There is the classic riddle about liars and truth-tellers and a man who is trying to find the village of people who tell the truth. It’s a wonderful riddle and what’s interesting about why the riddle exists is also important for why morality exists.
The trick of the riddle is finding a question for which the liar and the truth-teller will always give the same answer. What’s interesting about this riddle if one wants to be artistic and probe the character of these liars is that they are not so dishonest that their lies become entirely meaningless.
If I were really a liar or an immoral liar, he would not settle for small lies. This liar is both ignorant and obstinate. If our riddler asked him which way was town he was from, he’d say the riddler had actually passed it. He would direct him backwards. A sarcastic liar might say “It’s up. If you hit the moon, you’ve gone too far.” I could even imagine a liar who might answer, “I’m from both towns and also I’m a citizen of the world.”
We certainly have evolved and progressed the art of lying since Kant’s time.
What I hope to illuminate through this example is that there are moral and immoral ways to lie. In fact, if Kant’s moral philosophy is, as I claim, not so much a general philosophy but a very specific case of moral philosophy, then Nietzsche’s philosophy and his criticism of morality is also based in criticizing an enormously specific case of morality, as well.
Kant’s philosophy, although I cannot begin to claim I am aware of his entire project, does explicitly and controversially claim that it is never right to lie. Even if your own friend is going to murdered, a moral man cannot lie about where his friend is. Kant’s claim is obviously false, but it’s not obvious why. To understand why it fails, we have to unwind deeply held beliefs about freedom, autonomy, and humanity. Despite many scholar’s great attempts to refute it, there is no easy out for claiming that lying is ever the right thing to do.
In fact, it probably requires an entirely new definition of lying.
We can credit Nietzsche with composing forceful criticisms of parts of Kant’s philosophy, especially the idea that morality dictates that humans become soulless automatons without personal desires. One of Nietzsche’s most famous words extends our understanding of Kantian automatons by giving them an emotional state: resentment.
As Kant agues that that morality is following rules for the sake of goodness itself. Morality comes from duty. This enraged Nietzsche. Who knows how many happy years Nietzsche could have lived if Kant had never written a word of philosophy? Nietzsche in many ways can be called the anti-Kant. This is not a bad thing, because we have a simple form to create more philosophy. Kant created a special case of morality. Nietzsche created an overly specific critique of that form of morality and over-generalized it to all morality.
Here, I wish to offer the Moral Question and the Moral Demonstration as possible syntheses to the controversies between Kant and Nietzsche philosophy which continue to divide the world in half, between a delusional but well-meaning group that can’t exist without god and a clear-eyed bitter narcissist who would destroy the world as a celebration of his own power.
If Kant’s philosophy inspires resentment then Nietzsche’s philosophy inspires psychopathy, which is someone who believes that dictating another person’s desire is better than surrendering your own.
It’s worth noting that both Kant and Nietzsche advocate for a kind of autonomy as the ultimate end. Kant believes that autonomy based on mutual respect will create a Kingdom of Ends. It is a world without romantic relations or at least monogamous romantic relationships that are meant for personal satisfaction. Consider this an extension of the Categorical Imperative. The love one gives to one person is the love that person should give to all people. This is why Kant, iff he’d been a good philosopher, would have a been a polygamist.
Kant’s autonomy is one of respect and Nietzsche’s philosophy is one of disrespect.
So, much like our riddle, I wonder to myself if there is a synthesis that we could find between the Nietzscheans and the Kantians where we could make them give the same answer. In considering how to explain the moral question and the moral demonstration, I wonder if my answer will be considered too generous to Kant’s side. I’ve been thinking of this for so long that Nietzsche’s disciples answering yes to the moral question seems more like a given to me then a point of controversy.
The moral question is simple enough. We ask anyone if they are a moral person and in order for this person to reap the benefits of the social contract, they must be willing to answer yes to that question. “Are you a moral person?”
Person two answer, “Yes.”
It’s just like the riddle. So, even though I am sure some my readers are thinking, “But Nietzscheans ought to say no. You’re just dressing up a strawman Nietzschean and filling him with Kant.”
Hopefully, this will be a compelling argument. A Nietzschean does not answer yes to the moral question because they believe in morality. They answer yes to the moral question because of their own self-interest. Answering yes to the moral question allows the Nietzschean to act in a sphere where their c disposition is unsuspected.
So for any reader who might imagine a Nietzschean answering no to the moral question I must ask why? Does anti-Morality demand the same truth that morality does only to anti-Truth? This is doubtful. Another synthesis between Nietzsche and Kant could be found in how they would answer the question, “How do you feel about telling the truth?” The Kantian would say, “I hate it sometimes, but I have to be honest” whereas the Nietzschean might say “I hate it, but I won’t lie.” Speaking the truth can sometimes cause resentment, but that’s the good kind of resentment. Speaking the truth and saying something like, “Well, I’m going to go die a war so I can go to heaven,” is the kind of resentment that rises up from a lie, the bad kind of resentment.
This is why I say the moral question can be the beautiful synthesis of Kant and Nietzsche, because by forcing Nietzscheans follow a rule for their own self-interest while revealing the Kantians the importance of extending one’s intentions into an act or appearance of morality. By systematically rewarding people for being moral and confessing their morality, we actually kill Kantianism altogether.
So, for those who thought this synthesis was too generous to Kantians since it has the appearance of demanding a categorical answer to the moral question, we in fact kill Kant and allow Nietzsche to hide.
As strange as this might sound, if we want to grow morality in the world, we have to create an economy of kindness and use capitalistic principles to grow that kindness metric and supply anyone who answers yes to the moral question with systematic benefits. This won’t be a toothless measure either as the next section will explore the moral demonstration to use the moral question to begin building our capitalism of kindness.