Dawn. Thoughts on the moral prejudice

Friedrich Nietzsche, 1882 (photograph by Gustav-Adolf Schultze )

Dawn. Thoughts on moral prejudices (original title: Morgenröthe. Thoughts on moral prejudices ) is a philosophical work by Friedrich Nietzsche published in early July 1881 .

In the book, which consists of aphorisms of different lengths, Nietzsche questioned the origin and the truth content of moral and religious systems. In doing so, he contrasted the tragic pathos of a Christian existence with the contemplative happiness of a knower and interpreted the ecstasy of faith as a psychopathological phenomenon.

At Dawn , Nietzsche first sketched the outlines of his concept of the will to power , which he developed in greater detail in his work Also sprach Zarathustra from 1883–1885 .

content

Title of the first edition

The work, which is divided into five books, consists of 575 aphorisms ranging from a few lines to a few pages.

In the Dawn , Nietzsche examined human life and culture in a comprehensive, reevaluating symptomatology , which he described in the preface as “the work of the deep”. This continued process of questioning led him to a comprehensive destruction of the trust "on which we philosophers have used to build for a few millennia as if on the safest ground, [...] although every building has collapsed so far." Morality as the basis of culture appears as Kirke , as the “master of seduction.” Nietzsche prepared to “go deeper” and “undermine our trust in morality.”

As in other works, the "poet-philosopher" also played with different literary forms here, but renounced the lyrical poem that otherwise appears in his works .

Even if Nietzsche derived moral and religious ideas in many parts of the work, as in the previous book Menschliches, Allzumenschliches , genetically and historically, the basis of his argument shifted: if he had previously tried to fathom the essence of cultural phenomena through research on origin, this approach now came in favor a psychological- phenomenological procedure further back. If it was previously assumed that man's salvation depended on the insight into the origin of things, one can now see that “our valuations and interests that we have placed in things begin to lose their meaning [...] with insight In the origin the insignificance of the origin increases: while the next one, the around us and in us gradually begins to show colors and beauties and riddles […].

While for Immanuel Kant the forms of perception ( transcendental aesthetics ) and categories of understanding formed the limits and requirements of human knowledge, Nietzsche saw them in the organization of the body and the will to know, which are anchored in human nature. So the question arose for him whether and how moral actions are possible at all. Since the subject is not aware of his inner world , his consciousness cannot adequately survey and assess the consequences of the action, it is not possible to judge them in a morally appropriate manner.

Origin and preface

Jean-Jacques Rousseau , a “moral tarantula” for Nietzsche, pastel by Maurice Quentin de La Tour , 1753

In the winter of 1880/81 Nietzsche wrote the fair copy under the working title “Die Pflugschar. Thoughts on moral prejudices ”and, with the support of Heinrich Köselitz , prepared the print manuscript by mid-March 1881.

The second edition appeared in 1887, with a preface written in 1886. In it he described his work as that of a “subterranean”, “digging, undermining”, whose consolation after a long darkness could be to have at some point, “your own morning, your own redemption, your own dawn”.

Nietzsche also clearly placed morality in the foreground of his criticism, a morality that commanded “any kind of terrifying means”, “in order to keep critical hands and instruments of torture at bay.” She understands every “devilry of persuasion” , know how to inspire and can paralyze the critical will, yes, turn against "itself ..." that it "sticks the sting into its own body like the scorpion."

So far, all philosophers have worked under their seductive influence and in the naive belief that they are guided by certainty and truth , but ultimately to build the “majestic moral edifice”, as Immanuel Kant had called it. Kant is a typical representative of his century with his enthusiastic intention to make the basis of morality solid. Like others, he was stung by the "moral tarantula" Jean-Jacques Rousseau , and moral fanaticism was no more alien to him than Robespierre .

background

Since the dawn , unlike the human and all- too- human, initially received little public response, Nietzsche wrote to his friend Köselitz on August 14, 1881, resignedly, that no one had experienced anything through him, no one had thought about him. What respectable and benevolent things are said about him is very far from him. Even Jacob Burckhardt wrote only a "small loud, despairing little letter."

