Broderick Lemke

Phil 120
3 November 2015
Nietzsches Error of False Causality
When Nietzsche discusses the error of false causality he states three inner truths that we

deem to be true without logical explanation. Based on our empirical knowledge we assume that

the will is the cause of our actions; that our motives are explanations for the causes of our

actions; and that thoughts are caused by our ego. Nietzsche continues by saying that the fact we

believe most easily of these three, is that the will is a cause of our actions. It is this assumption

that he attempts to disprove by stating that the will does not move anything.

We have seen time and time again that we can will ourselves to do something, such as

raising our hand, and our body will move to raise our hand into the air. Because of this, we have

come to the conclusion that the will is the cause of the action. However, this is merely a

correlation of events, and lacks evidence of causation. We notice that we consciously will our

hand to raise, and it does, but we could also imagine the case that our body under the same

circumstances raises our hand and the will merely accompanies it. The causal relationship that

we assume could be viewed in the opposite fashion of what we accept, and this is the point that

Nietzsche attempts uses to disrupt our assumptions about the will as a cause of our actions.

Furthermore, Nietzsche continues to say that many times we have actions that we

perform without willing ourselves to do so. For instance, as I am typing this paper my fingers are

moving but I do not have to will each finger to press each key. If every action were simply a

cause of willing it to be so, I would have to will each key stroke, as well as willing my breathing,

my eyes blinking, my heart beating, and many other tasks that happen without any mental will.

This is further evidence in the flaw of our assumption that all actions must be the result of will.
Will is not necessary to perform actions. After all, if we do not will ourselves to breathe, when

we do choose to raise our hand could this not be another motion our body does on its own? We

could merely comfort ourselves with the idea that we are in control, and as such we develop a

sense that we are willing it to happen.

This idea is strengthened if you consider that in order for something to cause an action it

should always be present when this action is being performed. For example, if we saw a trashcan

was knocked over, we would have to assume that there was a force that knocked the can over.

Whether a person collides with the can or the wind blows it over, we know that there is a force

that leaves it knocked over. Additionally, any action that causes the can to be knocked over,

when encountering the exact same conditions will always knock over the trashcan. This is not the

case when we see actions being performed without that our associated cause. We could associate

our will as causing our actions. However, in our trashcan example we could see wind blowing

the trashcan over, but it is only one instance that accompanies the can being knocked over. The

force tipping the can performs the act, not the wind itself blowing. As such the will as we

observe may be present when performing some actions but since it is not always present it cannot

be the ultimate cause of them.

I agree with Nietzsche that we do assume several facts to be true based on our evidence

rather than our logic. When one disrupts their credibility as he attempts, it ruins the basis of so

many of our beliefs. His argument against will, that it merely accompanies actions begs the

question of what causes our behavior and our will if not each other. We cannot show that either

of these actions causes the other. Because we cannot conclude which causes the other, perhaps

there is another force that causes these actions or there is no direct cause for anything. For

example if a train caboose is on a track it cannot be moved by the train unless the engine starts
pulling the cars, but the engine cannot pull the cars until the caboose moves. This is similar to the

connectivity of the will and our actions, we cannot prove that either one causes the other to

happen. We could also assume that ultimately there must be another force that causes the train to

move, perhaps another action such as gravity pulling the train down a hill, where both of the

actions are resultant from the situation but are acted upon by an outside. However this thought

process is flawed as well because we cannot prove that gravity causes the train to travel downhill

as we could also say that the gravity is simply present in the activity of the train traveling

downhill. Thus we either have an outside force we cannot name or understand that causes these

actions. We could also assume that there is a large chain of casual relations. We could claim the

movement of the train is caused by fuel burning in the engine. However, we must ask what

causes the fuel to burn. This can continue on in an infinite regress unless we finally find a cause

that was not caused by something else. This seems like a foreign concept and would be hard to

prove, but if it were proven would serve as a solution to this continual loop and paradox.

However, because we are stuck in an infinite regress of not being able to find a supreme

cause, I also favor the conclusion that there may not be causes for any action. Perhaps there are

no actual causes for any action. Rather we are in a world of constant flow where no actions are

being caused by one another but rather there is a series of random events, happening in tandem

and can only be correlated to each other with no ultimate named cause. One would have to

wonder how objects interact in this world and why we observe certain things happening that

seem to cause another, but this solution would explain why we cannot prove which actions cause

the other.