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1 Kant, Immanuel: Conjectures on the Beginnings of Human History. In: R. Geuss and Q.
Skinner (eds.): Kant: Political Writings. Cambridge 1970; p.223. I am indebted to Jonathan Lear,
Brian Leiter, Alexander Nehamas, Michael Della Rocca, Werner Stegmaier, and a reading group
consisting of Arash Abizadeh, Lori Gruen, Sankar Muthu, and Jennifer Pitts for discussion or
comments on earlier versions. I use in general the Kaufmann translations (or Kaufmann and
Hollingdale, for UM, A, TI, and D), except for GM, where I use Clark/Swensen; however, I have
sometimes modified the translations and do not in general document precisely where.
1
Origins ofRessentiment and Sources of Normativity
Mathias Risse
John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University
March 16, 2003
But the outcome of that first experiment whereby man became conscious of hisreason as a faculty which can extend beyond the limits to which all animals areconfined was of great importance, and it influenced his way of life decisively.
(Immanuel Kant, Conjectures on the Beginning of Human History)1
1. Introduction
1.1Ressentimentplays a crucial role in each treatise in Nietzsches Genealogy. In the first treatise
Nietzsche claims that the slave revolt in morality occurs when ressentimentbecomes creative. In
the second he offers an account of the development of guilt, a process to which the ascetic priest
contributes significantly. This priest, in turn, is the subject of the third treatise, and is there
characterized as leading a life of ressentiment without equal (GM III, 11). But how does
ressentimentarise? That is the question explored in this study. This question may seem unmotivated
since the occurrence ofressentiment does not appear puzzling: after all, slaves and priests are
oppressed by the masters, and what more is required to explain their anger and resentment?
However, the development ofressentimentdoes pose a puzzle. In GM II, Nietzsche develops a
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2 This question may have been neglected because is arises clearly only once Nietzsches
speculative anthropology in GM II is in sight; cf. Clark, Maudemarie: Nietzsches Immoralism
and the Concept of Morality. In: Schacht, Richard (ed.): Nietzsche, Genealogy, Morality.
Berkeley 1994; and Risse, Mathias, The Second Treatise in On the Genealogy of Morality:Nietzsche on the Origin of the Bad Conscience. In: European Journal of Philosophy 9 (2002):
pp.55-81. Williams raises the same question: The needs, demands, and invitations of the
morality system are enough to explain the peculiar psychology of the will. But there is more that
needs to be said about the basis of that system itself. Nietzsche himself famously suggested that a
specific source for it was to be found in the sentiment ofressentiment a sentiment which itselfhad a historical origin, though hardly one that he locates very precisely (Williams, Bernard:
Nietzsches Minimalist Moral Psychology. In: Schacht: Nietzsche, Genealogy, Morality, loc.
cit., p.244). My account differs from the brief one suggested by Williams, and is shaped by the
concern to embed it into Nietzsches anthropology.
2
sketch of a philosophical anthropology to trace guilt to its non-moral origins. Yet ressentimentis
as complex a phenomenon, and, in view of the elaborate machinery used to explain how the mind
comes to harbor guilt, cannot be left unexplained. Once Nietzsches speculative anthropology is
in place, we must make sure that his remarks about ressentimentcan be derived from it, or are at
least consistent with it. Otherwise they would remain unsubstantiated. Guided by the emotional
lives we experience, we may or may not find the emergence ofressentimentpuzzling, but Nietzsche
mustaccount for it. For one significant goal of the Genealogy is to develop the kind of animal
psychology (GM III, 20) that explains why our emotions are what they are. Explanations must
end somewhere, but Nietzsches cease too early if he cannot ground ressentiment within his
anthropology. The secondary literature has not yet offered an account tracing the origins of
ressentimentwithin Nietzsches anthropology and thus fails to investigate whether he is entitled
to his claims about ressentimentand its importance for morality. This study attempts to close that
gap.2
My account of the origins of ressentiment ties those origins to the minds becoming
conscious of itself and thus leads us to the contemporary debate about the sources of normativity.
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5 Section 3 also sets the level of sophistication at which we discuss biological,
psychological, and matters pertaining to the philosophy of mind. While parts of Nietzsches
account lead into areas in which philosophers are not competent, we need to pursue his ideas
where they lead if we are to take him seriously as the naturalist thinker I think he is. Yet I do not
aim at any sophistication in those areas much beyond Nietzsches own. This move, however,
should not deprive this inquiry of interest any more than the corresponding move would with
regard to RousseausDiscourse on Inequality, Kants Conjectures on the Beginning of HumanHistory, and Freuds Civilization and Its Discontents.
4
anthropology. The second criterion for an account of the origins ofressentimentis that it can be
embedded into that anthropology.5 While GM discusses ressentimentas a sentiment individuals
primarily have towards others, section 4 argues that Nietzsche also offers a recognizable and
significant discussion ofressentimenttowards oneself. Discussing that aspect ofressentimentwill
increase our understanding of the phenomenon Nietzsche tries to capture, but will also make our
task of locating its origins more difficult. The third criterion of adequacy is that the account explain
both the ascent ofressentiment towards others and ofressentiment towards oneself. Section 5
presents the account itself. The core idea of this account of the origins ofressentimentis to connect
anger and resentment with the development of the mind and to account for the origins of
ressentimentin terms of a state of mind that arises when the mind becomes self-conscious while
already filled with anger and resentment. Section 6 compares Nietzsches account with that of
Korsgaards Kant.
A methodological remark is in order. This essay is shaped by my view that Nietzsche (at
least in the late 1880s) is a naturalist. Following Darwall, I define metaphysical naturalism as
holding that nothing exists beyond what is open to empirical study; consequently, ethical thought
and feeling are empirically ascertainable facts about the world. Among the metaphysical naturalists,
the ethical naturalist is distinguished by his belief that value is an aspect of nature. I regard
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6 See Darwall, Stephen: Philosophical Ethics: Oxford 1998, chapter 3. For discussions
of naturalism, cf. also Railton, Peter: Naturalism and Prescriptivity. In Paul, Ellen/Miller, Fred
Jr. (eds.): Foundations of Moral and Political Philosophy. Oxford 1990.
7 See Leiter, Brian: Nietzsche on Morality. New York 2002. I agree with Leiters general
approach to Nietzsche. I myself explore Nietzsches naturalism in Risse, Mathias, Nietzsches
Joyous and Trusting Fatalism. Forthcoming in: International Studies in Philosophy 2003, and
in particular in my forthcoming essay Nietzsches Naturalistic Ethics. For illuminating
statements of Nietzsches naturalism, cf. BGE 230 and A 14; cf. also TI, Anti-Nature, 2 andSkirmishes 33; and EHDestiny 7. As Richardson notes, Nietzsches commitment to naturalismgoes at least as far back as 1872 (Homers Contest). (Cf. Richardson, Henry: Nietzsches
System. Oxford 1996, p.46, note 59.)
8 For a guide to publications on Nietzsches Genealogy in general and ressentimentinparticular as of 1994, with a special emphasis on publications drawing on the traditions of
continental philosophy, see the bibliography in Stegmaier, Werner: Nietzsches Genealogie der
Moral. Darmstadt 1994; for a bibliography that emphasizes approaches drawing on analytical
philosophy, as of 2002, cf. Leiter: Nietzsche on Morality, loc. cit. The following contributions
appeared after the publication of Stegmaiers book and are not listed in Leiters book, and thus
should at least be mentioned here: Brusotti, Marco, Willen zum Nichts: Ressentiment, Hypnose,
Aktiv, und Reaktiv in Nietzsches Genealogy der Moral. In: Nietzsche Studien 30 (2001):
pp.107- 132; Joisten, Karen, Ressentiment. In: Filozofska Istrazivanja 15 (1995): pp.697-707;
5
Nietzsche as an ethical naturalist.6 In keeping with this approach, I take it for granted that
Nietzsches texts can be interpreted in accordance with criteria such as consistency and
adequacy. I believe that, ultimately, this approach does most justice to his writings, and at the
same time also establishes Nietzsche as a philosopher whose thought is of tremendous interest to
contemporary ethics. While this essay is meant to illustrate these claims (progressing from an
exegetical discussion to a contemporary debate), I cannot here defend these methodological
assumptions; for a defense of this approach, readers may consult chapter 1 of LeitersNietzsche
on Morality.7 Since I do not present a comparative discussion of different approaches to the
Genealogy, the literature that I discuss has been included because it speaks to the issues at stake
in this essay. Thus I neglect a fair amount of commentary on GM in what has come to be known
as continental philosophy. The questions pursued here do not arise in many of these approaches.8
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Joisten, Karen, Ressentiment: Nietzsches and Schelers Contribution to the Basic Condition of
Mans Being. In: Synthesis Philosophica 11 (1996): pp.65-77; Nealon, Jeffrey, The Most
Dangerous of All Explosives: Ressentiment. In: International Studies in Philosophy 31 (1999):
pp.91-100; Siemens, Herman, Nietzsches Agon with Ressentiment: Towards a Therapeutical
Reading of Critical Transvaluation. In: Continental Philosophy Review 34 (2001): pp.69-93;
Small, Robin, Resentment, Revenge, and Punishment: Origins of the Nietzschean Critique. In:
Utilitas 9 (1997): pp.39-58; Smith, Richard, Nietzsche: Philosopher of Ressentiment? In:
International Studies in Philosophy 25 (1993): pp.135 - 143. Other secondary literature will be
discussed as we go along.
