1. Dirk R. Johnson, Nietzsche's Anti-Darwinism, Cambridge University Press, 2010, ISBN:
0521196787, pp. 240
2. Summary
Johnson’s book consists out of two parts. In the first part, Early Darwinism to the 'AntiDarwin', he investigates the development and finalization of Nietzsche’s Anti-Darwinism. To
illustrate these general claims Johnson provides in the second part Nietzsche's Genealogy of
Morals, a close reading of GM.
In the introduction Dirk Johnson suggests that Nietzsche's Anti-Darwinism emerged through
close affinities with Darwin and his ideas: "It arises from 10 years of subtle questioning in the
middle period that renders his opposition in the later works explicable and credible." (2)
Nietzsche's aim was not to participate in a scientific but a philosophical discussion with
Darwin, investigating the theoretic assumptions of Darwinism. (4) Especially the Darwinian
perspective on morality, which will become the main subject of Nietzsche's Zur Genealogie
der Moral (GM) (8) and entire mature philosophy (28). This philosophical perspective
explains why Nietzsche didn’t make a clear distinction between Darwin and his followers.
Nonetheless he came to challenge Darwin as an individual, in Götzen-Dämmerung (GD) and
the notebooks of 1889. He esteemed Darwin higher than his followers since he was the one
who developed the new evolutionary paradigm. This personalized opposition is what
Johnson calls the "creative antagonisms" of Nietzsche's mature philosophy. (6) "While his
earlier period developed into a critique of traditional metaphysics based on Darwin-inspired
insights, his mature work became what I will refer to as a philosophy of 'creative
antagonisms'." (14)
In the first chapter, called Towards the ‘Anti-Darwin’: Darwinian meditations in the middle
period, Johnson claims Nietzsche's mature points of critique were a radicalization of
positions developed in his middle period. (17) He uncovers the presence of an 'early
Darwinism’ in the Untimely Meditation on David Strauss (1873). Nietzsche's early Darwinism
understands that Darwin's worldview requires leaving traditional metaphysics and ethics
behind and that morality can not be placed in a separate realm. (25) Pivotal, for Nietzsche's
later philosophy will become this Darwinian adherence to scientific standards, emptied of
any moral or metaphysical assumptions. Although Nietzsche and Darwin initially tried to give
an answer to the same problem: ‘how could morality have originated out of immanent
natural struggle?’ they each provided alternative explanations in the end. (27-28) Johnson
proposes that Nietzsche’s alienation of Wagner and Schopenhauer grew out of his early
Darwinism, because of their insufficient support to develop a natural paradigm for morality
(29). It is no surprise, then, that Nietzsche’s early Darwinism results in the historical
philosophy of Menschliches Allzumenschliches (MA), his discovery of the French moralistes
and his friendship with Rée. At the same time, Johnson identifies Nietzsche’s reading of the
moralistes as a point of departure to revise Darwinism, eventually putting "his philosophy
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beyond Darwinism." (34) Foremost, the French moralistes gave Nietzsche insight in the
egoism-altruism issue of morality (the tension between selfless and self-interested
motivation), which Darwin inherited from 18th century debates (34) "He also recognized
how unchallenged Christian moral values had inspired the moralistes, but that future
thinkers merely elaborated on this foundation without a critical appraisal of the genesis of
their terms." (45) Their search for an objective analysis of human behavior was still driven by
Christian moral scepsis (35-36). Also, their motto 'behind all values are vices'1 implicitly
accepted the belief in a single human self or ego. (40-41) Nietzsche, on the contrary,
understood consciousness as an extension of drives, making an essential self impossible. The
mind is not independent from the instincts and cannot make a free moral choice
independent from the instincts. (43-44) This is Nietzsche's first original deviation from
Darwin: morality is not inscribed in nature, so we shouldn't try to explain it through the
principle of natural selection, but is a human psychological construct reflecting a
constellation of instincts. (46) Morality is a symptom of individual consciousness making
sense of unique physiological states. (40)
In the second chapter, Overcoming the 'man' in man: Zarathustra's transvaluation of
Darwinian categories, the elusive concept of Übermensch is scrutinized. Since Nietzsche lost
confidence in the notion of 'man', as presented in other philosophers or scientists, and in the
terminology they applied to characterize that conception, he now tried to overcome the
polarities and dichotomies he had uncovered in his critiques of the middle period. (47)
Where Darwin created a narrative of redemption by emphasizing the faculty of reason as a
means to (moral) elevation out of the war-like character of nature, Nietzsche emphasized
physicality, making a higher human type not a promise but immanent. (49-50) The
Übermensch is "an entirely self-contained, outer-directed will unaffected by ruptures within
the soul and able to expand its superabundance on its surroundings." (50) In Also sprach
Zarathustra (Z) we find Nietzsche's first real departure from Darwin. (50) Contrary to Darwin
Nietzsche does not relativize individual contribution in evolution. (56) He stresses the
internal factors of an individual and how it forms its own reality. While Darwinian evolution
of man is mechanistic and focused on external factors of adaptation, making an individual's
will obsolete. (57-59, 81) The 'fitness' of the Übermensch can no longer be judged by means
of self-preservation but rather by the expenditure of power. "In sum, Nietzsche's
Übermensch embodies Wohlgerathenheit, or the condition of being instinctually 'well-turned
out'. In some senses, it is Nietzsche's variation on Darwinian 'fitness'." (58) When Nietzsche
talks about breeding (Züchtung) the Übermensch we cannot read it as breeding under
natural selection. (64, 65) "Nietzsche's version of Züchtung relates to internal criteria, more
specifically, to the heightening of the individual type based on a successful realignment of
the instincts and drives. For Nietzsche, Züchtung became infused with the ideals of selfcontrol, self-mastery, and discipline, but above all, with self-overcoming or
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Behind all selfless action lies self-interest.
