Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and the Autonomous Individual

Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and the Autonomous Individual

The tradition of Western philosophy in the late 17th and early 18th centuries gave rise to disciplines such as science and mathematics, and ultimately, gave these disciplines privilege with regards to the ultimate authority in truth and value. Widely perceived to have saved philosophy from the “tradition, irrationality, superstition, and tyranny” of the Dark Ages, the Enlightenment’s prevailing mode of philosophical inquiry was born out of reason, that is, the human capacity for the systematic thinking and analysis of the objective truth of the universe. The philosophy of the Enlightenment, therefore, fixated itself on obtaining an objective truth about the universe through intellectual deduction and induction, rather than relying on pure emotion and feeling to find meaningful value in the universe. The discipline of philosophy, as well as its sub-disciplines such as logic, ethics, metaphysics, etc. can essentially attribute their aims to answering the most basic and underlying question of human existence, albeit a rather broad and ambiguous question, “What is the meaning of life?” The thinkers of the Enlightenment found ultimate meaning in human reason, and saw reason as a savior, so to speak, that was to finally deliver value and meaning to the universe.

However, in the 19th century, two daring and prominent philosophers would set the Enlightenment ideals on their heels. One, a Danish philosopher and theologian, a deeply profound and religious thinker, set out to re-establish the importance of faith in a world that had been made over in the Enlightenment ideal; the other, a wildly irreverent yet brilliant German thinker, a philosophical and societal instigator, and a prodigious writer, sought to systematically tear down and build back up again societies’ pre-conceived attitudes in many areas of intellectual and societal inquiry. These men, diverging to opposite ends of the philosophical spectrum in some cases, coming closer together in other cases, shared one overarching realization in their respective philosophies: any meaningful value or importance in the universe has to come from within oneself. It is the human race itself that has the power to attribute its own meaning and its own importance to the universe; objective “truth” insomuch as the Enlightenment philosophers came to view it, was an empty concept, and ultimately, an inquiry which would eventually lead to frustration. In two of their most influential works, Fear and Trembling for Kierkegaard, and On the Genealogy of Morals for Nietzsche, each philosopher sets out to discover the importance of human emotion and subjectivity, and ultimately, of human freedom, and its role in the universe.

In addition, these philosophers come up with in some respects an identical hero that is the embodiment of the potential for human freedom, an individual that comes to provide his own meaningful life, that defines his own essence, and that comes to affirm his own life by a turn inward, rather than a turn to an external reality. In this way, these men denounce the “fixed” reality of the universe and human nature; in fact, they assert, human nature is quite malleable and thus widely open to change and progress. These two men came to be viewed as precursors to the 20th century philosophical movement that came to be known as Existentialism, a philosophy that in its broadest scope championed the individual and his importance within the universe, as well as provided the foundation for the growth and blossoming of the human spirit--- human freedom, individuality, and the ability to provide personal meaning in a universe that seemed indecipherable. The sovereign and autonomous individual hypothesized by Kierkegaard and Nietzsche came to be the ultimate embodiment of the Existentialist philosophy. Thus, we find that through the individual, the seemingly infinite scope of the universe can be narrowed down to the subjective experience of the aforementioned individual. It is only by this process that one can come to grasp any meaningful value within the universe. Through two different lenses, the religious lens for Kierkegaard and the lens of historiography for Nietzsche, the sovereign individual comes to prominence. Each, though contrasting in their respective inquiries, paints a portrait of the autonomous individual as free, without bounds, and powerful in his relation to the universe.

For Soren Kierkegaard, the ultimate embodiment of the individualistic philosophy is the biblical Abraham, whom he refers to as a “knight of faith.” However, true individuality for Kierkegaard only comes through a surrendering of one’s individuality in the first place. Kierkegaard, in his outline of the three ways of living, renders the great majority of humanity to the aesthetic, that is, the life of personal desire and opinion; however, this is not the individual that he champions as the knight of faith. Individuality, in a Kierkegaardian sense, is cyclical. The deepest and most profound individuality comes from an initial renunciation of a lesser individuality. So to speak, one must be willing to relinquish his individuality in order to truly own it, and to allow it to flourish to something greater. One surrenders his individuality to the universal; but by virtue of the absurd, has confidence that he will gain back that which he had surrendered. For Kierkegaard, it is through faith that individuality is regained, more specifically, through faith in the absurd. This individuality comes at a price however; once Abraham regains his individuality and asserts it above the universal, he becomes indecipherable. His individuality can only be understood in the context of his personal relationship with God; furthermore, nobody can understand this but Abraham himself. Thus, in one sense, Abraham’s own individuality cripples him and renders him silent; he cannot explain it to anyone else. However, despite this, Abraham is able to find meaning and value in the world, in the context of his personal relationship with God. As Kierkegaard writes,

“ If a human being did not have an eternal consciousness, if underlying everything there were only a wild, fermenting power that writhing in dark passions produced everything, be it significant or insignificant, if a vast, never appeased emptiness hid beneath everything, what would life be then but despair?”

