In this essay I will begin by discussing what Nietzsche means by bad conscience and guilt, and then describe the development of the moralized guilt that we are familiar with today. I will consider the question of whether the creation of the Christian God is necessary in that development and argue that while the notion of guilt thrives under Christian (and post-Christian) mentality, it was not necessary in order for humans to begin experiencing guilt. Rather, it was the setting of high standards of our behaviour that was crucial in the development of guilt.
In order to make sense of what bad conscience and guilt really are and why we experience them, it is crucial that we understand their origins. On Nietzsche's view the reason for experiencing guilt is rooted in our instinctual desire to cause suffering, in order to express power or dominance over others. (GM II. 6) However, once we become cultured and integrated into society we are prevented from such behaviour, but our instinct for cruelty remains intact, meaning that we must find another way to express our power. It is for this reason that bad conscience arises. Instead of inflicting cruelty or expressing dominance over others, we do so upon ourselves. Nietzsche calls this process “internalization”. (GM II. 16) Although it might initially sound strange to say that we take pleasure in causing ourselves to suffer, it need not mean that we have to commit to the belief that we must enjoy the experience of suffering itself.
At this point, it is worth noting the difference between bad conscience and guilt in the sense we are familiar with. For instance, I could feel bad about doing something that had not resulted in the consequences I had hoped for, without thinking that I ought to have behaved differently or that my behaviour was wrong. If I borrowed money from a friend and was later unable to pay him back, it would be perfectly plausible to say that I could feel badly about the situation because the consequences were inconvenient for me (my friend may be less inclined to lend me money in future, for instance) without believing that my failure to pay him back makes me a worse person. Bad conscience could be characterised as a feeling of responsibility for my actions, and feeling badly about them, but not including the belief that my performing them was inherently wrong.
According to Nietzsche, the feeling of guilt is characterised by holding oneself “responsible not only for one's acquired obligations, but also for the flawed nature of one's very being.” (Conway, 2008, p.13) We are only able to feel guilty if we believe both that we are responsible for our actions (or inactions) and for our own character, which leads us to be more inclined towards certain courses of action. So, when I borrowed money from my friend and did not pay him back, I might feel guilty that I had failed to do so because I had a responsibility to and because I believe that I ought to be the type of person who would be reliable in paying someone back.
Nietzsche appeals to this notion of indebtedness in his explanation of the development of guilt, by referring to the perceived indebtedness towards ancestors and gods. This began when tribes believed that their very existence had been dependent on the sacrifices and achievements of previous generations, arising feelings of indebtedness towards those ancestors. Reparations could take the form of sacrifices (such as animals, for food) and achievements (in war with other tribes, for example) in order to reflect this. As the societies became greater Nietzsche noted that the feelings of indebtedness rose and ancestors were increasingly being seen as godly. This led to more significant sacrifices, such as virgins or first-born sons in order to repay this ever-growing debt. (GM II. 19) This relationship between guilt and debt is often manifested in the language we use – for example, if I am unable to pay someone back and feel guilty about it, I might say that I “owe” it to them to apologise or to make it up to them in some other way.
However, it was through the emergence of Christianity and its God that human beings were able to come to imagine themselves “guilty and reprehensible to the point that it cannot be atoned for”. (GM II. 22) When we subscribe to a Christian morality, each of us will believe that we ought to be better people, but maintain the knowledge that we are unable to suppress our inherent nature at every opportunity. This is a problem because Christianity presents our nature and instincts as flaws and the actions they result in as things to be avoided. This makes it “impossible to discharge one's obligations or make adequate reparation.” (Janaway, 2007, p.138) In other words, we will be forever in God's debt because we lack the ability to consistently behave as ideal Christians. This inability is something we hold ourselves to be responsible for, which along with our perceived indebtedness, leads to feelings of guilt.
I would now like to consider the question of whether moralized guilt appeared with the rise of Christianity, or whether it existed independently of it. Certainly, Nietzsche remarks that modern atheists are susceptible to guilt, but this is due to the Christian values that they cling on to. What we are interested in is whether or not people experienced feelings of guilt prior to the birth of Christianity.
According to Risse, it is the entanglement of the earlier form of bad conscience with Christianity that results in guilt. (Risse, 2001) What is meant by the earlier form of bad conscience here is the internalization of cruelty and when it is combined with a Christian mentality it results in guilt. This view placed Christianity in a crucial role with regards to the development of guilt, as without its rise we would have been left merely with the earlier form of bad conscience. Initially, this view seems plausible, in the sense that Christianity imposes feelings of indebtedness and responsibility for that indebtedness, along with responsibility for the human nature that leads us towards that indebtedness.