9 Reginster, Bernard, Nietzsche onRessentimentand Valuation. In: Philosophy andPhenomenological Research (LVII) 1997: pp.281-305, p.305. Poellner characterizes it as
follows: Ressentimentis a condition in which an apparent good is desired by an individualavowedly for its own sake, but in fact in order to negate or denigrate something else which is
perceived as hostile or oppressive to that individual (Poellner, Peter: Nietzsche and
Metaphysics. Oxford 1995, p.7). May claims that Nietzsches ressentimentdiffers from ordinaryresentment in three ways: first, its object of hatred is universal in scope [...]; second, it
thoroughly falsifies that object in order to render the latter inescapably blameworthy [...]; third,
since such universal resentment is impossible to satisfy, its revenge must be, at least in part,
imaginary (May, Simon: Nietzsches Ethics and His War on Morality. Oxford 1999, p.42/43).
6
1.3 I conclude this introduction with two remarks. First, it is useful to relate my approach to recent
characterizations ofressentiment. For instance, Reginster writes: Ressentiment[...] cuts off the
conditions of satisfaction of a desire from the conditions of enjoyment of that satisfaction. [...]
[T]he man ofressentiment is thus left pathetically hanging between the impossibility to enjoy the
satisfaction of desires he does not really have, and the impossibility to enjoy the satisfaction of
desires he has, but cannot embrace.9 Readers accustomed to thinking about ressentimentalong
the lines suggested by Reginster and others may find my account of the origins of ressentiment
strange at first. Yet taken by themselves, such characterizations are insufficient because they do not
answer the crucial question of how ressentimentarises, and why Nietzsche might be entitled to give
it such a prominent role. Taken by themselves, such accounts do not take seriously enough the
speculative anthropology I take Nietzsche to develop in GM II. So I take no issue with Reginsters
and similar characterizations of the phenomenology and the impact ofressentiment, but explore
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10 So this piece should be understood as a companion piece to my earlier essay on GM II
(Risse, Nietzsche on the Origin of the Bad Conscience, loc. cit.); cf. also section 3 of this essay.
11 Although ressentiment is a French word (and thus missing from the Grimmsdictionary), the German educated elite had used it since the 17th century. The word was
presumably adopted because German lacks a good word for the English resentment and the
7
how such a frame of mind could arise within the confines of Nietzsches anthropology in the first
place. In an earlier piece on GM II have argued that Nietzsche explains the bad conscience as we
understand it nowadays (i.e., a feeling of guilt) by tracing it from an earlier from of the bad
conscience, which at that stage is no more than an early form of the mind itself. I suggest that the
account of the origins of ressentimentthat I propose in this essay be understood as relating to the
account given by Reginster and others of the phenomenology ofressentiment in much the same
way in which I suggested in my earlier essay that this early form of bad consciousness is related
to the conscience as a feeling of guilt.10 Does this account respond to the question of what
ressentiment actually is? It does, with the qualification that it answers that questionfrom the
standpoint of Nietzschean animal psychology,which, again, is a standpoint from which it has not
yet been discussed.
Second, I need to clarify my usage of ressentiment, resentment, and anger. Our usage
of terms for emotions is shaped by the complexity they have obtained through the process of
socialization, while Nietzsches concern is to trace the origins of such emotions. The use of terms
that denote emotions as we know them is therefore ill-suited for his purposes. One rationale for
Nietzsches employing a French term that still pertained to the vocabulary of German-speaking
readers of his time is to have a term related to anger and resentment as they (and also we)
understand them while allowing for that term to be explicated by his anthropology, rather than by
our intuitions, which are shaped by the emotional lives we experience.11 In this study, again, I stay
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French ressentiment. (There is the word Groll, which, however, does not characterize a frameof mind or an attitude, but tends to arise with regard to a specific event or person.) At the same
time, these words serve reasonably well as translations of each other, except that the French
word seems to possess a stronger connotation with memory. Cf. de Gruyters 1977 Deutsches
Fremdwrterbuch. Cf. also the usage in TI,Ancients, 4, where Nietzsche claims that Christianityis guilty ofressentimentagainst life. In this case, ressentiment just means resentment.Bittner distinguishes between a German word ressentiment and a French world ressentiment,
which is spelled and pronounced alike and is the source of the former. He suggests the French
word expresses a more straightforward annoyance, less of a grudge than the German word
does. (Bittner, Rdiger: Ressentiment. In: Schacht: Nietzsche, Genealogy, Morality, loc. cit.). I
take this to be compatible with my suggestion above. Scheler remarks that he uses the word
ressentiment because he could not translate it into German (Scheler, Max: Das Ressentiment
im Aufbau der Moralen. In: Scheler: Vom Umsturz der Werte. Bern 1995, p.36); he emphasizesthat the word ressentiment denotes a repeated re-living and re-feeling of the past.
12 TheNew Oxford American Dictionary defines anger as a strong feeling of annoyance,displeasure, or hostility, and resentment as bitter indignation at having been treated unfairly.
For a discussion of the contemporary understanding of anger and resentment cf. Solomon,
Robert: The Passions. Emotions and the Meaning of Life. Indianapolis 1993.
8
largely neutral with regard to the details of an account of the phenomenology and the impact of
ressentiment(of the sort that Reginster and others offer), but offer an account of the physiological
origins ofressentiment. To this end, I use anger and resentment along rather colloquial lines.
Dictionary definitions will do for clarification.12
2.Ressentimentin the First and Third Treatise of the Genealogy
2.1 This section follows Nietzsches discussion of ressentiment in GM I and III, which treat
ressentimentprimarily as a sentiment towards others. What remains puzzling is why it should be
ressentiment, rather than other feelings, that evolves under the relevant circumstances. To resolve
this puzzle, we resort to insights from Nietzsches anthropology, which appears in GM II and which
we discuss in section 3.
Two of the protagonists of GM gain center stage in Nietzsches statements about
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13 While the priests are also discussed in theAntichrist, no new insights aboutressentimentarise there. My claim that both slaves and priests are characterized by resssentimentand that the slave revolt is their joint work is controversial. Reginster thinks that only the ascetic
priests are characterized by ressentiment(cf. Ressentiment and Valuation, loc. cit.). Yet thisview is inconsistent with Nietzsches claim that the ascetic priest is the direction-changer of
ressentiment forressentimentin that context is not his own, but pertains to the slaves (GM III,15). The priest must be related to the slaves (the herd) in appropriate ways to be their leader,
and he is so related by sharing theirressentiment. Bittner tends to neglect the fact that the priestsalso have ressentimentand thus finds the slave revolt harder to explain than it is when explainedthrough the interaction between slaves and priests (cf. Bittner: Ressentiment, loc. cit.). The most
extensive recent discussion of the characters in the Genealogy is Ridley, Aaron: NietzschesConscience. Six Character Studies from the Genealogy.Ithaca 1998. I cannot do justice to hisdiscussion here, but I should register disagreement with a few important claims he makes. To
begin with, Ridley downplays the role of the priests for the slave riot, though he concedes that
they might be credited with inspiring one phase of it (p.44). As Reginster points out,
downplaying the role of the priests conflicts with Nietzsches insistence in BGE 261 that the
slaves cannot be creative. (I suggest that we read that as the slaves by themselves.) Second,
Ridley also downplays the similarity between the slaves and the priests. Discussing GM III, 15,
he quotes Nietzsche as saying about the priest that [h]e must be himself sink, but as then
retractingby saying that he must be profoundly related to the sick. Ridley claims that thepriests relation to the sick is one of imagination, imaginative identification (p.50). This,
however, seems an odd reading of the relevant passage. Nietzsche does not seem to retract
anything there, but further to explicate.
