Nietzsche's Critique of Utilitarianism

Jonny Anomaly ietzsche's scattered, caustic remarks on utilitarianism pervade his philosophical corpus and tend to be sweepingly critical.Until recently, however, scholars have generally ignored Nietzsche's critique because it consists largely of undeveloped arguments and ad hominem attacks against particular utilitarians.1 This is unfortunate, since his critique of utilitarianism is linked in important ways to his critique of Christianity.This essay examines the main sources of Nietzsche's fierce opposition to utilitarianism, without considering any alternative normative position he may have advanced.2 The absence of sustained discussion in this essay of a positive alternative should not, however, be taken to imply that he rejects morality altogether.Nietzsche parries this common interpretation in Daybreak by conceding, "in this book faith in morality is withdrawn-but Why? Out of morality!"(D 4).3 Instead of criticizing utilitarianism by contrasting it with alternative moral values, however, Nietzsche primarily attacks utilitarianism by querying its internal coherence, and by raising the possibility that utilitarians are driven by motives at odds with their overt concern with the greatest happiness of the greatest number.The charges of theoretical and motivational inconsistency, which I discuss in Sections 1 and 3, respectively, comprise Nietzsche's main objections to utilitarianism.In Section 2, I discuss a more general argument, loosely related to Section 1, according to which Nietzsche criticizes English utilitarians for failing to countenance the "evil" that utility maximization requires.In Section 4, I attempt to fortify the interpretation of the first three sections by exposing the weaknesses of a recent account of Nietzsche's critique of utilitarianism advanced by Frank Cameron.Finally, in Section 5, I begin by staving off another alternative interpretation of Nietzsche's critique of utilitarianism, and then proceed to characterize Nietzsche's hostility toward English utilitarians as typifying his general suspicion of any attempt by a particular group to impose a single moral standard on all people.1.The Utility of Neighborly Love