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Can morality provide us with a form of self-transcendence? Within the scope of this research, we will elaborate on various philosophers opinions in order to find out whether morality can provide us with a form of self transcendence. Self-transcendence, according to Nietzsche, is the common essence of all moral codes. "Man, " he says, "is something that should be transcended. " (Cohen 126) Self-transcendence is, for him, not only the essence of morality, but most emphatically the essence of man himself -- his authentic, civilized humanity. The superman, Nietzsche's model of the self-perfected man, is the most authentic, civilized man. He is precisely one who has overcome or transcended himself. Self overcoming is the basis of self-transcendence and self-perfection: that, in brief, is the essence of the Nietzschean conception of man.
Confucius once said: "To transcend oneself and return to li -- that is what is meant by jen. " (Dawkins 78) What Confucius means by li and jen here may be put succinctly: li is what constitutes the civilized order by which our authentic humanity or jen is defined. To be more specific, li is the ritual propriety essential to civilized life; it is the civilizing factor or element -- the "civilized form, " if you will -- that distinguishes human from non-human existence. (Ferguson 118) This civilizing function of li lies precisely in its disciplinary power -- in the human power of self-command. Like the Nietzschean superman, the Confucian chun-tzu or superior man is also an authentic, civilized human being: he, too, is one who has overcome or transcended himself. Thus there exists at least a notable formal similarity or parallel between Nietzschean and Confucian philosophy in their conception of authentic humanity: namely, the recognition that the being of man is at heart moral in character; that the process of being human, the civilizing process, is fundamentally a process of "moral creativity", the creative transformation of human character by virtue of self-overcoming or self-command. (Ferguson 124) Thus conceived, moral creativity is in truth human creativity; man, for Nietzsche, is at once the "creator" and "creature" of his authentic existence. Or, to put it in a well-known existential phraseology, "man is nothing but that which he makes of himself": man is the product of his own "self making. " (Dawkins 101) But what makes moral creativity "moral" and defines the "moral" dimension of being human is none other than the power and reality of self overcoming. There can be no question then that in both Nietzschean and Confucian thought man's capacity of self-command is of the essence of his humanity; self-transcendence is indeed the constitutive principle of man. (Mackie 99) What does it mean to be overcome; what really constitutes the human reality of self-transcendence; how can man at the same time be the "one who overcomes" and the "one who is overcome"; and are these two capacities of man constituted differently, or are they constituted of the same underlying reality?
In overcoming himself, man must first experience an opposition arising within himself, but what is the nature and meaning of this internal opposition: is it an opposition between two mutually exclusive forces, or is it rather the opposition of polarities which belong in deep harmony to the same organic whole? The answers to these questions will not only throw light on the phenomenon of self-transcendence, but will tell us that, in spite of a fundamental similarity between Nietzschean and Confucian philosophy on the reaction between self-command and humanity, the differences between them are also decisive. (Dawkins 123) That man is not a stone but, as Ortega observes, must fight for being what he is, and that he is quite capable of acting in opposition to himself or in spite of himself, is, of course, universally recognized. But the answer to the question pertaining to the nature of the fight, the internal struggle or opposition so characteristic of the moral dimension of selfhood, is by no means obvious. That man is different from the rest of nature -- or again, as Ortega puts it, that "man's being and nature's being does not fully coincide" -- is almost everywhere taken for granted. (Cohen 150) The distinction between "natural" andextranatural dimensions of man is undoubtedly one of the most widespread conceptions in civilized thinking.
The natural self is the animal or not-yet-civilized self: that part in us which we readily recognize as part of nature. But what of the extra natural part? Wherein, exactly, lies the human differential that distinguishes man from beast; what is the source of man's extra natural self, of his extra natural humanity? To the latter questions, Nietzsche, like Ortega, Sartre, and the other twentieth century existentialists who have come so profoundly under his influence, has an answer that in its essence is quite unambiguous. What distinguishes man from the beast lies in his creative activity: the creator of his "extra natural humanity, " or "humanity" in the proper sense of the word, is not God, but man himself.
