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Critiquing Values: Implications For Debate
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- THERE IS NO NATURAL BASIS FOR MORALITY
Critiquing Values: Implications For DebateNietzsche is the starting point for a radical and appealing approach to Lincoln-Douglas debate. Since virtually all affirmatives begin their case by placing forth some value to uphold, a philosopher who calls for the categorical rejection of values could be used to question the very underlying structure of all affirmatives who do so. Debaters can issue a “critique” which, rather than refuting the various claims made by affirmative cases, would instead urge a negative ballot simply because the whole approach of the affirmative is flawed. The critique of valuing in general must include the reasons why holding values up prior to other considerations of cases is bad in itself. In its most basic manifestation, those advocating the critique might ask why the case claims do not merely stand on their own. If those claims are valid, it is unnecessary to “glue them together” with some underlying value. But it is not only unnecessary; it is also destructive, for reasons which Nietzsche outlines in the evidence collected here. Finally, those values will not withstand philosophical examination, so a rational critic would reject them, and with them, the cases which are built upon them. In response, value-advocates will ask: “What is your alternative? If we reject values, aren’t you yourself implying that something is of value in order to warrant a negative ballot?” To this, Nietzschean critics might reply that what is necessary before alternatives are developed is to take a conscientious step backward and re-examine the act of valuing itself. It is through this step backward, this initial rejection of values, that a negative ballot is warranted. The affirmative has failed, in the most fundamental way possible, to justify itself. While such a strategy is risky in front of “traditional” panels of judges, it is one which neither compromises the articulation and philosophical discourse called for by Lincoln-Douglas debate, nor requires one to advocate “immorality.” The latter is true because Nietzsche advocates neither morality nor its antithesis, immorality. Rather, he wants us to stop thinking about things in such “either-or” terms. The possibilities opened up by such a critique should make debates just a little more interesting. BibliographyNietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm. BASIC WRITINGS OF NIETZSCHE (New York: Modern Library, 1968). . THE PHILOSOPHY OF NIETZSCHE (New York: Modern Library, 1954). . NIETZSCHE ON RHETORIC AND LANGUAGE (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989). . BEYOND GOOD AND EVIL (South Bend, Indiana: Gateway, 1978). . HUMAN, ALL TOO HUMAN (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1984). Vattimo, Gianni. THE ADVENTURE OF DIFFERENCE: PHILOSOPHY AFTER NIETZSCHE AND HEIDEGGER (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993). Cooper, David Edward. AUTHENTICITY AND LEARNING: NIETZSCHE’S EDUCATIONAL PHILOSOPHY (London; Boston: Routledge & K. Paul, 1983). EXCEEDINGLY NIETZSCHE: ASPECTS OF CONTEMPORARY NIETZSCHE INTERPRETATION (London; New York: Routledge, 1988). Copleston, Frederick Charles. FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE: PHILOSOPHER OF CULTURE (London: Burns, Oates & Washbourne, 1942). Houlgate, Stephen. HEGEL, NIETZSCHE AND THE CRITICISM OF METAPHYSICS (Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1986). Wilcox, John T. TRUTH AND VALUE IN NIETZSCHE: A STUDY OF HIS METAPHYSICS AND EPISTEMOLOGY (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1974). Krell , David Farrell. INFECTIOUS NIETZSCHE (Bloomington : Indiana University Press, 1996). Grimm, Ruediger Hermann, NIETZSCHE’S THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE (Berlin; New York: W. de Gruyter, 1977). THERE IS NO NATURAL BASIS FOR MORALITY1. NATURE IS RANDOM AND PROGRESS AN ILLUSION Friedrich Nietzsche, German Philosopher. HUMAN, ALL TOO HUMAN, 1984, p. 42 Science, however, takes as little consideration of final purposes as does nature; just as nature sometimes brings about the most useful things without having wanted to, so too true science, which is the imitation of nature in concepts, will sometimes, nay often, further man’s benefit and welfare and achieve what is useful--but likewise without having wanted to. 2. RANDOMNESS OF NATURE MAKES MORALITY IMPOSSIBLE Friedrich Nietzsche, German Philosopher. HUMAN, ALL TOO HUMAN, 1984, p. 43 So we make man responsible in turn for the effects of his actions, then for his actions, then for his motives and finally for his nature. Ultimately we discover that his nature cannot be responsible either, in that it is itself an inevitable consequence, an outgrowth of the elements and influences of past and present things; that is, man cannot be made responsible for anything, neither for his nature, nor his motives, nor his actions, nor the effects of his actions. And thus we come to understand that the history of moral feelings is the history of an error, an error called “responsibility,” which in turn rests on an error called “freedom of the will.”
Man’s complete lack of responsibility, for his behavior and for his nature, is the bitterest drop which the man of knowledge must swallow, if he had been in the habit of seeing responsibility and duty as humanity’s claim to nobility. All his judgments, distinctions, dislikes have thereby become worthless and wrong: the deepest feeling he had offered a victim or a hero was misdirected; he may no longer praise, no longer blame, for it is nonsensical to praise and blame nature and necessity. 4. VALUES ARE MERELY THE GLORIFICATION OF BASIC HUMAN NEEDS Friedrich Nietzsche, German Philosopher. BEYOND GOOD AND EVIL, 1978, p. 217 The value-estimates of a human being reveal something of the structure of his psyche, something of the way in which the psyche sees its basic conditions for life, its essential needs. Assuming now that need has always brought only those people together who could express similar needs and similar experiences with similar symbols, then we shall find, all things considered, that easy communicability of need, which means ultimately the experiencing of merely average and common experience, must have been the most powerful of all the forces that have ever ruled mankind. 5. EXPLOITATION IS NATURAL AND INEVITABLE Friedrich Nietzsche, German Philosopher. BEYOND GOOD AND EVIL, 1978, p. 202 “Exploitation” is not part of a vicious or imperfect or primitive society: it belongs to the nature of living things, it is a basic organic function, a consequence of the will to power which is the will to life. Admitted that this is a novelty as a theory--as a reality it is the basic fact underlying all history. Let us be honest with ourselves at least this far! 6. IT IS NATURAL TO HARM OTHERS FOR ONE’S OWN PURPOSES Friedrich Nietzsche, German Philosopher. BEYOND GOOD AND EVIL, 1978, p. 201 Life itself is essential assimilation, injury, violation of the foreign and the weaker, suppression, hardness, the forcing of one’s own forms upon something else, ingestion and --at least in its mildest form-exploitation. Directory: uploads uploads -> 587 Return function, r i(X) r i(0) r i(1) r i(2) r i(3) 1 0 2 4 6 Thermal Station, I 2 0 1 5 6 3 0 3 5 6 10 uploads -> Department of science and humanities department of mathematics part-a questions and answers uploads -> The Case Against the nypd’s Quota-Driven ‘Broken Windows’ Policing What Is It? uploads -> For want of a nail uploads -> Ownership Models There are two different types of ownership models uploads -> Police Militarization uploads -> City of rising star regular meting thursday, july 14, 2016 uploads -> Township of winfield uploads -> Stop Militarizing Law Enforcement Act of 2014 uploads -> The Black Panther Party’s Ten-Point Program What We Want Now! Download 5.81 Mb. Share with your friends:
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