9
ressentiment: priests and slaves.13 We say only as much about them as needed for the story of
ressentiment. The priests are introduced in GM I, 6 and I, 7 as members of the highest caste and
contrasted with the other members of that caste, knights or masters. Those knights are characterized
by a powerful physicality, a blossoming, rich, even overflowing health, together with that which
is required for its preservation: war, adventure, the hunt, dance, athletic contests, and in general
everything which includes strong, free, cheerful-hearted activity (GM I, 7). As opposed to that,
driven by powerlessness and hatred, the priests insist that the miserable alone are the good; the
poor, powerless, lowly, alone are the good; the suffering, deprived, sick, ugly are also the only
pious, the only blessed in God, for them alone is there blessedness. (Nietzsches example is
Tertullian, quoted in GM I, 15.) The slaves (the herd) are introduced in GM I as the subjugated
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14 It is in this derivative sense that ressentimentis present in GM also as a sentimentindividuals have towards themselves; but as we shall see in section 4, there is a different (non-derivative) sense in which that is also true, which is a sense neglected in GM.
10
caste. In GM I, the slaves are discussed mostly in the context of the slave revolt, which starts when
ressentimentbecomes creative (I, 10). Ressentimentcreates values, and is operative in individuals
condemned to inactivity who resort to imaginary revenge. The person ofressentiment,
is neither sincere, nor naive, nor honest and frank with himself. His soul looks obliquely at things; his spirit
loves hiding places, secret passages and back doors, everything hidden strikes him as his world, his security,
his balm; he knows all about being silent, not forgetting, waiting, belittling onself for the moment, humbling
oneself. (GM I, 10)
It is in the eyes of such a person that precisely the good one of the other morality, precisely the
noble, the powerful, the ruling one comes to be regarded as evil (GM I, 11), and reversely, it is
the person ofressentimentwho comes to be seen as good. The older master morality has been
turned around, and the original distinction between good and bad, has given rise to the
distinction between good and evil.
GM III elaborates on the relationship between priests and slaves and the role ofressentiment
in the revolt. We learn that the priests true feat (GM III, 15) is to be the direction-changer of
ressentiment: they keep ressentimentfrom tearing apart the herd. They achieve this by re-directing
ressentimentso that it targets the slaves themselves.14 While GM I introduces priests as members
of the ruling class and emphasizes what they share with knights, GM III stresses their affinities with
slaves, insisting that they must be sick in the same way as slaves to understand and rule them. (This
contrast should not be overstated, though: already in GM I, 6 we learn that Nietzsche thinks of the
priests as sick.) Thus priests emerge as intermediate figures between knights and slaves, sharing
creativity and determination with the knights and powerlessness and frustration with the slaves.
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15 Cf. Kant: The beginning of history does not have to be invented but can be deduced
from experience, assuming that was experienced at the beginning of history was no better or
worse than what was experienced now an assumption which accords with the analogy of nature
and which has nothing presumptuous about it (loc. cit., p.221). Kant may be right that what was
experienced at earlier stages was neither better nor worse than what is experienced, but it is
notsafe to assume that our own emotional experiences provide good guidance.
11
Putting together what we learn in GM I and III, we see that ressentimentaffects both priests and
slaves; that it arises in response to their inferior status viz-a-viz the knights; that it cannot be
discharged against knights and threatens to tear apart the herd; and that, in order to prevent this, the
priest takes measures that cause the slaves to feel ressentimentagainst themselves, rather than
against each other. The slave rebellion presumably occurs when the priests preach to the slaves the
Christian metaphysical and ethical world order about which we say more in section 3. It is
ressentimentthat motivates the priests and it is their hateful creativity that enables them to act, and
it is ressentiment that makes the slaves receptive to their teachings. Thus the revolt is the joint
accomplishment of slaves and priests driven by ressentimentin ways appropriate to each group.
2.2 But how does ressentimentarise? GM I suggests an answer that is satisfactory as long as one
considers that treatise in isolation: since slaves and knights relate to each other like lambs and birds
of prey (GM I, 13), anger and resentment seem appropriate reactions for slaves. Similarly, priests
share certain features with knights, but find themselves powerless; so again, anger and resentment
seem appropriate. No further explanation seems needed, nor does Nietzsche offer one in GM I.
However, he is not entitled to leaving the origins ofressentimentunexplained. For the purpose of
his genealogical inquiries is to explain why our emotional lives are what they are. Thus appeals to
what we find intuitively clear are illegitimate.15 Why does the role of knights in the lives of slaves
lead to ressentiment rather than to some other emotion (resignation, sadness, euphoria,
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16 This passage bears a curious similarity with WS 33, Nietzsches most extensive
discussion ofrevenge. There he distinguishes between two kinds of revenge: one of them is a
12
melancholia, apathy, or madness)? This question gains urgency once we have Nietzsches
philosophical anthropology in place, which appears in GM II and which we discuss in section 3.
For then answers to our questions about ressentimentmust be consistent with that account. If these
questions cannot be answered within Nietzsches approach, he fails to account for the origins of
the distinction between good and evil in ways compatible with his own anthropology.
Suggesting a way of integrating ressentimentinto the philosophical anthropology of GM
II, GM III offers potential for a more sophisticated account. Nietzsche begins to make a connection
between ressentimentand his anthropology when he takes up the process of civilization, claiming
that process entails diseasedness (GM III, 13). We have not yet introduced enough material to
explain why Nietzsche thinks of the process of civilization as entailing diseasedness, and what sort
of diseasedness that could be. Yet he emphasizes that this diseasedness is normal (GM III, 14).
He presumably thinks of it as a disease in the same way in which he regards pregnancy as a disease
(GM II, 19). These remarks take us to the point where Nietzsche makes the most significant
statement about the origins ofressentimentin GM:
It is here alone, according to my surmise, that one finds the true physiological causality of
r e s s e n t i m e n t, of revenge, and of their relatives that is, in a longing for anesthetization of pain through
affect this causality has been commonly sought, very mistakenly to me, in the defensive counterblow, a
mere reactive protective measure, a reflex movement in the case of some sudden harm and endangerment,
of the kind that a frog without a head still carries out in order to get rid of a corrosive acid. But the difference
is fundamental: in the one case, one wishes to prevent further damage, in the other case, one wishes, by mean
of a more vehement emotion of any kind, to anesthesize a tormenting, secret pain that is becoming unbearable
and, at least for the moment, to put it out of consciousness (GM III, 15) [my emphasis].16
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defensive mechanism, whereas the other one is a mechanism of restitution or restoration.
17 For a more extensive development of Nietzsches account of guilt see Risse: Nietzsche
on the Origin of the Bad Conscience, loc. cit.; see also Clark: Nietzsches Immoralism, loc. cit.
18 In German-speaking countries, reference to theschlechtes Gewissen is more commonthan reference to the bad conscience in English-speaking countries. The term tends to be used in
a quasi-institutional way, which suggests a translation into English with a direct article.
13
So Ressentiment arises as a physiological reaction against the pain due to the process of
civilization: ressentimentnumbs that pain. As will become clear later, this discussion goes a long
way towards answering the questions of why ressentimentarises and why it is ressentimentthat
numbs that pain rather than any othermechanism that might do so. Yet before we are in any
position to present an account of the origins ofressentimentanswering those questions we must
introduce Nietzsches philosophical anthropology, in section 3, and his discussion ofressentiment
towards onself, in section 4. Suffice it to record for the time being that a satisfactory answer to
those questions is a criterion of adequacy for the account of the origins ofressentimentto be
developed in section 5.
3. Nietzsches Philosophical Anthropology
3.1 So far we have focused on GM I and III, which include most of Nietzsches statements on
ressentiment, but now we must include GM II, which contains his speculative anthropology. 17
While the declared subject of GM II is the bad conscience as a consciousness of guilt, it is by way
of accounting for the bad conscience that Nietzsche develops this anthropology, including,
crucially, his speculations about the origins of the mind.18 Nietzsches account of guilt contains
three components: To begin with, there is an early form of the bad conscience, which has nothing
to do with guilt but is an early form of consciousness, or the inner world (GM II, 16). The second
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14
element is an indebtedness to ancestors and gods. This indebtedness shows first in rituals of
worship, but is later transformed into a domineering feeling that turns into guilt. Nietzsche
characterizes this transformation as a pushing-back of the indebtedness into the original form
of the bad conscience, which is brought about by Christianity. So Christianity is the third
component. While for us the early bad conscience is crucial, I also sketch the other components to
develop both an account of Nietzsches anthropology and an example of how GM accomplishes
one of its goals, namely, to provide pieces of animal psychology, that is, to trace moral emotions
to their raw state (GM III, 20). Section 5 offers such an account ofressentiment.
