Nietzsche And Murdoch 's Theme Of Morality

Sigmund Freud and Friedrich Nietzsche offer prominent critiques of civilization and morality that greatly differ from the commonplace views of ethics and virtue. Rejecting the idea that morality is an instinctive or natural element of human life, they both argue that morality is a reactionary construction to the realities of the human existence. While both Nietzsche and Freud share this view, their views on the value of morality differ greatly. Nietzsche argues that morality suffocates and chokes humanity. Freud on the other hand, claims that morality is an essential component of civilization and solely responsible for enabling humans to live together peacefully. The disparity between these two critiques of morality is a product of the different

Friedrich Nietzsche was a German philosopher who wrote a book called On the Genealogy of Morals. This book is comprised of three different essays, and the first essay is titled “’Good and Evil,’ ‘Good and Bad.’” Rather than going straight into what Nietzsche talks about in his first essay, it would be better to start off by breaking down the title of his book. The Oxford English Dictionary defines genealogy as “an account of one’s descent from an ancestor or ancestors, by enumeration of the intermediate persons.” From this definition, we can see that genealogy and history are closely related, and that history is going to play a big part in Nietzsche’s writings. In his first essay, Nietzsche discusses his theory of the origin of morality.

pg. 733, para 1: Murdoch’s purpose is to question the relationship of morality to religion, and

Friedrich Nietzsche, a prominent German philosopher in the 19th century is one of the most well-read philosophers of the past two-centuries. His ideas regarding morality and nature continue to be discussed and debated to this day among scholars of all beliefs.

Nathaniel Hawthorne, as an admirer of psychology, uses a distinctive theme of moral ambiguity amongst his characters in the novel The Scarlet Letter. The characters, in particular Hester Prynne, Arthur Dimmesdale, and Roger Chillingworth, are rather difficult to classify as either good or bad; they are simply human. Hawthorne’s moral ambiguity amongst these characters makes them more relatable to real human beings and serves as a clear portrayal of the complex human psyche. One can not be defined as simply bad or good; humans are much more complex than these two binary words which is why Hawthorne’s realization of moral ambiguity is quite profound.

Over the course of this school year, the resurfacing topic of controversy is morality. Through the memoirs of Elie Wiesel, the darkness of humanity reveals itself. The sad truth this tells is that humans are callous or immoral to fellow man on an individual, national, and even global scale, leading to events that go down in history as atrocities. The international debate this raises, is whether nations, like America, should institute a policy of 'humanitarian military intervention' which is when an independent government fails to deliver human rights to the governed, other countries without permission can intervene with military force. Morality is the focus of the international debate regarding this foreign policy, because that underlying motivation

Ayn Rand once said, “There are two sides to every issue: one side is right and the other is wrong, but the middle is always evil.” In the society of today and of Ayn Rand’s novel, Atlas Shrugged, morality is the right and immorality is the wrong, but what is the evil then? The evil in both societies is the importance of money to the people and the people who step on others to climb the financial ladder. In Atlas Shrugged, one is introduced to many characters that are evil and support a corrupt government system; ; but perhaps the most obvious villain in the novel is James Taggart, president of Taggart Transcontinental Railroad.Taggart’s rival and foil character in Atlas Shrugged is Francisco d’Anconia, owner of d’Anconia Copper. Although both men have money, one is trying to monopolize his industry James Taggart, James Taggart, while the other is trying

Glover explains that at the end of the century it is hard to be confident about the moral law or about moral progress, he quotes that one reason why there is a decline on morality is because there is a decline in the belief in God (Glover, 2000). “God is dead” is one of Nietzsche famous quotes. Nietzsche is not the first to challenge God authority of morality. Ivan Karamazov was one of the first to question, he question if he was the high power because of all the bad thing that has and was happing in the world ; some examples were rape ,war , poverty, any type of cruelty to humanity (Glover, 2000). Nietzsche also saw the cruelty and believed that human were in danger due to their morality, and also believes that Judeo - Christianity religious beliefs was no longer a serious intellectual option (Glover, 2000, p. 12 to 17).