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Selbstüberwindung." (65) Nietzsche's form of Züchtung is inconsistent with purposeful
breeding since he is indifferent to survival. Darwin, on the other hand, is interested in the
survival of specimens, since it is nature that 'selects' the 'fittest'. (65) In connection with this
rejection of natural selection, Nietzsche will also question the 'struggle for existence'. This
struggle does not result in fitter organisms, rather it "is merely the clash of two or more
biological entities projecting their own brand of power." (69) The 'struggle for existence' is
an interpretation of competition by weak wills of a neutral situation. (69) According to
Johnson, this is how we should understand Nietzsche's twofold history of morality; between
master and slave morality. (143) "Ultimately, Nietzsche distinguished between two major
types of will: active, strong wills, who realized their brand of will having recognized the
essential 'immorality' of nature; and (re)active, weak, wills, those who could only become
active by embodying a 'moral' perspective outside of nature that they can direct against the
perceived 'immorality' of nature (including other 'immoral' wills)." (74) When in GD 14
Nietzsche claims it are the weak that prevail when struggle occurs and not the strong, he
undercuts natural selection in favor of a concept of struggle, "whereby individual wills clash
in their pursuit of power, not survival." (100) Instead of the Darwinian struggle for existence
Nietzsche will promote the agon as a "neutral zone of power-assertion" (70). The agon is not
nature but is a step outside of it, because it removes all negative sentiments. (70)
In the third chapter, Nietzsche antagonistes: a personal challenge to Darwin, Johnson shows
that Nietzsche's final Anti-Darwin-position no longer singles out Darwin on the level of
interpretation or theory, but on the level of personal wills. (79-81) As he did with Plato and
Socrates Nietzsche came to dissect Darwinism as a theoretical expression of a particular
form of existence - typified in the person of Darwin. (82) This is what Johnson calls the
"creative antagonisms" of Nietzsche's mature philosophy (6), and is a by-product of the will
to power. “Nietzsche’s attempt to personalize his differences at this stage did not arise from
any animosity he had begun to feel toward Darwin. His position was a logical by-product of
his theory of the will to power.” (82) Darwin's understanding of nature is not analyzed as
objective, but traced back as the promotion of one individual will over other instinctual
interpretations of other biological types. (113-114, 174) By incorporating Malthus Darwin fell
prey to a capitalist interpretation of nature. "Darwin's biology could be taken as a
transfigured vision of a clearly political - in this case, capitalist - view of reality." (113)
Nietzsche therefore questions the Darwinian assumption that a scientific agreement about
the state of nature can be reached. From 1888 on, because Nietzsche felt Darwin had rallied
the wills to power of lesser 'decadent' types, he enters the agon with the world historical
figure of Darwin. (86) Darwinism allows the English psychologists to project their
ressentment, which is the active energy of weak wills, unto nature. The weak will inserts the
world with a metaphysical or moral meaning, even when this means nature becomes
distorted. (86, 105) Exemplary is the idea in Darwinism that under natural selection all wills
are seen as equal. This is not a natural law, but rather a projection by the weak of their
moral form of will to power. (97) The theory of evolution is therefore a symptom of
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underlying instinctual degeneration. (107) "Like Darwin, Nietzsche focuses on individual
wills: but instead of endorsing the vision of an indifferent natural 'struggle', he distinguishes
between active and reactive wills." (104)
Morality is therefore not a priori, but is symptomatic of a particular type of will. Johnson
shows that this way Nietzsche diverges from the degenerationist theories of his time. (103)
Those theories remained moral in their effort to replace good and evil by sickness and
health. Rather than using their essential definition of health, Nietzsche no longer conceived
sickness and health as opposites but as a continuum. This way degeneration theory became
an instrument to further investigate the weak will. (103) Nietzsche's mature Anti-Darwin
idea shows that there can not be a human progression along one continuum - "a heightening
of a type only occurs within the type, not between or across wills" (104) - and that negative
evolution - or an absolute standard for degeneration - is implausible.