The early form of the bad conscience originates in people oppressed by the pack of blond
beasts of prey, a conqueror- and master-race, which puts its terrible claws on a perhaps
numerically vastly superior, but formless, still spreading population (GM II,17). Like in
RousseausDiscourse on Inequality, individuals initially live without tight communal organization,
following their instincts for food, shelter, sex, and their drives for aggression. Then more organized
clans start oppressing less organized groups. The oppressed are prevented from letting their
instincts act against others, in particular the aggressive instincts for enmity, cruelty, the lust for
pursuit, for raid, for change, for destruction (GM II,16). Nietzsche calls this inward-direction of
previously outward-directed instincts the internalization of man. He regards it as the origin of any
form of mental life. The term bad conscience at this stage refers to a rudimentary form of the
mind. Prior to the oppression, the inner world is merely thick as extended between two skins,
but as a consequence of the oppression this inner world has spread and unfolded, has taken on
depth, breadth, height to the same degree that mans outward discharging has been inhibited (GM
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19 The image of the skins is curious. Clark/Swensen, suggest that one may think of two
layers of an onion. It is important that Nietzsche assumes that there already is a small inner
world. For that deprives him of the task to explain how there could be any form of inner life atall, as opposed to explaining how it could be expanded. (See Clark, Maudemarie/Swensen, Alan(eds): Nietzsches On the Genealogy of Morality. Cambridge 1998, p.147. Plausibly, Nietzsche
thought this bit of the development of consciousness happened at a pre-social stage. For thedevelopment of consciousness under social pressure, cf. also GS 354, and see also BGE 19.
20 Dostoevsky, Fyodor: Notes from the Underground. New York 1993, p.7.
21 Compare Kant: He discovered in himself an ability to choose his own way of life
without being tied to any single one like the other animals. (Conjectures, loc. cit., p.224).
15
II, 16).19 This painful process leaves man in the position of an incarcerated animal that beats itself
raw on the bars of its cage (GM II, 16). Nietzsche describes the evolution of this early form of the
bad conscience and thus the development of the mind like the outbreak of a disease, just as
Dostoevskis man from the underground states that not only too much consciousness but even
any consciousness at all is a disease.20 This development also provides the foundations forself-
consciousness. As Nietzsche puts it, it is only now that a person gives himself a shape and can
envisage ideal and imaginative events (GM II,18) as part of a vision. Only when the appropriate
kind of inner life exists can individuals thinkaboutthemselves and about themselves in relation
to the world around them and others in it.21
3.2 The second element in Nietzsches account is indebtedness towards ancestors and gods. One
variant of this relationship is the debt (in the form of sacrifices) of offspring towards ancestors for
their contributions to the flourishing of the tribe (GM II, 19). These debts grow the more the tribe
succeeds; eventually, ancestors transfigure into gods. There is no element ofguilt in this
indebtedness. Moralization occurs through the pushing-back of those notions into the conscience,
or more specifically, through the involvement of the badconscience with the concept of God (GM
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22 Cf. A 26: What does moral world order mean? That there is a will of God, once and
for all, as to what man is to do and what he is not to do; that the value of a people, of anindividual, is to be measured according to how much or how little the will of God is obeyed; that
the will of God manifests itself in the destinies of a people, of an individual, as the ruling factor,
that is to say, as punishing and rewarding according to the degree of obedience.
23 It is about that kind of guilt that Kierkegaard is then able to say that [t]he totality of
guilt-consciousness in the single individual before God in relation to an eternal happiness is the
16
II, 21). To explain this pushing back of the indebtedness, we need to introduce Christianity. As
Nietzsche puts it in GM III, 20, only in the hands of the priest, this true artist of the feeling of
guilt, did it take on form oh what a from! Sin for thus reads the priestly reinterpretation of the
animals bad conscience cruelly turned backwards. The priest invents an ethical world order
(sittliche Weltordnung; A 26), a divine order according to which all beings have their special place
in the creation, and according to which character traits are good and actions right insofar as they
are in harmony with the divine will. Many of mans natural instincts come to be seen as
dispositions to violate this order, that is, assins (GM III, 20).22 The suffering the instincts cause
through being dissatisfied and through their struggle with each other is explained as pain from the
struggle of good inclinations against bad ones, or as preliminary punishment for bad dispositions.
Christianity provides a meaning for misery by explaining why it is in order. The pushing back
is a psychological consequence of accepting Christianity. Its endorsement generates a new
sentiment,guilt, which is so strong that it generates a new kind of inner life (and which can only
emerge because of the presence of the original form of the bad conscience). The original
indebtedness turns into a deep sense of failure with respect to what one is first and foremost,
namely, Gods creature: that is, indebtedness turns into guilt. The bad conscience then fixes itself
firmly, eats into him [addition: the debtor, MR], spreads out, and grows like polyp in every breadth
and depth (GM II, 21).23
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religious (Kierkegaard, Sren: Concluding Unscientific Postscript. Two Volumes: eds. and
trans. H. Hong and E. Hong. Princeton: 1992; Vol. 1, p.554; my emphasis).
24 This aspect ofressentimenthas not been prominent in recent writings on ressentiment,but it needs to be appreciated for us to come to terms with the phenomenon Nietzsche was
concerned with. On the other hand, this aspect ofressentimentappeared in discussions ofNietzsche influenced by Heidegger (see 4.5). Koecke distinguishes between ressentimentin thebroader sense and ressentiment in the narrower sense; in the narrower sense it is like theGerman word Grolland is directed against others, while in the broader sense it is directed alsoagainst onself (Koecke, Christian: Zeit des Ressentiments, Zeit der Erlsung. Berlin 1994; p.62
f).
17
Thus the consciousness of guilt has arisen from the interaction of components that have
nothing to do with guilt. This discussion answers questions left open in section 2. In particular we
can see now what pain ressentimentis supposed to numb: it is the pain arising in reaction to forced
socialization. It is also this suffering for which the herd is in search of a meaning (GM III, 28).
Most importantly, GM II offers the framework within which any account of the origins of
ressentimentmust be embedded. It is our second criterion of adequacy for any such account that
it be possible to embed it in this way.
4. Resenting Oneself
4.1 In GM, ressentimentappears primarily as a sentiment slaves and priests feel towards knights
and thus towards others. Only when the priests redirect it does it becomes an emotion slaves have
towards themselves. Yet inEcce Homo, Nietzsche also talks about ressentimenttowards ones own
past, that is, towards oneself, and such ressentiment exists independently of any redirection
orchestrated by the priests.24 This aspect ofressentimentand the corresponding contrast between
the person ofressentimentand a character whom Nietzsche calls the person who turned out well,
der Wohlgeratene, also appears in other writings, but Nietzsche does not use the term
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26 Regarding the theme of not-getting-rid of anything, cf, also BGE 244, where Nietzsche
discusses the Germans and says: The German drags his soul along: whatever he experiences he
drags. He digests his events badly, he never gets done with them; German profundity is often
merely a hard and sluggish digestion. On the subject of being sick of oneself see also GM
III, 14, 16, 20, and see Koecke: Zeit des Ressentiments, loc. cit., p.67, for a list of references to
passages where Nietzsche talks about the triumph of integrating ones past into ones life. The
German expressions that Nietzsche uses in such contexts (such as mit etwas fertig werden) arenot as colloquial as English translations. The discussion ofressentimentin section 6 in Why I AmSo Wise is intertwined with a discussion of disease in general and Nietzsches own disease inparticular. The conflation of these two discussions culminates in the statement that disease is infact a form ofressentiment. It is interesting to compare this passage with an earlier fragment ofthis passage (see Nachlass1887/89, KSA 13, 24[1], p.617) from October or November 1888.There Nietzsche starts with a discussion of disease and then states how bad ressentimentis forone who is sick. So at this stage, the discussions are not as intertwined as they are in the
published version. His decision to publish these thoughts in that intertwined manner may be
interpreted as capturing his own struggle with harmful emotions in response to his illness.