In today’s paper, I will be discussing Mill and Nietzsche. These two have differing opinions on what the biggest threat to society are: Mill argues that Freedom of Speech is essential to finding the truth (Mill, 2006, p. P12)– so even controversial opinions should be listened to. He fears that the tyranny of the majority could mean the Truth could be lost because alternative opinions are not listened to. The other threat to society to Mill is that women have fewer rights then men – such as voting – he believes women should be allowed to have the same opportunities (John Stuart Mill; Alan Ryan, 2006). In contrast, Nietzsche believes the biggest threat to society is the assumption that morality is natural. Morality is dangerous because

In his second essay of the Geneaology of Morals, Nietzsche attempts to identify and explain the origin of the conscience. He does not adopt the view of the conscience that is accepted by the “English Psychologists”, such as Bentham, J. Mill, J.S. Mill and Hume, as the result of an innate moral feeling. Rather, it is his belief that the moral content of our conscience is formed during childhood under the influence of society. Nietzsche defines the conscience as an introspective phenomenon brought about by a feeling of responsibility, in which one analyzes their own morality due to the internalization of the values of society. This definition holds the position that the conscience is not something innate to

Wikipedia defines morality as “a system of principles and judgments based on cultural, religious, and philosophical concepts and beliefs, by which humans determine whether given actions are right or wrong.” (Wikipedia Morality) Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, a German philosopher thought up of the idea that there are two moralities; The master and slave morality. These define a person by there actions to there world around them and how they handle certain situations they encounter throughout their natural life. I believe he chose these two because they seem to be strong opposites and there are rational.

The question of what may result from the fostering of critical, individual thought may have never even risen let alone remain unanswered if not for the consideration of some of the world’s greatest minds. Rigorously questioning the objectivity and truth of values whilst preserving a focus on the impacts of religion and morality on contemporary culture, Friedrich Nietzsche was, and remains to be, one of the most notably influential figures within the domain of 19th century philosophy. Upon viewing a number of citizens who were adopting a pessimistic and distrustful standpoint against the societal values of the time, Nietzsche came to the belief that the system of morals which had been lived by were no longer resonating with the maturing populace and that God was effectively useless; it is for this reason that Nietzsche announces the “Death of God”. Though a particular brand of nihilist may have viewed this passing as a detriment to the social cohesion of the populace due to an absence of any universal, absolute values - once attributed to God - Nietzsche proposed that this was not necessarily the case. Instead,

Thus far I have explained Nietzsche’s notion that our moral system is based upon a set of lies fabricated by a group of people. At this point in the essay I am happy to accept Nietzsche’s observation that our morals are perhaps not quite what they may seem on the surface. Having accepted Nietzsche’s first proposition ( that our system of morals are perhaps not quite as they seem), I will now evaluate his reasoning.

He hypothesized that this gradual turning away from God would be such a gradual process that people would not realize that it was even happening until the idea had almost been exterminated (Frame 45). Nietzsche then proposed that there are no absolutes or standards for us to live by and therefore, God could not be real since he would have created those very standards into being (Lawhead 454).Because of this, Nietzsche said, people would never be able to take full responsibility for themselves and still leave room for God (Frame 49). Instead, he favored the idea that the true origin of morals could be found in the human flaw to desire a state of being viewed as powerful (Lawhead 456). Although he denied God’s existed and felt that morals came from a thirst for power, Nietzsche was quoted as saying that Jesus came “not to ‘redeem men’ but to show how one must live (Lawhead 455).”

In chapter one of James Rachels’s What is Morality, he argues that at the very minimum, morality is using reason to guide one 's decisions, while keeping in mind the interests of those who will be affected by one’s choice, without giving more weight to one individual over another. He supports this thesis by describing a couple of morally ambiguous situations regarding humanity and life.