3. Characterization
In contemporary (Anglo-Saxon) research it has become common practice to put Nietzsche
next to Darwin as to investigate both thinkers take on evolution. Johnson inscribes himself
directly in this new tendency of Nietzsche-Research (cf. Ansell-Pearson (1997), Richardson
(2002 & 2004), Moore (2004), Skowron (2009)). The author provides a new perspective to
approach Nietzsche and Darwin by primarily focusing on Nietzsche's self-proclaimed AntiDarwin position. Dirk Johnson works in the Anglo-American academic world at HampdenSydney College (USA).
4. Critical Points
Recent Nietzsche research discussing Darwin and Nietzsche is often seduced by the vast
amount of empirical proof supporting Darwinism. Although they show respect for
Nietzsche's enticing remarks about evolution and human development, in the end they
unequivocally praise Darwin's theory dismissing Nietzsche's Anti-Darwinism as ill-informed
or rhetorical. (Ansell Pearson (1997) 86,105-106 Moore (2004) 55, Richardson (2002) 546,
(2004) 17). Johnson describes Nietzsche's Anti-Darwinism as a culmination of years of
correct and critical understanding of the fundamentals of Darwinian theory. (2) Nietzsche's
aim was not to participate in a scientific but a philosophical discussion with Darwin,
investigating the theoretic assumptions of Darwinism. (4)
He uncovers the presence of an 'early Darwinism', through an examination of the David
Strauss essay (1873). His discussion of an early Darwinism in Nietzsche’s philosophy and the
claim that it functioned as motor of his divergence from Schopenhauer and Wagner is highly
praiseworthy. It is unfortunate, however, that Johnson ignores the post-Kantian body of
Nietzsche’s earliest philosophy, where Nietzsche already identified Kant's thinking on nature
(1867) as pre-Darwinian. (Ansell-Pearson 86, ft. 2) Was Nietzsche interested in Darwinism
because it provided a natural paradigm to analyze morality or was it an offshoot of larger
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interest in the problem of nature and life? This tension lies at the hart of Johnson's
interpretation of Nietzsche's Anti-Darwin argument. It is conspicuous that Johnson claims
that Nietzsche divided Darwinism in two parts, without substantiating this controversial
claim with textual evidence: "and this division did not change during the course of his future
engagement." (26) According to Johnson Nietzsche separates out most of Darwin's
hypothesis about organic evolution, which he scarcely talks about. Nietzsche only treats
Darwin's ethical and genealogical dimension, with growing significance throughout his
philosophical development. (26) This issue becomes even more important when Johnson
claims Nietzsche’s Anti-Darwinism to be primarily concerned with Darwin’s moral
perspective, being the main subject of his mature philosophy and especially GM. (8, 28) We
find this a one-dimensional approach of Nietzsche's Anti-Darwin argument, that bluntly
ignores all Nietzsche’s remarks about organic evolution in GM, and other works, such as, to
name but a few, life as will to power, adaptation as a secondary phenomenon, exaptation
(which Dennett, 465 showed to be first formulated by Nietzsche). It also ignores interesting
issues addressed by contemporary researchers, such as the topic of natural selection, which
we will now illustrate.
While Forber (2007) showed that the issue of natural selection is pivotal in questioning
Nietzsche and Darwin, Johnson refrains from giving a systematic discussion of this essential
problem. Skowron (2009), for example, argued that we can find Nietzsche's acceptance of
natural selection in Der Antichrist (AC) 7. Johnson seems to ignore this and considers
Nietzsche to undercut the principle of natural selection (69, 97, 120, 136). On this point it
seems Johnson, willing to investigate Nietzsche's philosophy without a priori judging it by
accomplishments of Darwinian science (10), makes a straw man of Darwin's theory of
evolution. Natural selection is analyzed as primarily redemptive (49), teleological in always
selecting the fittest (66) and even, through Malthus understanding of nature, capitalist (113).