Unfortunately, tying Christianity and guilt together in this way leaves us with some problems. If the notion of the Christian God is so crucial to feelings of guilt, then it would surely follow that with the “death of God” there would be a cease in guilt. But clearly atheists do have the capacity to feel guilt, as do people who subscribe to religions or practices other than Christianity, such as Buddhism. One way to retreat from this difficulty might be to weaken the position Risse puts forward and to suggest that Christianity is not the only condition under which guilt can arise, but it happened to be the first major catalyst in the development of guilt. In other words, it was not a necessary condition for the creation of guilt, but a contingent one. If this was the case, it may explain why atheists or people of other religions also have the capacity to feel guilt. It could be suggested that what is required for the development of guilt is a shared morality, rather than Christianity specifically.
However, I believe that this position is still flawed. Christian (or indeed any religious or shared) mentality does not seem necessary in order for us to perceive responsibilities and duties towards one another, which go beyond feeling badly about our actions merely because the consequences were inconvenient for us. I can see no reason why it would not be possible for guilt to have developed without the aid of religion, since there is no reason to believe that we would not have been able to consider our responsibility for the actions we perform and for the type of person that we choose to be prior to Christianity. It seems possible for human beings to set standards for themselves and judge themselves and their actions according to those. There is no need to imagine a supreme being as their judge or to rely on shared morality in order to do this. Something that may support this position is the fact that different individuals do not have identical value judgements and so may experience guilt for different reasons to one another.
It may help to consider a distinction between two different types of guilt, as given by Risse in his paper “On God and Guilt”. The first type, he describes as an “experience of reprehensible failure in response to specific actions.” (Risse, 2005) An instance of this type of guilt would be the feeling I may endure if I promised and subsequently failed to turn up to my cousin's performance with no good reason. Risse calls this locally-reactive guilt. The other type of guilt he talks about is referred to as existential guilt, which is characterised by a “persistent feeling of imperfection” and one of the instances in which it can occur is when one is subjected to a morality in which it is incredibly difficult, if not impossible, to live up to its standards. (Risse, 2005) Christianity is one example of such a morality.
On this account, Nietzsche is concerned with existential guilt as opposed to locally-reactive guilt. This seems to be a more promising position to take, as it allows for the existence of guilt prior to the rise of Christianity, in the form of locally-reactive guilt at least. But I am still reluctant to accept that something resembling existential guilt could not emerge outside of Christianity or other types of shared morality. If we do accept that we can feel locally-reactive guilt – that is, feeling a sense of responsibility for our behaviour and the type of people we are – then it seems odd to say that we could not experience what Risse refers to as a “persistent feeling of imperfection” as a result of this. Humans are, after all, capable of reflection and of setting high standards for themselves without imagining a supreme being as their judge.
When running a marathon, one athlete might be disappointed with themselves for not winning, while another may be pleased at completing the marathon. It makes sense to say that certain types of people might feel guilt towards themselves for not winning and feel as though they let themselves down. Perhaps they believe they could have trained harder, and that is why they blame themselves for not winning. So far, this is an instance of locally-reactive guilt. But this mindset could easily lead someone to think of themselves as being, for instance, lazy, weak-willed and unable to change.
The reaction is no longer only related to the outcome of the marathon, but to their future. The notion of God need not be present here, as the athlete is her own judge. The reason she believes being weak-willed and lazy is bad is that it could prevent her from achieving the things she wants to achieve, rather than because she thinks that these qualities make her a morally worse person. If this is true, the only necessary condition for existential guilt to arise is the capacity to experience locally-reactive guilt. The rigid and demanding morality present in Christianity causes this sort of guilt to flourish but it is the high standard of behaviour expected, rather than the fact that the morality is shared, that brings this about. This means that organised religions or practices are not the only means by which this guilt can arise, though they may appear be one of the most effective.
Bibliography
Conway, Daniel, Nietzsche's “On the Genealogy of Morals, (Continuum, 2008)
Janaway, Christopher, Beyond Selfishness (Oxford University Press, 2007)
Nietzsche, Friedrich, On the Genealogy of Morals, (Oxford University Press, 2008)
Risse, Mathias, The Second Treatise in in the Genealogy of Morality: Nietzsche on the Origin of the Bad Conscience, European Journal of Philosophy 9(1) (2001)
Risse, Mathias, On God and Guilt: A Reply to Aaron Ridley, The Journal of Nietzsche Studies 29 (2005)