As Kierkegaard implies here, the key for creating meaning and essence in our existence is the presence of eternal consciousness, that is, an awareness of self. As one can imply from the existentialist philosophy, an awareness of self is the first and absolute essential key in creating a meaningful life. Kierkegaard makes sure to note that not only does Abraham’s faith in the absurd give him hope for the afterlife; his faith more immediately

gives him hope for this world. Through this faith, Abraham can rest assured that there will be joy and meaning in his earthly existence. It is perhaps this point that most separates Kierkegaard’s existentialism from the Christian ascetic tradition of the Middle Ages. Kierkegaard, in a hypothetical response to the ascetic tradition, would most likely counter that because their faith does not provide hope for earthly life, it really provides no significant meaning at all. The goal of Kierkegaard and the existentialists is to find meaning and significance for the earthly life. As he continues to assert, life is not meaningless nor is it full of despair; therefore, there must be a way to discover meaning in the earthly life. Abraham finds his by virtue of his relationship to God.

Nietzsche sets out to find meaning in a way different from that of Kierkegaard; for Nietzsche, to understand values and morals, and subsequently their meaning, it is necessary that they be examined in their origins. Thus it is necessary, he writes, to extract meaning from a thorough genealogy of morals, to create concrete values out of those that have become too broad and to ambiguous throughout the scope of history. He tracks this genealogy starting with the master morality and the slave morality of ressentiment, and determines that the former is born out of an affirmation of self and the latter a renunciation of master reality. As evident throughout his three essays, Nietzsche for the most part gives privilege to master morality because it is born out of self- affirmation, while slave morality, evident in the tradition of Christianity and asceticism, requires one to find value by turning outwards against an opposing force—in the case of Christianity, a renunciation of the earthly life in favor of the afterlife. In the beginning of his second essay, he asks his readers to consider this question:

“To breed an animal with the right to make promises—is not this the paradoxical task that nature has set itself in the case of man? Is it not the real problem regarding man?”

Why is this question relevant for Nietzsche? As he explains further in his second essay, the right to make promises is intrinsically linked to a notion of responsibility; that is, when one promises to do something in the future, to impose his will, he takes responsibility for actually discharging his will when it comes time to do so. Yet in order a man to make such a promise of his will, he must be able to calculate his future in advance, thus he as a man must become “necessary, uniform, like among like, regular, and consequently calculable”. According to Nietzsche, the only way man becomes these things is a through a “morality of mores”, that is, through the laws and customs of a society. In a Nietzschean point of view, man in his primitive stages would be described as wild, unpredictable, and irreverent. It is through such laws and customs that he is to be tamed and made predictable. Yet he also describes this process through which man becomes predictable as a “social straightjacket”, insinuating that there is something to be broken out of and freed for man to truly realize himself.

Nietzsche does not value the morality of mores as an end, but rather as a means to an end. The real end, as he writes, is that of the sovereign individual, one who by virtue of society rises above it; he is “liberated again from morality of custom, autonomous and supramoral, in short, the man who has his own independent, protracted will and the right to make promises…” The sovereign individual thus gains control of his own will, able to exercise it at his own discretion, and thus he is able to make promises and consequently take responsibility for them.

This idea of controlling the will is essential in the philosophies both of Nietzsche and of Kierkegaard. Only the man who gains control of his will is able to define himself and his meaning in the universe. If one does not have this control, he is subject to the will of society--- and thus cannot be entirely free. For Kierkegaard, this resignation of the will to the universal is a necessary process in order to gain freedom and faith; for Nietzsche, it is somewhat similar, although he, as noted earlier, tends to view the universal as a means to an end. Either way, the process to gain absolute freedom for Kierkegaard and Nietzsche is very similar--- the control of the will is surrendered to the universal--- only to be gained back again in a move beyond the universal, into the religious for Kierkegaard and the supramoral for Nietzsche. Without the bounds of the universal, this autonomous individual opens himself up to infinite possibilities, with infinite opportunities to define himself. He is powerful precisely because he depends upon nobody but himself.