The extra natural self is at once the creator and creature of his own creation: the human differential belongs to man as creative subject -- to his creative subjectivity. (Mackie 142) That Nietzsche's thought is at heart permeated by an aesthetic or artistic conception of life is almost unanimously recognized by his commentators, including the late Walter Kaufmann and the recently much discussed Alexander Nehamas. Indeed, the latter's brilliant commentary, subtitled "Life as Literature", is based entirely on this interpretation, as are in substance Kaufmann's earlier well-known classics. Nehamas's subtitle reminds us of a very Nietzschean statement in one of Ortega's famous essays: "whether he be original or a plagiarist, man is the novelist of himself. " (North 164) But Nietzsche's own words are more emphatic: "One thing is needful. -- 'to give style' to one's character -- a great and rare art!" (North 169) Nietzsche's conception of human life and authentic selfhood is fundamentally modeled upon the process of artistic creation. Man is at once the artist, the basic raw material, and the finished product of his own self-transcending creativity. Just as the creative artist must transcend the resistance of his raw material in transforming it into a beautiful work of art, so the creator in man must transcend the resistance of his natural self in giving form and shape to his extra-natural humanity (the self as creature).
Moral creativity then for Nietzsche is essentially aesthetic in character: it is a matter of imaginative ordering whereby the original chaos of raw material or data is organized in virtue of the artist's appropriate-creative power of projection and interpretation. In the context of human life, the "chaos" just spoken of refers, of course, to the natural self. The chaos inherent in the human self is the chaos of unrestrained instincts, drives, desires, and passions -- in short, the chaos of (what the Greeks called) Eros. For Nietzsche, man is at bottom nothing more than a field of warring instincts.
Each instinct seeks its own gratification and seeks to be on top of every other instinct: this dynamic essence of Eros or the instinctual field is what Nietzsche termed the "will to power. " (Dawkins 177) Let us note immediately that the will to power is not itself a particular instinctual drive, but is the common feature of all instinctual drives. The life of Eros seeks power: it is indeed (in essence) the will to power. The will to power is the will to command, the will to prevail over a situation or environment. It is, if we may express it in familiar Buddhistic terms, essentially a form of grasping. The will to power is the "will to grasp, " that is, the tendency for a given organism, life-form or, in general, a strand of activity or power to persist and perpetuate itself. It is most interesting to observe that, like the Buddhists, Nietzsche denies the substantial notion of "selves" and "things", dismissing them both as conceptually constructed fictions. (Mackie 177) The fundamental difference between Buddhism and Nietzsche lies, of course, in their opposing attitudes towards the underlying reality of grasping, that is, of the life of Eros.
For the Buddhists, the life of Eros is samsara or the realm of suffering, liberation from which defines the very meaning of nirvana. But for Nietzsche the life of Eros is the only life there is: grasping or the will to power is of the essence of all life. For Nietzsche the solution to the problems of civilized mankind and the enigmas of life is not to be found in a cessation of suffering, as the Buddhists would have it, through extinguishing the fire and passions of grasping, but -- anticipating Freud -- through the sublimation and creative transformation of the natural self, the chaotic complex of instinctual passions. Sublimation then is the mechanism of self-overcoming and thus the thrust of moral, human creativity. The superman is one who transcends himself, who succeeds in sublimating his gross or basic instincts along with the most fruitful or creative channels. There is no doubt in Nietzsche's mind that the sublimation al process of self-overcoming is what lies at the heart of civilized humanity.
The noble and the ignoble -- or the good and the bad -- are, from the "civilization al" standpoint, not mutually exclusive. (Cohen 186) The noble is in fact derived from the ignoble, the good from the bad. If every human society may be looked upon as at heart nothing more than a civilization al strategy of "instinctual management, " then the "repressive" strategy of most traditional societies would be for Nietzsche as for Freud, highly undesirable. (Ferguson 151) Much of Nietzsche's critique of Christian morality cannot be properly understood except from the standpoint of the sublimation al strategy. But the condition for the effectiveness of the sublimation al strategy is the strength or power of self-command. Indeed, according to Nietzsche, the power of self command -- the basis of all creative strength -- is the highest manifestation of the will to power. There is reason to believe that although the power of self-overcoming is in principle only a special form of the will to power, the latter concept was, in the order of discovery, derivative of the former. We believe that it was Nietzsche's own experience and insights into the nature of self-command and moral creativity that finally led to the formulation of his power doctrine, and that is perhaps the way it should be.
