Questioning moral certainty › Philosophy as a confession

Nietzsche's suspicion extends from the value of truth to the people pursuing it. In §6 he describes a great philosophy as a kind of involuntary autobiography: the philosopher's organization of drives and values finds expression in an apparently impersonal system. He asks which moral purpose a metaphysical claim serves. The question concerns what a philosopher wants a picture of reality to make possible.

His discussion of the Stoics supplies a concrete example (§9). They counsel living according to nature. Nietzsche objects that their account finds a moral order in nature because they have first projected their preferred discipline onto it. If nature is indifferent to the distinction between generous and cruel conduct, nature by itself cannot establish the Stoic's ethical ideal. The instruction to follow nature may conceal an instruction to follow a particular interpretation of it.

This is Nietzsche's criticism, rather than a neutral summary of everything Stoicism teaches. To assess it, a reader must ask whether the Stoic's reasons actually depend on the projection he alleges. The psychological diagnosis cannot do all the argumentative work. A desire to believe a proposition does not make the proposition false. Someone may want an answer to be true and still have good evidence for it.

That distinction gives the reader a way to use suspicion carefully. Separate the argument offered from the interests that may have encouraged it. Then ask whether those interests help explain an overlooked assumption, an unjustified inference, or selective attention to evidence. Merely identifying an interest leaves the truth of the conclusion open.

Nietzsche also challenges the assumption that fundamental values must have an origin wholly separate from their supposed opposites (§2). Truth might develop amid error, or a generous action might have a history entangled with self-interest. His proposal makes the origins of our distinctions a question for inquiry. It does not establish that every distinction between truth and error, or generosity and selfishness, has therefore disappeared.