Genealogy Of Morals

Moral intentions can be explored while contemplating bits of memories. As the narrator reflects upon his past relationship with his father, he starts to acknowledge

Freud defines guilt in two ways, a fear of a loss of love and a fear of the suger-ego, and both of these can be found in Remarque’s novel on several occasions. As said before, three such occasions can be called to mind.

Soon there after, Stephan’s triumph after speaking with the rector creates a joy that he has not experienced before. The act of telling the rector that he was mistreated by the prefect of studies initiates a weakness within Stephan that he can no longer deny. This confusing turn of events leaves Stephan’s subconscious in shambles and exposes him in the most crucial stages of development. By rejecting the masculine urge to suck it up, he forfeits his right to the male gender.

This personal confession shows that Mrs. Mallard, though she will mourn at first, now is free to “live for herself,” (228) not for her imposing husband. Before her husband’s death, Mrs. Mallard believed she was in a healthy, normal marriage. This death revealed to her how while she cared about her husband, she despised the lack of freedom her marriage had given her. All of the realizations that Mrs. Mallard reaches during her time of reflection shows the readers exactly why she will no longer mourn the death of her husband.

Masters and slaves are constantly discussed throughout Nietzsche’s work, but the connection between them is discussed best in his book On the Genealogy of Morality. The first of the three essays outlines two alternate structures for the creation of values, which is credited to masters and the other to slaves.

“I know it was you, Fredo. You broke my heart. You broke my heart.” These eternal words spoken in Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather reflect the importance and prevalence of family allegiances. These allegiances transcend many different cultures, societies and environments. Every society has its own “Fredo”: the social outcast whose decisions make him or her the center of attention in society, and whose family allegiances complicate everything. We can see such a prototype for a character in Countess Olenska, the main character in Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence. Countess Olenska is the black sheep of her family because she is considered foreign, and the complicated decisions she faces often

The introduction of Alan Hunt’s Governing Morals: A Social History of Moral Regulation presents an overview of the many theoretical debates and resources spawned by the concept of ‘moral regulation’ – an ideology prevalent in the 1980’s which can be defined as a practice of governing in order to focus attention on social actions which attempts to influence the conduct of human agents. Through Hunt’s introduction case studies are utilized in paving the path for his discussion on moral regulation examining three British studies fluctuating from the Society for the Reformation of Manners which was active around the 1700’s, to Victorian aged sexual panics which allows for significant insight on early moral regulation projects. Although Hunt discusses multiple contentious issues on the concept of moral regulation, an isolation of some fundamental points in his

Almost all human beings have the presence of guilt inside of them, whether people show it or not, it is there. Guilt can be so strong, it might even be able to defeat one’s will or word. Insecurity drives us to letting others influence us and take charge of making decisions for us to not face the consequences alone and have someone to put responsibility on to reproach them if we ever feel ashamed. As the Roman playwright, Plautus, who once averred, “Nothing is more wretched than the mind of a man conscious of guilt” (Brainy). Plautus insinuates that a man who is fully aware of his wrong doings is tortured with regret and guilt. This idea can be applied to “The Mother,” an anti-abortion poem by Gwendolyn Brooks in which she expresses the emotional outpour of guilt by a mother who has aborted one or more times. With the same vision, Ernest Hemingway narrates the conversation of an American man and a woman at a Spanish train station while waiting for a train to Madrid, in his short story, “Hills Like White Elephants.” Here, both individuals discuss the decision of an abortion, constantly asking one another to make the final verdict to liberate themselves from any culpability or responsibility. In their writings, Brooks and Hemingway portray the guilt people can feel before or after making decisions. Indeed, both authors tell and seem fully aware of their character’s emotions that anyone would think they are actually sharing anecdotes. Through the use of a strong sense of guilt in Brooks’ poem “The Mother,” the reader is better able to understand the trepidation the couple faces in taking responsibility for a difficult decision of an abortion in Hemingway’s, “Hills Like White Elephants.”

Friedrich Nietzsche’s “On the Genealogy of Morality” includes his theory on man’s development of “bad conscience.” Nietzsche believes that when transitioning from a free-roaming individual to a member of a community, man had to suppress his “will to power,” his natural “instinct of freedom”(59). The governing community threatened its members with punishment for violation of its laws, its “morality of customs,” thereby creating a uniform and predictable man (36). With fear of punishment curtailing his behavior, man was no longer allowed the freedom to indulge his every instinct. He turned his aggressive focus inward, became ashamed of his natural animal instincts, judged himself as inherently evil, and developed a bad conscience (46).

In Kant’s book, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant talks about the three formulations of the categorical imperative. By these formulations, he describes his idea of organizing the moral principle for all rational beings. Kant also talks about the principles of humanity, rational ends, and the “realm of ends” which are constituted by the autonomous freedom of rational beings.

The link between morality and human nature has been a progressive reoccurring theme since ancient times (Prinz, 2008). Moral development is a characteristic of a person’s general development that transpires over the course of a lifetime. Moral development is derived by a wide variety of cultural and demographic factors that appear to influence morally relevant actions. Turiel (2006) defined morality as an individuals “prescriptive judgments of justice, rights, and welfare pertaining to how people ought to relate to each other.” Individuals’ moral judgments are frequently considered to be a product of culturally specific controls that provide a framework for behavioral motivations that are sensitive to the effects of gender, education, religion and politics (Banerjee, Huebner & Hauser, 2010). While several approaches have been utilized to examine the interaction of multivariate contributors to fundamental moral differences such as: disputes about family life, sexuality, social fairness, and so on, research has suggested that ideological considerations have provided a potent and diverse explanation for the polarization of contrasting views (Weber & Federico, 2013).

During the late 19th century, Friedrich Nietzsche examined the history of morals in his Genealogy of Morals. In his work, Nietzsche reveals the origin of morality, and he goes further to tear down the basis of Christianity and Kant’s Moral Law to show that there is a plurality of conflicting morals in society. Max Weber, who was a philosopher greatly influenced by Nietzsche, writes further on the plurality declaring that there is a polytheism that is the result of many conflicting values. Weber concludes that there is no science of ethics after Nietzsche, so there is no way to determine the “correct” value system. There is currently polytheism and a plurality of values that will not be resolved because all values are valid despite them conflicting

Would you describe a dog as capable of being evil? Or a cat? Or a chimpanzee? Most likely you could not. We humans belong to the taxonomic kingdom of Animalia and are therefore animals. Our species has evolved from animals that looked and acted more like the modern chimpanzee than we do. So at what point did we go from being creatures of instinct do developing the concept of morality? A great deal of literature has been written about morality, examples of which can be located in fiction and non-fiction as well as in scientific, theological and philosophical fields. Specific examples include the bible, as well as the writings of Plato (c. 424-348 BCE), Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527) and John Steinbeck (1902-1968). Morality is a trait that

government to make us believe that we were the good side while they were the bad

In the character of Francis, the author introduces a typical representative of suburban population. At first glance, the man is depicted as a perfect specimen of a husband, father and provider of his family. However, he has his secrets: In this story, it is his ‘love’ to the young babysitter. Due to the conventions of his class and – even more important – his place of living, the character has to supress his desires. This internal struggle does not go without consequences. At some point, Francis cannot endure it any longer and ‘explodes’ by publicly insulting the matron of the town and later even descending to the domestic violence against his