Nietzsche And Morality Analysis

In his book, Genealogy of Morals, Nietzsche examines the origins of Good and Evil. He postures that these two concepts are derived from language, rather than essential morality. He argues that people label things as good or evil based upon their personal feelings and position of privilege. Douglas Smith translated this edition of Genealogy of Morals into English, but he also included explanations of some of Nietzsche’s key concepts. According to Smith, “A central concept in Nietzsche’s argument, ressentiment is the essence of slave morality, a purely reactive mode of feeling which simply negates the active and spontaneous affirmation of values on the part of the nobility” (142). Ressentiment stems from the oppressed party’s jealousy. The oppressed do not accept that it is bad that they do not have the luxuries and rights that the nobility posses. Instead, the oppressed use ressentiment, flip the moral spectrum, and declare that those luxuries are evil.

Nietzsche is widely known as a critic of religion. In fact, he talks in depth about morality in regards to religion in his essays about the genealogy of morals. But the problem is not within religion itself or within morals. The problem is involved in the combination of the two to create society’s understanding of morality through a very religious lens. In fact, Nietzsche has criticism for almost any set of morals constructed by a group of individuals and meant to be applied to society as a whole. True morality, according to Nietzsche, requires a separation from these group dynamic views of morality- or at least a sincere look into where they originated and why they persist- and a movement towards a more introverted, and intrinsically personalized understanding of what morals mean in spite of the fact that “the normative force to which every member of society is exposed, in the form of obligations, codes of behavior, and other moral rules and guidelines, is disproportionally high” (Korfmacher 6).

It does not find its root and origin in objective circumstances; it originates from a place of suppression, of seeking freedom, and most significantly, of ressentiment. Herein the idea Nietzsche proposes is that the slaves are responsive against their noble masters because they are weak and impotent, leading to the festering of hatred and resentment. This means that values culminating from the revolt would be inaccurate in representing the true meaning of “good” or “evil”, because they were formed through the tainted lens of the slaves of ressentiment. They would portray the slaves, the weak, and the powerless as “good” and favourable, while casting the nobles, the masters, and the upperclassmen in an “evil” and malicious light. This inverts the original notion that the nobles are the definition of “good”. Nietzsche expounds this situation by clarifying that the nobles become “blond beast[s]” (Nietzsche, page 128) when out of their familiar circumstances, insinuating that they turn into a barbaric state where they seek victory over those who are inferior to them. In turn, displays of brutality will be expressed, as a by-product of this barbarism and therefore, fulfilling the morality of the nobles as “evil”. Nietzsche also expresses that this form of morality may not always be beneficial; it cages the

These two structures are controlled by different intangible themes. The first is ‘good/bad’ in terms of master morality and the second is ‘evil/good’ in terms of the slave morality. Noble classes and races, according to Nietzsche, started by defining their actions, themselves and their way of life as ‘good’, while ‘bad’ simply referred to anything that was not noble – “everything lowly, low-minded, common and plebeian” (OGM, Sec. I.2). In contrast, the morality of slaves discusses a position of weakness rather than strength. It starts by redefining the masters’ values as ‘evil’, while ‘good’ refers to anything opposed to that of ‘evil’. Unable to create their own original values, the slaves instead invert the values of their masters. This makes the master morality affirmative and favorable, while the slave morality is reactant and adverse. Deleuze, in an interpretation of Nietzsche, summarizes these two positions as a constrasting formula: where the master’s saying is “I am good, so that means you are bad”, while the slave’s logic is that of ‘ressentiment’: “You are evil, so that means I am good.”

Everything he possessed in the shape of learning or religion, he made conform to his disposition to deceive”. This linked the readers by portraying an extremely clear sample of the ethical paradox of being a Christian and a slave owner.

A slave up to this point in history was considered to be unfortunate and not inferior. In the ancient world,

feel that they were human beings. This was blasphemous doctrine for a slave to teach;

In “The Attack on Christianity in narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave”, Thomas Peyser (2011) wrote in his article that Douglass says that the “Christianity of Christ” is different than what the world calls Christians (p.87). There is a difference between the way of following God and the way of following who you are to make yourself look better. According to Peyser (2011), “The obvious allusions to Genesis are typically interpreted in a way that does not implicate the values of the Bible in cruelty of slavery.” (p.87). The slave owners would use the Bible to make the slaves obey their masters; the owners would use the example of Ephesians 6:5 “Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ.” The white men would take Gods words about slavery out of context to benefit themselves. Douglass (1845/1995) told in his autobiography that people who would teach of God and the way to live a Christian life would also be for slavery (p.72). People that proclaimed to be religious did not act the way they