That Nietzsche always depends on literary or artistic models for understanding life and world, as Nehamas observes, is not really surprising in light of his profound attachment to the Greek cultural tradition. For the artistic model of thinking is, among civilized peoples in the ancient world, most prevalent with the Greeks. Plato's application of this in the cosmogony and cosmology of the Timaeus is the most notable example. Like Plato's Demiurge or supreme artisan in the Timaeus, the creator in man in Nietzsche's aesthetic conception of life and self-creativity is also responsible for the passage from chaos to cosmos -- from the lack of order to the acquisition of order. (North 205) Like Nietzsche, Hsun-tzu also identifies the initial state of instinctual passions as a state of chaos and anarchy.
That is what he meant by saying that man's original nature is evil. It is also his reason for holding that man must subject himself to the restraint and disciplines of li if he wants to lead a civilized life. The fact that for Hsun-tzu human beings is ultimately perfectible, that every one can become a sage, shows that for him instinctual desires are not in themselves evil. (Stove 128) Under the proper guidance of conscious intelligence and through the taming power of li, the beast in man or his animal self can indeed be harnessed and transformed into a perfected civilized being. Indeed, a dimly conceived "sublimation ism" in the Nietzschean sense is even detectable in Hsun-tzu's writings. For Hsun-tzu, too, the good is derived from the bad, the noble from the ignoble. Evil is a matter of chaos, a function of excesses and unresolved conflicts; goodness lies in the achievement of the right proportion, in the restoration of order and harmony, which, of course, is the hallmark of an estheticism.
What is fundamental to the aesthetic model of selfhood is, as suggested earlier, the tendency to attribute the source of order to the creative agency of the conscious ego. The beautiful form of a marble statue is to be attributed to the artistic power of the sculptor, not to the original block of marble. Similarly in Hsun-tzu's theory of human perfection the source of authentic, civilized humanity is rooted in conscious intelligence, not in chaotic desires or passions. The relation between the instinctual self and conscious intelligence in Hsun-tzu is indeed very much like the relation between the charioteer (reason) and the pair of horses (desires and passions) in Plato's chariot metaphor of the soul. (Ferguson 190) Hsun-tzu's artisan self is almost as much intellectually inclined as Plato's divine craftsman. Neither Plato nor Hsun-tzu recognized as did Nietzsche the possibility that conscious intelligence may itself carry the life-blood of Eros, which is an expression of the will to power. Furthermore, we may note that although both Plato and Hsun-tzu employ the aesthetic model in their philosophical thinking, the human creator in their models has as much the spirit of a guardian as that of an artisan.
Like Plato in his later Dialogues, Hsun-tzu's philosophy betrays a severe lack of appreciation of the importance of the creative imagination. (Stove 113) In virtue of its impulsion towards the novel and the unknown, inevitably, imagination poses a threat to the security and stability of the order essential to the maintenance and continuation of civilized society. This condition was almost non-existent in pre-Chin China during Hsun-tzu's times. Such conservatism in philosophical outlook is a natural tendency for a thinker imbued with the guardian spirit. Unlike the artisan of the self, the cultivator in the process of self-becoming is not, properly speaking, a "creator. " (North 223) The creative principle belongs not to the imaginative ordering of the conscious ego, but to what in man is given by heaven, that is, to the power of jen which is the immanently deposited seed of humanity. While in the aesthetic model the inertly given raw self is to be imposed upon by the willful acts of the artisan-self, the heavenly given seed is for the cultivator-self the object of his care and nurture.
Words Count: 2, 372. Bibliography: Cohen, David. Law, Sexuality and Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991.
Dawkins, R. The Selfish Gene. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990. Dover, K. J. Greek Popular Morality in the Time of Plato and Aristotle, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994.
Ferguson, J. Morality. London: Pluto Press, 1988. Mackie, J. L. The Law of the Jungle: Moral Alternatives and Principles of Evolution.
New York: Random House, 1980. North, H. Self-Knowledge and Self. New York: Random House, 1991. Stove, D.
A New Religion. London: Pluto Press, 1995.
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