19
connection between the inability to get over anything and ressentimentdeserves investigation.26
4.2 To see why the ability to get over things concerns Nietzsche, recall his discussion of memory
in GM II. Forgetfulness, he claims, is mans natural state. [A] solitary human being who lives like
a beast of preydoes not need consciousness (GS 354), nor does he need a memory. The creation
of memory accompanies socialization, which requires man to become calculable, regular,
necessary (GM II, 1). Socialization is painful. Memory, in particular, is created by cruel means,
while forgetfulness is a bliss:
To close the doors and windows of consciousness for a time; to remain undisturbed by the noise and struggle
of our underworld of utility organs working with and against one another; a little quietness; a littlet a b u l a
r a s aof the consciousness, to make room for new things, above all for the nobler functions and functionaries,
for regulation, foresight, pre-meditation [...] that is the purpose of active forgetfulness, which is like a
doorkeeper, a preserver of psychic order, repose, and etiquette: [...] there could be no happiness, no
cheerfulness, no hope, no pride, nop r e s e n t, without forgetfulness. The man in whom this apparatus of
repression is damaged and ceases to function properly may be compared [...] with a dyseptic he cannot have
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27 While Nietzsche does not develop the theme of forgetting any further in GM, his
discussion bears resemblance to his most extensive discussion of how to relate to the past, the
discussion in the Second Untimely Mediation, On the Use and Disadvantages of History, of
which we will hear more in 4.3. Cf. also BGE 217: Blessed are the forgetful: for they get over
their stupidities, too. For Nietzsche on memory and forgetting, cf. WS 40, D 126, 167, 278, 312.28 For an illuminating and related discussion ofWohlgeratenheit, see also Nachlass1888,
KSA 13, 15[39], p.432. Nietzsche praises this type of person not only for her ability to refrain
from blame (she does not believe in guilt), but also for not acknowledging anything as a
misfortune. Wohlgeratenheitalso appears in theAntichrist, in particular in the final section 62,where it is listed alongside health, beauty, courage, spirit, benevolence of the soul, and life itself
20
done with anything. (GM II, 1)
At the end of this quote we again encounter the inability to get rid of anything. As this passage
suggests, the ascent of memory leads to a new mode of life: it compels individuals to live with their
memories. Individuals may fail to integrate memories into their life in a healthy manner and find
themselves unable to get over things: they cannot release themselves from the grip of memories
and are incapable of giving a shape to their life that allows for an integration of the past without
hampering the present or obstructing the future. Such persons are painfully tied up with the past:
they keep re-feeling it, which is what re-sentire means literally in Latin and which is preserved in
the French re-sentirmore than in the English resent. New events are seen from within this pattern
of painful memories, and thus there are going to be ever more of them. A consequence of the
inability to get over things is to develop the reactions Nietzsche mentions in section 6 of Ecce
Home, Why I am so Wise the affects ofressentiment.27 Yet there are also those who turned out
well (die Wohlgeratenen), as Nietzsche says inEcce Homo (Why I am so Wise, 2):
He [addition: the well-turned-out person, MR] has a taste for what is good for him. [...] Instinctively, he
collects from everything he sees, hears, lives through, h i s sum: he is a principle of selection, he discards
much. [...] He believes neither in misfortune nor in guilt: he comes to terms with himself, with others; he
knows how to f o r g e t -- he is strong enough; hence everything m u s t turn out for his best.28
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as opponents of Christianity (cf. also A 24, A46, A52, and also TI,Errors, 2 ). For theconnection between Wohlgeratenheitand Nietzsches bermensch, see EH,Books, 1, whereNietzsche says that the latter just is a type of highest Wohlgeratenheit. EH,Destininy, 4, puts aparticular spin on Nietzsches use of that term: there he points out that he rejects the type of the
Wohlwollenden and the Wohlttigen, which are the more traditional moral ideals of thebenevolent and the beneficent. The one who turned out well is supposed to replace those types.
29 Dostoevskys Notes from the Underground capture the person ofressentimentwell,and the following passage in particular captures ressentimenttowards ones own past:
There, in its loathsome, stinking underground, our offended, beaten-down, and derided mouse at once
immerses itself in cold, venomous, and above all, everlasting spite. For forty years on end, it will recall its
offense to the last, most shameful details, each time adding even more shameful details of its own,
spitefully taunting and chafing itself with its fantasies. It will be ashamed of its fantasies, but all the same it
will recall everything, go over everything, heap all sorts of figments on itself, under the pretext that they,
too, could have happened, and forgive nothing. It may even begin to take revenge, but somehow in
snatches, with piddling things, from behind the stove, incognito, believing neither in its right to revenge
itself nor in the success of its vengeance, and knowing beforehand that it will suffer a hundred times more
from all its attempts at revenge than will the object of its vengeance, who will perhaps not even scratch at
the bite. On its deathbed it will again recall everything, adding the interest accumulated over all that time,
and.... (p.11).
For discussion of Dostoevskys novel in this context, see Sugarman, Richard: Rancor Against
Time. The Phenomenology of Ressentiment. Hamburg: 1980; chapter 1. Recall the story that
Rousseau relates of himself towards the end of the second book of his Confessions: Rousseau, asa young man, took a ribbon and accused a maid of stealing it. He says that not a single day
passes without the memory of this offense returning to him. See also chapter 5 of Wollheim,
Richard: The Thread of Life. New Haven 1984, which is aptly called The Tyranny of the
Past.
21
Those who turned out well give unity and independence to their lives by dropping harmful
memories. They do not resent their own past because they are not excessively caught up in it.29
4.3 The idea ofressentimenttowards oneself and the contrast between the person ofressentiment
and the person who turned out well can be traced through Nietzsches writings. An early and
illuminating appearance is in the Second Untimely Meditation, On the Use and Disadvantages of
History for Life. While Nietzsche does not use the term ressentiment there, that Meditation
captures the distinction so lucidly that the relevant passages deserve quoting. In UM II, 1, Nietzsche
discusses a character with obvious similarities to the person ofressentimentof his later works:
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22
A human being who would like to feel historically through and through would resemble the one who would
be forced to deprive himself of sleep, or resemble the animal that should live on ruminating and ever repeated
ruminating. So: it is possible to live almost without memory, even to live happily, as the animal demonstrates;
yet it is entirely impossible to live without forgetting. Or, to explain myself even simpler about my topic: there
is a degree of sleeplessness, of ruminating, of historical sense, at which the living is harmed, and ultimately
perishes, be it a human being or a people or a culture.
The person ofressentimentdiscussed inEcce Homo is much the same character captured here. In
particular, that character fails to integrate her memories into her life in a healthy manner. The
contrast between the person ofressentimentand the person who turned out well is captured further
down (where the strength is the strength to grow out of oneself in a characteristic way, to
restructure and incorporate what is past and alien, heal wounds, replace what has been lost, to
recreate broken forms out of oneself):
There are human beings who possess this strength to such a small degree that bleed to death on a single event,
on a single pain, often on a single tender injustice, as on a tiny bloody crack; on the other hand, there are those,
who are touched by the wildest and most atrocious accidents of life and even acts of their own viciousness to
such a small extent that in the midst of all that or briefly afterwards they achieve a decent well-being
(Wohlbefinden) and a kind of calm conscience. The more stronger roots the inner nature of a person has, the
more will he appropriate the past or force it to suit him. [...] What such a nature does not overpower, it knows
how to forget; it is not there any more, the horizon is closed and completely so, and nothing manages to recall
that beyond that same person there are passions, teachings, and ends. [...] Every living being can only be
healthy, strong, and fertile within a horizon; if it is incapable of drawing a horizon around itself [...], it will
fade away or rush into timely destruction.
The similarity of these ideas to those expressed inEcce Homo is obvious. In particular the idea of
a healthy living being as one who can draw a horizon around itself is useful: as opposed to the
person who turned out well, the person ofressentiment cannot isolate himself from disturbing
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30 This idea of an excessively other-directed life is also the key to the intriguing remarks
that Nietzsche makes on the redeemer mentality in theAntichrist; see A 30-35 (cf. alsoNietzsches remarks about the physiological facts on which Buddhism rests in A 20).
23
influences, including harmful memories. The person who turned out well, for Nietzsche, forms the
individual counterpart to a people to whom one attributes a culture; such a people has to be a
single living unity and not fall wretchedly apart into inner and outer, content and form(UM II, 4).
