Nietzsche, Instinct of Self-Preservation, and the Will To Power
Aphorisms from Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil #11
I would like to continue commenting on aphorisms from Beyond Good and Evil (1886). We continue reading the first chapter of this book: “Prejudices of Philosophers.”
As a reminder, you can find the previous posts on the following page: Nietzsche.
Psychologists should bethink themselves before putting down the instinct of self-preservation as the cardinal instinct of an organic being. A living thing seeks above all to DISCHARGE its strength — life itself is WILL TO POWER; self-preservation is only one of the indirect and most frequent RESULTS thereof. In short, here, as everywhere else, let us beware of SUPERFLUOUS teleological principles! — one of which is the instinct of self-preservation (we owe it to Spinoza’s inconsistency). It is thus, in effect, that method ordains, which must be essentially economy of principles. (Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, trans. Helen Zimmern, The Project Gutenberg, 2003)
This is a short aphorism. But it is an important one in terms of critical insight. To call the “instinct of self-preservation the cardinal instinct of an organic being” (Selbsterhaltungstrieb als kardinalen Trieb eines organischen Wesens) is, according to Nietzsche, an exaggeration.
He is not saying that there is no such thing as a self-preservation instinct, but that it is not a central driving force in the behavior of living things.
With such an idea, Nietzsche enters into a dialogue with many authors:
Psychologists and Empiricists: Nietzsche seems to criticize British empiricists and English psychologists for their emphasis on empirical and utilitarian interpretations of human instincts and morality, at least those who regard self-preservation as a core principle. Nietzsche does not name specific authors in this aphorism, so this attribution remains somewhat speculative.
Darwin: Nietzsche does not recognize survival as the core goal that drives the behavior of living things. He sees the focus on self-preservation as secondary to life’s more fundamental instinct for power. In other words, for him, survival is a consequence of the Will to Power, not its primary goal. This does not mean, of course, that Nietzsche rejects evolutionary ideas.
Spinoza: Nietzsche appreciates Spinoza’s philosophy, but he also considers Spinoza’s concept of conatus, which refers to the innate inclination of a being to maintain itself in the realm of being, to be limited, since Nietzsche does not consider it to be a fundamental, primary dimension of being, but rather a consequence of the Will to Power.
Of course, Nietzsche is not explicit here and speaks only of psychologists, referring to psychologists but also probably to natural scientists and biologists.
What is more important is not who he criticizes and who he is not, but what he sees as misleading — considering the instinct of self-preservation as the fundamental instinct of a living being — and what he proposes in its place: the “Will to Power” (Wille zur Macht).
This concept is one of the most difficult to interpret in Nietzsche’s philosophy, and discussions continue. Broadly speaking, it refers to the fundamental force that underlies life, beings, and their behavior. Nietzsche asserts that “life itself is Will to Power” (Leben selbst ist Wille zur Macht), emphasizing that living things are primarily concerned with expressing and expanding their power, rather than merely preserving themselves.
In Aphorism 259 of Beyond Good and Evil, he writes, in a somewhat polemical explanation, — that “the intrinsic Will to Power, which is precisely the Will to Life,” is “the fundamental fact of all history.” Nietzsche, of course, does not identify the Will to Power with the Will to Live. He criticizes the common idea of the will to live and reinterprets things through his own concept of the Will to Power.
To be continued…
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looking forward to the continuation of this article.
it inspired me to write a "nietzschean" interpretation of the turn of the millennium in europe (1000) as the injection of bad conscience in the blond beast. i'd like to run it by you, but i find no contact info at your site. (rlandes at bu dot edu)
What might Nietzsche say to one, whose beliefs in non-violence, impel that individual to sacrifice his life for his beliefs and causes?
The Will to Power is a common trait, in my experience, for those who bypass it, the Power of the Will becomes pre-eminent. Just because one has the power to do this or that, the use of such power is or perhaps should be, a choice, as opposed to a must. If the Will to Power is equivalent to the Will to Live, where in such a life is friendship, love, companionship? The Will to Live or the Will to Power, for me, by themselves, are rather sterile ideas, leaving themselves empty of anything to be desired.