medicine is curative, or because sickness is a financial and psychological burden on society? Sickness (disease/accident) provides opportunities for ‘curative action’, and involves knowledge about the body as well as employment for those in the medical profession (researchers, drug companies, etc). Is it possible that compassion or empathy for others suffering is a prime motivator behind those who enter the profession of medicine? Is research being driven solely by a need to know – by a yearning for knowledge itself? Is there anything inherently wrong with this if human suffering is alleviated? If as Nietzsche maintains, that higher man cannot flourish without suffering, does the alleviation of suffering put the ‘higher man’ into jeopardy. In other words is biomedical development, whilst providing opportunities to alleviate suffering also mean that those who could become ‘higher men’ are robbed of the occasion to experience pain and suffering. I am wondering if Nietzsche was actually referring to psychological suffering, rather than physical suffering (or a combination of both). I think that his rationale was that if we seek only pleasure, like the herd, then we would not pursue our projects, which might contribute to an advancement of humanity, or perhaps more importantly to our own advancement or overcoming (becoming).
that which here glorifies itself with praise and blame, and calls itself good, is the instinct of the herding human animal: the instinct which has come and is every coming more and more to the front, to preponderance and supremacy over other instincts…(BGE:68)
Is the ‘higher man’ important purely because they stand outside the herd, because they challenge the status quo? Does science now provide the human of the future?
To teach man the future of humanity as his will, as depending on human will, and to make preparation for vast hazardous enterprises and collective attempts in rearing and educating, in order thereby to put an end to the frightful rule of folly and chance which has hitherto gone by the name of “history” (the folly of the “greatest number” is only its last form) – for that purpose a new type of philosopher and commander will some time or other be needed, at the very idea of which everything that has existed in the way of occult, terrible, and benevolent beings might look pale and dwarfed. (Nietzsche, BGE: 70)
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