4.4 So the idea ofressentiment towards oneself and the opposing character of the person who
turned out well are important for Nietzsche long before he starts using the word ressentiment. It
is striking that the work in which he arguably found his own voice captures the same distinction
he still draws in his autobiography written right before his collapse. It should be clear also that,
indeed, this form ofressentimentdoes not arise because ressentimenttowards others is redirected,
but is a phenomenon sui generis. This discussion, then, looks at the person ofressentimentfrom
a different angle from the story of slaves, priests, and masters in GM. The person ofressentiment
as he emerges in this discussion lacks unity and independence of character: a person unable to come
to terms with the influences of his environment and the memories of his past, or unable to overcome
the inner turmoil of instincts and inclinations to build her character into a unified self; a person who
cannot close herself off sufficiently much to become whole. Instead, unable to rest in herself, the
person ofressentiment lives both an excessively retrospective and an excessively other-directed
life.30 Let us look at two examples of persons who Nietzsche (at the respective time) believed
turned out well. We will return to both of these examples in the remainder of this study. Consider
first the following remark about Wagner:
The dramatic element in Wagners development is quite unmistakable from the moment when his ruling
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31 Cf. TI, Socrates, 11: to have to fight instincts is the formula for decadence: while life is
rising, happiness equals instincts. Cf. BGE 200, BGE 208. BGE 258 describes as corruption theexpression of a threatening anarchy within the instincts. A 6 states that an animal, an species,
an individual is corrupt if it loses its instincts, if it chooses what is detrimental.
32 The passage from EH, Wise, 2 at the end of 4.2 provides a third example; as Nietzschesays at the very end of that section (which I think is one of Nietzsches most beautiful), he is
describing himself. That passage has strong similarities in particular with the Goethe passage.
24
passion became aware of itself and took his nature in its charge: from that time on there was an end to
fumbling, straying, to the proliferation of secondary shoots, and within the most convoluted courses and often
daring trajectories assumed by his artistic plans there rules a single inner law, a will by which they can be
explained. (UM IV, 2)
By way of contrast with such self-mastery, note what we read in the Twilight about the
degeneration Socrates finds in Athens: no one was any longer master over himself, the instincts
turned against one another (TI, Socrates, 9).31 The Twilightalso contains the other passage I would
like to discuss:
G o e t h e not a German event, but a European one [...] He bore the strongest instincts within himself: the
sensibility, the idolatry of nature, the anti-historic, the idealistic, the unreal and revolutionary (the latter being
merely a form of the unreal). He sought help from history, natural science, antiquity, and also Spinoza, but,
above all, from practical activity [...] What he wanted wast o t a l i t y; he fought the mutual extraneousness
of reason, senses, feeling, and will (preached with the most abhorrent scholasticism by Kant, the antipode of
Goethe); he disciplined himself to wholeness, he c r e a t e d himself. (Skirmishes, 49)32
These passages throw light on the counter part of the person ofressentimentin a context different
from the slave/master stories of GM. The person who turned out well is a person with the unity and
independence of character the person ofressentimentlacks. We can now see why the characters
Nietzsche admires include artists like Goethe and Wagner, on the one hand, and the masters of GM
I, on the other. Both types are more whole human beings (BGE 257) than the person of
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33 Richardson: Nietzsches System, loc. cit., p.62.
34 Cf. also GS 294: Noble individuals are not afraid of themselves, so Nietzsche tells us.
The noble are the one who come to terms with their past; see BGE 211 and BGE 287. Nietzsche
creates no illusions about the masters of the first treatise: Roman, Arabian, Germanic, Japanesenobility, Homeric heroes, Scandinavian Vikings, they are not much better than uncaged beasts
of prey in the world outside where the strange, the foreign, begin (GM I, 11).
35 See also the Tarantula passage in part II; Nietzsche says there: For that man bedelivered from revenge, that is for me the bridge to the highest hope, and a rainbow after long
storms. The tarantula is the spirit of revenge.
25
ressentiment, but in different ways. One way of being more whole than a tormented character is not
to have been exposed to the process leading to the inner turmoil (and one difference between
masters and slaves, as Richardson says, is that masters can act on their instincts, whereas slaves
cannot;33
another way is having overcome and mastered that turmoil.34
In light of these insights
about ressentimentthat become visible only if once focuses on ressentimenttowards oneself, we
need to formulate a third criterion of adequacy for our account of the origins of ressentiment,
namely, that it illuminate both ressentimenttowards others and ressentimenttowards onself.
4.5 We cannot leave the subject ofressentimenttowards oneself without drawing attention to the
reception this problem has received within the Heidegger-inspired discussion of Nietzsche and thus
to a passage in Zarathustra, which also bears on the subject of ressentiment towards onself.
Specifically, the problem that has received such attention is that of a persons resentment towards
his own finitude and temporality, or, to use the title of Sugarmans book on that subject, herrancor
against time. Relevant passages for this discussion are inZarathustra, especially in the section
onRedemption in Part II:35
To redeem those who lived in the past and to recreate all it was into a thus I willed it that alone should
I call redemption. Will that is the name of the liberator and joy-bringer [...] Willing liberates; but what is it
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36 Heidegger, Martin: What is Thinking? New York 1954; and Heidegger: Who is
Nietzsches Zarathustra? In: D. Allison (ed.):The New Nietzsche. New York 1977.
37
Sugarman, Rancor Against Time, loc. cit., p.97.38 For more discussion, see Sugarman, Rancor Against Time, loc. cit.; Koecke, Zeit des
Ressentiments, loc. cit.; Mller-Lauter, Wolfgang: Der Geist der Rache und die Ewige
Wiederkehr Zu Heideggers Spter Nietzsche-Interpretation. In: F. W. Korff: Redliches
Denken, Stuttgart 1981, and references therein. Cf. also the end of chapter 2 of Staten, Henry:Nietzsches Voice. Ithaca 1990.
26
that puts even the liberator himself in fetters? It was that is the name of the wills gnashing of teeth and
most secret melancholy. Powerless against what as been done, he is an angry spectator of all that is past. [...]
This, indeed this alone, is what revenge is: the wills ill will against time and its it was.
Heidegger dwells a lot on this and adjacent passages, in particular in his essay Who is Nietzsches
Zarathustra? and his lectures on What is Called Thinking? 36While it is obvious that the theme
of rancor against time was of interest to Heidegger, we cannot pursue this theme and its connection
to other topics (e..g., eternal recurrence). Yet we should briefly address one claim that has been
made in this context: the claim that Nietzsche asserted that the ultimate ground of ressentiment
was mans relation to his own finitude and temporality. 37 On this reading, ressentimentoriginated
in rancor against time, and ressentimenttowards others derives from it. Yet there does not seem
to be any textual evidence that Nietzsche thought that rancor against time was the ultimate
ground ofressentiment. At any rate, this seems rather implausible. However, it will be easier to
say why after we have presented an account of the origins ressentiment. Let us proceed to that
account, then, without further ado.38
5. The Origins ofRessentiment
5.1 This section presents an account of the origins ofressentimentthat meets the three criteria of
adequacy: it answers the question of why it is ressentiment, rather than any other emotion, that
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39 On the general subject of proposing conjectural history, consider Kants introductory
words to his Conjectures on the Beginning of Human History, which are relevant here:To introduce conjectures at various points in the course of an historical account in order to fill gaps in the
record is surely permissible. [...] But to base a historical account solely on conjectures would seem little
better than drawing up a plan for a novel. Indeed, such an account could not be described as a conjectural
history at all, but merely as a work of fiction. Nevertheless, what may be presumptuous to introduce in the
course of a history of human actions may well be permissible with reference to the first beginnings of thathistory, for if the beginning is a product of nature, it may be discoverable by conjectural means (emphases
omitted). Kant: Conjectures, loc. cit., p.221)
Note that Kant presupposes that human beings are fully developed to trace what is relevant in
human history for ethical purposes (p.223). He also assumes that there is a natural sense of
decency, an inclination to inspire respect in others by good manners ( pp.224/25). What Kant
takes as given is what for Nietzsche does all the work.
27
arises within Nietzsches story; it is embedded into Nietzsches anthropology developed in GM II;
and it explains why both ressentimenttowards others and ressentimenttowards oneself arise. While
this section bears on issues in the philosophy of mind and in biology and psychology, the level of
sophistication at which we pursue them will not transcend that of section 3. As is customary in such
reconstructions motivated by normative concerns, we make the undefended assumption that, in
principle, it is possible to translate this discussion into those terms. The account is not only
speculative in the sense in which Nietzsches anthropology is; it is speculative also in the sense that
what I can show is that this account is consistent with what Nietzsche says and kept in that spirit.