However, for Kierkegaard, there remains something else in the equation of individuality and freedom, and that something else is God. Abraham, transcending his relation to the universal in favor of standing in relation to God, becomes indecipherable. He cannot speak to anyone, because the divine language he speaks is only decipherable by God. Abraham is a very unique case for Kierkegaard, because for the most part the universal governs itself and its ethics by virtue of God. What is Abraham to do when God contradicts the universal ethical code? For Abraham, this is where faith truly manifests itself. Abraham, in entrusting himself in his relationship with God, comes to expect the impossible--- in the case of sacrificing his son Isaac, he has faith that God will give him back. Faith is thus not a rash belief as most people have come to believe, but rather an angst-ridden and anxious lifetime journey, which allows oneself to fully entrust God. Thus, in this case, Abraham’s ultimate responsibility is to God.

Nietzsche’s quest for individuality and freedom is not so much concerned with the question of God; rather, it happens to be concerned with the individual’s relation to the universal. For Nietzsche, the Kierkegaardian concept of transcending the universal leads not to a relation to the absolute, but in a sense a truer relation between the individual and society. Implicit in Nietzsche’s argument that the right to make promises is the quest for man, is that there is somebody or something to make promises to. Because he uses a genealogy to examine the notions of promises and responsibility, the only thing for him to examine is the historical relation between people and other people. That is not to say that the sovereign individual’s ultimate responsibility is to the universal--- for Nietzsche, the ultimate responsibility is to oneself, to be realized within his relation to the universal.

How then, would Kierkegaard respond to Nietzsche’s account of responsibility, and vice-versa? Kierkegaard writes,

“The knight of faith is simply and solely himself, and therein lies the dreadfulness. Most men live in adherence to the ethical obligation in such a way that they let each day have its cares, but then they never attain this passionate concentration, this intense consciousness.”

If, for Kierkegaard, the true knight of faith is in absolute isolation, deriving his moral standards from God, Nietzsche would disagree. For Nietzsche, the sovereign individual makes his own values. They do not derive from a morally superior being, as Kierkegaard implies, for that would require an a priori notion of ethics, a notion which Nietzsche’s historical genealogy would seem to reject. That is to say, morals and ethics, for Nietzsche, originate in the subjectivity of the human will--- in the case of good and bad, he finds that subjectivity in the master and slave morality. Kierkegaard would perhaps argue against Nietzsche’s assertion that it is man who imposes his subjective will to create values; for the knight of faith transcends man, and finds these values in the absolute. Kierkegaard may in fact find Nietzsche’s sovereign individual to be destructive; he would probably characterize that individual as deranged, as one who thinks he is a knight of faith when in fact he really lives his live in the aesthetic realm. If man were to create his own notions of good and bad, as Nietzsche had suggested, Kierkegaard would

find that existence to be below the universal, because for him good and bad is found in the absolute, that is, God.

But it would seem that Nietzsche has no other choice in the matter, if he regards the question of God as irrelevant. If there is no God in which values can be found, the only being left to assume responsibility for these values is man. As he had found throughout his historical genealogy, man exists to impose his will--- and that is where values originate from, whether beneficial or destructive. Thus, for Nietzsche, the sovereign individual, in imposing his will, is ultimately responsible to himself in creating his values.

It would thus seem that Nietzsche and Kierkegaard have two widely different ideas on the subject of the autonomous individual, but deep in the roots of the matter they are very much alike. Both philosophers shun the idea of a societal morality as the highest end, viewing society only as a means to attain the highest values, rather than as an end in itself. The autonomous individuals of each of the men can be described as without bounds; for Kierkegaard, the knight of faith finds that through his faith in God that the impossible becomes possible, whereas for Nietzsche the infinite scope of human subjectivity opens up infinite possibilities. To a certain extent, Kierkegaard would agree with Nietzsche that moral standards originate in the individual rather than the universal; however, ultimately, they originate in God, and are only realized within the single individual. Kierkegaard also finds the idea of a universal ethical code less abhorrent than does Nietzsche--- as he points out, the case of Abraham is a very unique one, in that God’s demands run contrary to the universal, where in most cases they do not. Nietzsche wants to rid us of the idea of a universal ethical code, in favor of each sovereign individual creating his own standards to live by.

In a sense, both philosophers challenge the individual to affirm his own life and create meaning for his life. Kierkegaard finds this meaning in the relation between the knight of faith and God; Nietzsche finds this meaning in the subjective will of the sovereign individual. One notion they would both agree on, though, is that the individual is alone in this process, but at the same time is free, not having to rely upon any other individual but himself. Through introspection, a turn inward, is where the beauty and essence of life is found. Ultimately, in a reversal of fortune, these two men might well have saved philosophy from the Enlightenment, returning the power of truth to its rightful dwelling in the human experience.