Topics Philosophers

Question I have a question about something Nietzsche said in <i>Twilight of the Idols</i>. Under morality of physicians he writes "... some advice for our dear pessimists and other decadents. It is not in our hands to prevent our birth; but we can correct this mistake- for in some cases it is a mistake. When one does away with oneself, one does the most estimable thing possible. one almost earns the right to live." Is Nietzsche advocating suicide for weak-minded people? joe s.

Accepted:
April 6, 2006

Comments

As always with Nietzsche the context needs to be reconstructed. The passage as a whole is addressed to physicians, but the claim you quote is addressed to ‘pessimists’; to those who would renounce life and its values, while continuing to live. Nietzsche is simply asking such pessimists to take seriously their own position. However, we shouldn’t miss the irony of the last phrase: ‘one almost earns the right to live’. Pessimism, on Nietzsche’s analysis, is actually a kind of perverse clinging to life, defending one’s mode of life. So, to be capable of ending it would also mean to not be a pessimist. It would be a contradiction in act.

To my mind, the dominant idea in this section, and a beautiful one at that, is the notion of ‘death at the right time’, earlier. This is an affirmation of a generalised suicide, of ‘death chosen freely …[that] makes it possible to have a real leave-taking’. He contrasts this with a Christian attitude towards death, as the last chance to repent, as the last chance for morality to take advantage of one weakened (aided by medicine that will ensure one becomes very weak indeed before dying), and thus as an imposition of a value judgement on a life. If we take Nietzsche at his word, he is in fact advocating suicide – or at least control over the manner of one’s death – for, to use your phrase, the strong of mind.

Putting aside Nietzsche’s often worrying rhetoric, there is a nice contribution here to the debate about the continuing validity of the Hippocratic Oath.