I claim my account is Nietzschean in just that way; I do not claim it is Nietzsches, strictly
speaking. I do not take that to be a problem.39
Ressentimentoriginates in a state of mind that arises when the mind becomes conscious of
itself under circumstances in which deep-rooted anger and resentment are already present in the
mind. Anger and resentment arise because the mind evolves in response to the oppression of
aggressive instincts. For the mind to become conscious of itself means for it to become able to refer
to and reflect upon itself, perhaps by forming representations of itself or beliefs, emotions, or other
entities inside or constitutive of it, perhaps in other, non-representational ways. Once the mind
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40 A remark on my talk about origins ofressentiment is appropriate at this stage. What Iam trying to identify is a physiological state that accounts for the phenomenology of
ressentimentprominent throughout the Genealogy, that is consistent with the speculativeanthropology I ascribe to Nietzsche, and that also explains how there is both ressentimentwithregard to others and with regard to oneself. (These are the three criteria of adequacy.) Depending
on ones views on mental ontology, one may think of that physiological state as the origin of
ressentiment, or its physiological root, or as ressentiment, as understood from a physiologicalpoint of view, or as understood from the standpoint of animal psychology. So does this account
provide an answer to the question of what ressentimentactually is? It does, in the sense that itassesses what ressentimentis, again, from the standpoint of Nietzschean animal psychology.
28
is capable of referring to itself, anger and resentment find targets inside the mind, becoming
directed against the mind itself. Nietzsche may say ofressentimentwhat he says of guilt: that it
fixes itself firmly, eats into him, spreads out, and grows like a polyp in every breadth and depth
(GM II, 21). It is through ressentiment(as much as through guilt) that the human soul became d
e e p (GM I, 6) a remark that has a peculiar literalness to it.40
5.2 To see what this means and how it may be plausible, let us elaborate on what it is for a mind
to become conscious of itself. The character of the mental changes in response to the internalization
(cf. section 3). While Nietzsche does not explain this development in any detail, it is plausible that
the process of the mind becoming conscious of itself brings about a perception of itself as persisting
through time, and thus as accumulating memories of itself developing, on the one hand, and as
being different from other external entities, such as persons and objects, on the other hand. This
claim can be spelled out in different ways, depending on whether one is willing to talk about
selves and depending on how one understands the embeddedness of the mind both within a
chronological sequence of stages of itself (past, present, future) and within an external
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41 This paragraph touches on many issues. To mention just one careful discussion of these
matters, cf. Taylor, Charles: Sources of the Self. Cambridge 1989, part 1, and references therein.
29
environment.41 All we need for present purposes is that we understand the emergence of the minds
awareness of itself as its forming a conception of itself by becoming able to identify itself through
time and by being able to demarcate itself from other entities.
This elaboration on the nature of self-consciousness provides a framework to offer a
proposal for the development of (first) anger and resentment and (then) ressentiment. Plausibly,
anger and resentment arise in response to the oppression of instincts. Those sentiments, or
rudimentary forms thereof, emerge in virtue of the nature of what is being oppressed, namely,
aggressive instincts. Nietzsches image of the animal that finds itself incarcerated and bites itself
raw on the bars of its cage is helpful (cf. GM II, 16): where previously instincts could be
discharged against other animals, anger and resentment grow. Contrary to Aristotles classic
account in theRhetoric (1378a34), this kind of anger is not directed against any specific individual,
any more than the aggression of the earlier instincts was directed against anybody in particular
(except in the sense that they would be targets). Once the mind becomes conscious of itself,
something new happens: anger and resentment resulting from the oppression of instincts are now
directed against mental representations of the mind itself. While any representation in the mind
provides internal targets for anger and resentment replacing the former external targets of
aggressive instincts now beyond reach, the minds becoming self-conscious increases the range of
such internal targets by including representations of the mind itself, including memories of its
development. Since the mind is from the beginning on an angry and resentful mind, anger and
resentment now spread and start referring to whatever the mind itself is capable of referring. My
suggestion is to refer to the state of mind arising in this way as the physiological origin of
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43 Persons of ressentimentand those who turned out well do not constitute disjointgroups; rather, those notions denote somewhat abstract types, in the spirit of BGE 260, where
Nietzsche claims that slave and master morality can occur in the same individual. As Nietzsche
says, a distinguishing feature of the higher nature, the more spiritual nature, is to be [...] a
battle ground for these opposites (GM I, 16). In GM I, 10, Nietzsche explicitly acknowledges
that ressentimentmay appear in the noble man, but then it consummates and exhausts itself inan immediate reaction, and therefore does not poison. See the beginning of chapter 2 of Staten,
Nietzsches Voice, loc. cit., for an illuminating discussion of anger that cannotbe acted on innobles in the Iliad. Also, it has been objected that, ifressentimentis tied to self-consciousness inthe manner I suggest, it becomes rather puzzling how anybody could turn out well. However,
my account tells a causal story about this connection, and none that rules out the existence of
exceptions. And clearly, individuals unaffected by ressentimentare quite exceptional.
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in such a way that it is not dominated by internal turmoil. This second manner of being a person
who turned out well is particularly significant to Nietzsche, and both the quote about Wagner and
the quote about Goethe above describe persons who turned out well in this sense.43
5.3 This account leaves questions open, but what is crucial does not stand and fall with the details.
Crucial is that the mind is a product of socialization; that the development of the mind is a painful
process set in motion by the violent oppression of aggressive instincts, so that pain, anger, and
resentment are present in the mind from the beginning on and thus when the self-conscious mind
develops; and that anger and resentment are directed against the mind itself when it becomes self-
conscious. Nietzsches account constitutes the same sort of speculation about socialization and its
impact on individuals that Rousseau develops in hisDiscourse on the Origin of Inequality, Kant
in his Conjectures on the Beginnings of Human History, and Freud in Civilization and Its
Discontents, despite all the differences.
Why is it appropriate to regard this account as Nietzschean? I argue this in two stages, first
by suggesting that Nietzsches claims about ressentimentand its impact in GM can be developed
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44 The same is true for the phenomenology ofressentimentcaptured by Scheler:Ressentiment, loc. cit.
45 In the background of this statement is what I take to be a statement of Nietzsches
explanatory methodology in the Genealogy:Every animal [...] instinctively strives for an optimum of favorable conditions in which fully to release his
power and achieve his maximum feeling of power; every animal abhors equally instinctively, with an acute
sense of smell higher than all reason, any kind of disturbance and hindrance which blocks or could block
his path to the optimum (GM III, 7).
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based on this account of the origins ofressentiment,44 and then by showing that this account meets
our three criteria of adequacy. As far as the first point is concerned, I only offer a rough sketch.
Recall the slaves and the priests. Persons ofressentiment, they lack the self-assuredness and
healthy kind of self-centeredness of the person who turned out well. (BGE 265 points out that
egoism is a feature of the noble soul.) They become excessively other-directed. The priests are
energetic and creative types who nevertheless have failed to turn out well: neither are they in any
position to keep discharging their instincts, nor have they mastered their own inner life in the
manner of Wagner or Goethe. For these reasons they feel driven to assert their will to power by
developing stories depicting a world different from the actual one; a world in which they are
successful.45 One such story is the Christiansittliche Weltordnung. Slaves share with priests the
ressentiment, but unlike the priests, they are weak and uncreative. However, they are only too
willing to endorse the story the priests tell. For it is a story in which their existence obtains a
meaning that in their own perception it fails to have. At the same time, slaves provide the following
the priests want so badly. Living in a state ofressentiment, slaves and priests suffer from reality
(A 15), and are trying to lie themselves out of reality. What we have identified as the origins of
ressentiment is what Nietzsche might call the physiological root of morality. Morality arises
because of the ensuing interaction between the two types of persons affected by ressentiment, on
the one hand, and between the persons ofressentimentand those who turned out well, on the other.
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46 This is argued in Risse, Nietzsche on the Origin of the Bad Conscience, loc. cit.
47 In Civilization and Its Discontents, Freud writes that the sense of guilt is the mostimportant problem in the development of civilization and that the price we pay for our advance
in civilization is a loss of happiness through the heightening of the sense of guilt (Freud,
Sigmund: Civilization and Its Discontents. New York 1961, p.97). What is unclear is whether the
kind of guilt Nietzsche thought can be overcome coincides with what Freud thought of as the
price of civilization.