Slavery is an evil institution with moral costs exacted on everyone involved, the slave himself or herself is degraded, made to suffer awful torments, and cruelly robbed of physical, emotional, and spiritual riches. Still, the slave is not the only one who suffers. By participating in slavery, the master is morally degraded and emotionally desensitized. His religion is made hypocrisy. His family legacy is robbed of basic human graces like love, justice, and

Christianity was a particular religion that Nietzsche found absolutely full of nihilism. Christian faith has meant a sacrifice, whether it be a sacrifice of freedom, pride or basic desires. Nietzsche views this as “slave morality” since one gives into religion so much that they are convinced that they are only good when they follow the rules and teachings of God. Christianity was described as the religion of slaves and pity by Nietzsche, caused by limiting one’s personal development since they were too obsessed with the treasures of the afterlife. According to Nietzsche, it was crystal clear how Christianity expressed slave morality with one of Jesus’s teachings was, “If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee.(Matthew 5:29)” In other words, one must rip out their eye and throw it away if it causes one to sin; it is better to lose one member than to throw your whole body in hell. This is a perfect example of “slave morality”, as Nietzsche would put it, considering Christianity trains one to give up their desires for power, wealth, sex and success because it will guarantee one’s placement

Friedrich Nietzsche was a philosopher in the 1800’s. His work has since influenced, impacted, and brought forth new questions for many philosophers to follow. One of Nietzsche’s famous writings Beyond Good and Evil expresses his views on society and the two different classes it holds, slave and master. He expresses his belief that the two are in warfare with one another, the strong (master) fighting for the will to power, while the weak (slave) tries to pull the master down to their level using clandestine forms of revenge. Nietzsche believed the slave morality was one that included humility, obedience, and submission, and was the destructive choice and attribute of Christianity, while the master morality was full of arrogance and pride

Is this “slave morality” really a divine gift from God, or is it just the moral code we expect to come from a historically persecuted lower people? This brings up a big question over the validity of “slave morality”, as it seems to only exist for protection of the lower people, not for what’s truly good and evil. Also, as Nietzsche brings up, its validity comes from the existence of a God who gave us these morals, something that cannot be proven, so naturally the concept of “faith” and trusting and believing in these morals and the God who created them would be a prime virtue, and those without it viewed as “evil” or “lost”.

Nietzsche points out that morals were not given to humans by God, nor was knowledge or instinct instilled in us by God: we have created morality just as we have decided standards for "truth" and explanations for our "human nature," and so there is no transcendent external standard. If God is dead, there are no objective values and we are free to create our own values. Nietzsche says that although the death of God liberates us, leaving us free to rule ourselves, this results in a cage-like freedom: while no value is objectively "right" or "true", if we can not choose then we are not free. Nietzsche supports the individual who, despite a lack of objective correctness or "truth", makes a decision anyway, accepting responsibility for her self-created values and actions, knowing she is these actions.

For Nietzsche, “the slave revolt in morality begins when ressentiment itself becomes creative and gives birth to values: the ressentiment of natures that are denied the true reaction, that of deeds, and compensate themselves with an imaginary revenge.” (Nietzsche 913). This imaginary revenge causes the complete reversal in defining words of class. The resentful slaves and priests looked up at the nobility with anger, characterizing them as selfish, corrupted, abusive and tyrannical, among other things. Ultimately, they came to the conclusion that the nobility were the pinnacle of evil. In doing so, “he has conceived ‘the evil enemy,’ ‘the Evil One,’ and this in fact is his basic concept, from which he then evolves, as an afterthought and pendant, a ‘good one’—himself!” (Nietzsche 915). Through the venomous eye of ressentiment, the slave class has characterized the good men, those with strong moral character as evil, and in doing so, has

Have you ever asked yourself where your conscience comes from? The feeling that takes a hold of you when you do what you feel is wrong. This feeling is almost like a consequence when you tell a lie or commit a crime. Your conscience helps you sort out the good and bad and feels your mind with sorrow when you see a sad story on the news or gives you the initiative to donate money to a contribution. But where does it come from. Is it something you are naturally born with, taught over time or given to you by a higher power? This argument leads to the existence of moral values by many philosophers including William Lane Craig. One of his excerpts argues that if there is an existence of moral values, which some people agree,