This misconception of Darwinism uncovers further two major difficulties. Primarily Johnson's
notion of (Nietzschean) will is, at best, specified as "a particular form of existence" (82). The
concept of 'will' is unproblematically used for a wide range of authors. Sometimes it seems
to refer to; (1) a multiplicity of what was in Schopenhauer a homogenous will, (2) the human
organism in general, (3) a biological will in the tradition of German Idealism as an outerdirected orientation of human beings, (4) a Darwinian will (82) - which found its expression
in Darwin's theory of evolution - and (5) apparently in Darwinism we can also speak about
'biological wills' (33, 45, 104). Since his own phrasings eventually lead to confusion and
increasing incomprehensibility Johnson missed a chance to start a constructive discussion
between Nietzsche’s will to power and Darwinism. See for example: "If an organisms fitness
is measured in terms of its survivability, it also holds true that it "wills" to survive, that it is
naturally programmed to preserve itself and procreate." (60) Johnson’s misunderstanding of
natural selection and his obscurity about the meaning of ‘will’ make it unclear whether
Nietzsche’s philosophical, rather than scientific, critiques on Darwin are plausible. Let us
illustrate this further with Nietzsche’s ‘creative antagonism’, as Johnson calls it.
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A lot could be said about this perspective on Nietzsche’s personalized attack on Darwin,
which certainly needs to be investigated very carefully. Johnson, however, because of earlier
problematic claims and his ambiguous reading of Darwinism, did not provide enough
substantial evidence to argue for the plausibility of Nietzsche’s personalized attack on
Darwin. Eventually, in criticizing the person Darwin one gets the impression of Nietzsche as
that German irrationalist, something Johnson set out to prevent. Also, it remains unclear
whether the twofold history of morality forms a cause of Nietzsche’s Anti-Darwinism, or that
it is itself a consequence.
Promising to provide a solution for Nietzsche’s biologism (14) – a question that haunts
Nietzsche-interpreters for over a hundred years – Johnson refrains from giving an elaborate
analysis. We are very sympathetic to Johnson’s reading of the Übermensch as a concept that
deals with inner criteria, but because of his indeterminate description of ‘will’ he is unable to
explain Nietzsche’s deliberate use of strong biological phrasings in his later works. Johnson’s
explanation of Züchtung is quite plausible, however, incomplete since Nietzsche calls up for
a deliberate breeding of the Übermensch in AC 3 and strengthening of the human species in
GM II 12, something Johnson denies Nietzsche ever from doing.
Despite these issues the book will undoubtedly influence future researchers occupied with
Nietzsche and Darwin. First of all Johnson provides an excellent overview of Nietzsche’s
reading of the French moralistes as a turning-point in his own philosophical thinking and
starting-point of his re-evaluation of Darwinism. (34) "He also recognized how unchallenged
Christian moral values had inspired the moralistes, but that future thinkers merely
elaborated on this foundation without a critical appraisal of the genesis of their terms." (45)
Their search for an objective analysis of human behavior was still driven by Christian moral
scepsis (35-36). Also, their motto 'behind all values are vices'2 implicitly accepted the belief
in a single human self or ego. (40-41) Secondly Johnson’s methodological stand should be
admired. He explicitly refrains from using the apocryphal Will to Power and argues, correctly
in our sense, for the primacy of Nietzsche’s published works over the Nachlass (12). This
alone makes him an exceptional researcher in the Anglo-Saxon landscape. The book is also a
helpful tool to get an overview of the current state of Nietzsche-research occupied with
Nietzsche and Darwin. Last but not least Johnson has identified the themes to be discussed
when giving an in-depth analysis of Nietzsche’s Anti-Darwinism: the will to power and
Malthus, the moralism underlying Darwinism and the Eternal Recurrence, the notion of
struggle for existence and agon, Darwin and Nietzsche's account of 'fitness', and both
thinkers understanding of the human organism. As such, this book clears the path for future
research.
2
Behind all selfless action lies self-interest.
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References
Ansell Pearson, K. (1997), Viroid Life. Perspectives on Nietzsche and the Transhuman Condition.
London/New York.
Dennett D. (1995), Darwin’s dangerous idea, London.
Forber, P. (2007) Nietzsche was No Darwinian, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. LXXV
No. 2, September, International Phenomenological Society. Berlin, 471-488.
Moore, G. (2004), Nietzsche, Biology and Metaphor. Cambridge.
Richardson, J. (2002), Nietzsche contra Darwin, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, vol. 65,
no. 3, 537-575.
Richardson, J. (2004), Nietzsche’s New Darwinism, Oxford.
Skowron, M. (2008), Nietzsches “Anti-Darwinismus”, Nietzsche-Studien 37, 160-195.
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