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Next I show that this account meets the three conditions of adequacy. The first criterion is
satisfied straightforwardly. It is anger and resentment rather than other emotions that emerge
because of the oppression of instincts. Anger and resentment arise when aggressive instincts are
pushed back into the early and rudimentary form of the mind (cf. GM, II, 21). The intimate
connection ofressentimentwith socialization also explains why ressentimentis the basic notion
of GM, prior both to the notion of guilt and to the emergence of ascetic ideals. Guilt, for Nietzsche,
can be overcome.46 Yet since aggressive instincts characterize human beings as they are by nature,
anger and resentment are typical phenomena accompanying civilization, and it is bound to be the
exception that an individual has overcome or avoided the tormented state thus produced. Pace
Freud, Nietzsche thinks that ressentiment, rather than guilt, is the price of civilization.47
The second criterion is also satisfied: our account proceeds within the confines set and the
language provided by Nietzsches anthropology. Anger and ressentimentare explained within that
model, just as guilt was earlier. The basic, unexplained component of Nietzsches speculative
anthropology is the aggressive instincts. The mind and emotions such as guilt and ressentimentare
among the explananda of his genealogy. This account of the origins ofressentimentis therefore
fully embedded into Nietzsches attempt to provide an animal psychology (cf. GM III, 20) and
thus justifies the prominence that he assigns to ressentimentin GM. Finally, the third criterion is
satisfied as well. By tying ressentiment to the emergence of self-consciousness, the account
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48 It has been objected that this account does not explain
49 Korsgaard: Sources of Normativity, loc. cit., p.158.
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explains why Nietzsche thinks ofressentimentas directed both against others and against oneself.
Ressentimentis directed against others from the beginning on, simply because anger and resentment
derive from aggressive instincts.Ressentimentbecomes directed against oneself as soon as the mind
becomes capable of reflecting on itself. We can now also see why it is implausible to think of
rancor against time as the ultimate ground ofressentiment, as Sugarman suggests. For the starting
point of our account must be the oppression of instincts, which is the seminal event in the
development of the mind and in the process of civilization. But since those instincts are other-
directed from the beginning on, it would be implausible if, after their oppression, a form of
ressentimenttowards oneselfwould be fundamental for the development ofressentimenttowards
others. Suggesting this means misunderstanding what is explanans and what is explanandum in the
Genealogy.48
6. Sources of Normativity and Unity of Agency
6.1 Exploring the origins ofressentiment, we have arrived at the debate about the sources of
normativity, that is, about what justifies moral claims. In a seminal contribution to this debate,
Korsgaard argues that Nietzsches views are harmonious with hers, taking this as providing
support for her account.49 Yet while both Korsgaards Kant and Nietzsche tie morality to the
emergence of self-consciousness, GM is an exercise in animal psychology detached from the
endeavor to deduce the moral law. Thus some clarification of the relationship between the accounts
is in order. This discussion further illuminates the nature of Nietzsches account and the contrast
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50 As I pointed out in section 1, in this study, we are not concerned with questions of Kant
scholarship. So we will simply take Korsgaards reading of Kants Groundworkfor granted.
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between the person ofressentimentand the person who turned out well; it also brings to bear our
discussion on a debate in contemporary ethics.50
The guiding idea of Korsgaards account is that the capacity to value is grounded in the
reflective nature of the mind: what the mind can and must value is constrained thereby. In virtue
of being reflective human beings must view desires and impulses from a position of deliberative
detachment and decide which ones to act on. To be able to make such choices and thus to be able
to act for reasons presupposes some conception under which the agent finds life worth living.
Without such a conception she does not know how to choose to act on some desires rather than any
others. This conception constitutes the agents practical identity. While his reasons express an
agents identity, obligation stems from what is inconsistent with it. For such an identity to belong
to a unified decision-maker there must be a principle governing her choices to guarantee that she
makes similar choices under similar circumstances. Otherwise, her choices would merely constitute
a set of disconnected phenomena. Thus the reflective nature of the agents consciousness forces
her choices to be governed by a law. So far we have disregarded other agents. To make the
connection, note that these considerations aim to show that agents have a practical identity in virtue
of being animals capable of reflection, which makes them human. Our humanity, then, is the
source of our ability to bestow value: we must value our humanity if we are to value anything. But
since we must value our humanity, we must also value it in others. This entails that no rational
being should ever be used merely as a means, and not as an end. For suppose any rational being is
used merely as a means. Then he would be used merely as a means to something that has value
only because rational agency confers it. This is a practical perversity at best, and possibly even a
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51 This is the Formula of Humanity version of the Categorical Imperative; cf. Korsgaard,
Christine: Creating the Kingdom of Ends. Cambridge 1996, chapter 4, and also Wood, Allen:
Kants Ethical Thought. Cambridge 1999, chapter 4. Many details remain to be filled in here.
But the subsequent discussion does not turn on such details.
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kind of contradiction. Moral agency, on the Kantian view, is shaped by consistency
considerations.51
6.2 While both Korsgaards Kant and Nietzsche tie morality to the emergence of self-
consciousness, the differences between their accounts are formidable. To begin with, self-
consciousness enters the accounts in drastically different ways. For Kant, the self-conscious mind
(reason) must decide which desires become reasons for acting: the mind enters that account as
executing an activity. Yet on our Nietzschean account, reflectivity never occurs as an activity
beyond mere self-referentiality. Self-consciousness enters only to explain how anger and
resentment turn against the agent herself. Nietzsches report on Wagner discussed above
demonstrates the functioning of the mind:
The dramatic element in Wagners development is quite unmistakable from the moment when his ruling
passion became aware of itself and took his nature in its charge: from that time on there was an end to
fumbling, straying, to the proliferation of secondary shoots (my emphasis). (UM IV, 2)
So Nietzsche and Kant agree that the outcome of that first experiment whereby man became
conscious of his reason as a faculty which can extend beyond the limits to which all animals are
confined was of great importance, and it influenced his way of life decisively (which is the quote
from Kants Conjectures at the beginning of this essay). Yet they differ in what this amounts to.
A second contrast stands out. Since the Kantian account grounds morality in reflectivity, a rational
agent by herself can reconstruct the shape of morality by deducing the moral law. The social
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52 Schacht argues for a thoroughly social interpretation of normativity according to
Nietzsche (Schacht, Richard: Nietzschean Normativity. In Schacht (ed.): Nietzsches
Postmoralism, Cambridge 2001.) While I agree with much of his discussion, I think the
development of the mind needs to be integrated more than Schacht allows. Note also that
Nietzsches account is developed in an entirely different argumentative genre from Korsgaards.
Nietzsches account is an exercise in animal psychology, consisting of conjectural natural
history. Nietzsche is concerned to detach certain inquiries from philosophical a priori
investigation and move them into the realm of empirically-minded inquiries. (As he says in BGE
19, morality (Moral) is to be understood as the theory of the conditions of power under whichthe phenomenon life arises.) As opposed to that, Korsgaards is a transcendental argument,
exploring what is conceptually involved in a rational agents reflectivity.
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context becomes important only (possibly) by furnishing facts to which the law must be applied,
or (ideally) by facilitating obedience to it. On our Nietzschean account, morality is a social
phenomenon shaped by the interaction between the types ofressentimentand those who turned out
well. The evolution of the different kinds of mind these types possess is only part of that account.52
While these differences may suggest that there is no fruitful engagement between those accounts,
they do engage more than this comparison seems to allow. For both Nietzsche and Korsgaards
Kant endorse an ideal ofunity of agency. For Korsgaard, obligation stems from what the agents
practical identity forbids: violating obligations is jeopardizing ones unity through acting contrary
to how one must conceive of oneself in virtue of being a reflective agent. In particular, one
jeopardizes this unity by valuing any other rational agents humanity less than ones own. Yet
Nietzschecontrasts the person responsible for morality (the person ofressentiment) with the person
characterized by wholeness and unity (the person who turned out well). While for Kant moral
agency is constitutive of unity of agency, for Nietzsche those two come apart. Exploring the
discrepancies between these ideals is our final task. Since Korsgaards picture has gained much
visibility, our goal is to make Nietzsches ideal intelligible and to suggest that it is defensible and
philosophically interesting.
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53 Note EHs insistence on those physiological matters see, e.g., EH, Clever, 1 and 10.
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6.3 What characterizes unity for Nietzsche is the ability to maintain a healthy self-centeredness and
self-assuredness, the ability to draw a horizon around oneself (cf. UM I, 1). Too much
recognition of others undermines an agents unity. The practical identity of a person who turned
out well is shaped by physiological facts about himself, facts that determine what actions are
beneficial to him. As far as Nietzsche himself is concerned,Ecce Homo abounds in such facts.53
And in a passage in theAntichristthat is unusually informative about his views on Kant, Nietzsche
writes:
One more word against Kant as moralist. A virtue must be o u r o w n invention, o u r most necessary self-
expression and self-defense: any other kind of virtue is merely a danger. Whatever is not a condition of our
life h a r m
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