Nietzsche recommended to his sister Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche that he read Dawn from a personal perspective related to the author, from which he would otherwise advise all other readers. She should look for everything that reveals the personal wishes of her author.

According to a letter to Karl Knortz , Dawn and the Happy Science were the most likable and personal of his middle books.

In his late book Götzen-Dämmerung , Nietzsche placed the authors Rousseau (“or the return to nature in impuris naturalibus”) and Kant (“or cant as an intelligible character”) criticized in Dawn , alongside the other “impossible” such as Schiller , whom he himself referred to as the "moral trumpeter von Säckingen".

meaning

If Nietzsche records the most important traditions of the history of European philosophy in sensualism and phenomenalism , this has two consequences for his moral philosophy: Like few before him, he firstly points to the uncertain, even deceptive ground of moral values. Second, he denies the transcendent, noninterested standpoint of the moral worldview that all moralists have so far insisted on. According to philosophers such as John Searle and Jürgen Habermas, Nietzsche is embroiled in a contradiction in this way, since by denying an autonomous morality, he himself removes the ground for his criticism. Other philosophers such as Richard Rorty, Michel Foucault or Gilles Deleuze welcome Nietzsche's conclusions and then formulate pragmatic justifications for moral value judgments. Nietzsche often equates the appearance of nature, described brilliantly by him, with illusion ( Maya ) and fictionality with illusion . In the dawn one can see the blueprint of an unmasking psychology , which is located between the French moralists and Schopenhauer in terms of content and style and which anticipates Sigmund Freud's psychoanalysis .

Research literature

• Jochen Schmidt: Commentary on Nietzsche's Morgenröthe .
• Sebastian Kaufmann: Commentary on Nietzsche's idylls from Messina = historical and critical commentary on Friedrich Nietzsche's works, ed. from the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences ( Nietzsche Commentary ), Vol. 3/1, Berlin / Boston 2015 ( ISBN 978-3-11-029303-6 ) (new standard commentary, commenting on each aphorism in detail). Reviewed by Hermann Josef Schmidt (PDF).

Web links

• Issued by Nietzsche Source
• Text in German on zeno.org

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b} Henning Ottmann (Ed.): Nietzsche Handbook, Life - Work - Effect . Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2000, p. 104.
2. ↑ ^{a b} Friedrich Nietzsche: Dawn, Idyllen aus Messina, The happy science . Dawn, preface. In: Giorgio Colli, Mazzino Montinari (Ed.): Critical Study Edition , Volume 3. Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, p. 13.
3. ↑ Friedrich Nietzsche: Dawn, Idyllen aus Messina, The happy science . Dawn, preface. In: Giorgio Colli, Mazzino Montinari (Ed.): Critical Study Edition , Volume 3. Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, p. 12.
4. ↑ Friedrich Nietzsche: Dawn, Idyllen aus Messina, The happy science . Morgenröthe, First Book, 44. In: Giorgio Colli, Mazzino Montinari (Ed.): Critical Study Edition , Volume 3. Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, p. 52.
5. ↑ Friedrich Nietzsche: Dawn, Idyllen aus Messina, The happy science , Morgenröthe, preface. In: Giorgio Colli, Mazzino Montinari (Ed.): Critical Study Edition , Volume 6. Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, p. 14
6. ↑ Quotation from: Henning Ottmann (Ed.): Nietzsche Handbook, Life - Work - Effect . Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2000, p. 104
7. ^ Friedrich Nietzsche, letter to the sister , Sils-Maria, mid-July 1881. In: Briefe , selected by Richard Oehler. Insel, Frankfurt 1993, p. 242
8. ^ Friedrich Nietzsche, letter to Professor Karl Knortz in Evansville , Sils-Maria, June 21, 1888. In: Briefe , selected by Richard Oehler. Insel, Frankfurt 1993, p. 348
9. ^ Friedrich Nietzsche: Götzen-Twilight . In: The Wagner case, Götzen-Twilight, The Antichrist, Ecce homo . In: Giorgio Colli, Mazzino Montinari (Ed.): Critical Study Edition , Volume 3. Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, p. 111
10. ↑ Henning Ottmann (Ed.): Nietzsche Handbook, Life - Work - Effect . Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2000, p. 105