Nietzsche Master And Slave Morality Analysis

First, one of Frederick’s masters was delusional, because he whipped his woman slave while quoting a bible verse. As he whipped another human being, he would quote, “He that knoweth his master’s will, and doeth it not, shall be beaten with many stripes (Douglass 68).” The reason this master would say this quote is because he believes using it would justify what he is doing. The master took the verse as an excuse to whip his slaves. This story shows that not only do religious slave owners whip their slaves like normal owners, but they whip their slaves even more because they believe the bible tells them

Many Scholars now use the term chattel slavery or also known as traditional slavery to refer to a type of slavery where a person belonged to another person. Slavery is a system that allows individuals to sell, buy, capture, and own other individuals as their own personal property. Slaves freedom to do what they wanted were taken from them, their control over their bodies were taken from them because they were considered a person’s “Property” to whoever owned them. They were forced to work and do as they are told or they would have to suffer severe and sometimes even fatal consequences and that impacted many types of relationships. ”Slavery is theft—theft of a life, theft of work, theft of any property or produce, theft even of the children a slave might have borne”(Kevin Bales, Understanding of Global Slavery). Slavery with all of its demeaning, oppressing of the black masses was a complicated force and a powerful presence when it came to numerous relationships. For example, masters and slaves, slaves and their families, masters wives and black women slaves, slaves and other slaves, and blacks and whites.

Slave morality is reactive and negative and originates in the denial of all aspects that are different from it. On the other hand, master morality is concerned with the outside. The bad tends to be an afterthought, and it is a contrast, which brings out the noble ones’ superiority (Cothran 91-2). Meanwhile, both the master and slave morality can encompass the distortion of the truth; master morality does it more lightly. The minorities in the societies are unhappy and the nobles deem themselves as happy. Any misunderstanding is rested on the distance and contempt they hold for the lower class. Masters have the inability to take seriously the aspects that build and fester in the resentment of people such as enemies, misfortunes, and accidents. In permitting hatred and resentments to grow, relying on secrets, patience and scheming, the minorities become clever, as compared to the noble (Fitzgerald

For the most part, masters made young, single slaves the objects of their sexual pursuits. They did on occasion rape married women. The inability of the slave husband to protect his wife from such violation points to another fundamental aspect of the relationship between enslaved

Greed is the undertone upon which Douglass states that slavery “corrupted souls” and “turned good people into bad people.” The institution of slavery was based on the ultimate control and power over a human to whom he is stripped of all of his identity and becomes sub-human. Consequently, the institution forces slave holders had to buy into this concept in order to justify any and all cruelty toward slaves. Douglas states “Slave holders resort to all kinds of cruelty” and later describes various ways of torture and punishment “all are in requisition to keep the slave in his condition as a slave in the United States” (Douglass 272). Slave holders showed no mercy when reprimanding slaves. The brutality and cruelty of these punishments were more of a statement of power and control and often times the punishment was worse than the offense.

The power that they have over their slaves has a damaging effect on their moral health because they are careless. Douglass describes adultery and rape as typical behavior patterns of slaveholders which damage their families. Sophia Auld is Douglass's main illustration of the corruption of slave owners. The power of slaveholding changes Sophia from a nice woman to a demon. She went from a kind, caring and loving person into a typical mean slave master. She was no longer able to teach Douglass how to read because her husband disapproved it. Slaveholders gain and keep power over blacks from their birth onward by keeping them ignorant of basic facts about themselves. For example slaves didn't know their birth date or who their parents were. They didn't want slaves to have a natural sense of identity. Slave children were not allowed to learn to read or write because this would lead slaves to question their rights.

To begin, slavery manipulated even the most kind-hearted slaveholders into evil beings. Douglass witnessed slavery snatch the kind souls of numerous new slave owners. When referring to one of his mistresses, Douglass says of her, “Her face was made of heavenly smiles, and her voice of tranquil music. But alas! this kind heart had but a short time to remain as such. The fatal poison of irresponsible power was already in her hands, and soon commenced its infernal work” (Douglass 19). Douglass’s mistress was initially a warm-hearted, inviting

Masters would whip the slaves when they did something that they were not supposed to. Douglass refers to a time when he watched his master hang a slave by her arms and whip her continuously and then left her there to come back for her later. Whipping and lashing are not humane ways of punishment. Both are cruel and unusual and now are illegal under the Constitution. Many slaves would be afraid to attempt to run away, say anything, or do anything that would cause them to get a whipping because of the inhumane punishment that was established. Not only do the masters beat their slaves, they also rank the slaves with the animals. Douglass describes a time when one of his masters died and his property had to be divided between his two children. The evaluators ranked the slaves with the animals which suggests that they were worth no more than the animals. Slaves were also bought and sold like animals. They were bought at auctions or traded from master to master. People today are not bought and sold from person to person. Goods, services, and animals are sold. The slaves owned nothing, and their masters owned the slaves. They did not have rights, they were not citizens and they were not even considered human beings. They had no liberty or pursuit of happiness, and sometimes they did not even get a chance at life. All these rights are stated in the Constitution of the United States today, but the “dehumanizing characteristics of slavery” also took away the rights of the slaves (Douglass

Some slavery apologists claimed that blacks were beasts or a degenerated form of the human species. Douglass argued the hypocrisy of special laws prohibiting the free actions of blacks, such as rebelling against masters or any white person if blacks were bestial and incapable of independent and rational behavior. Also, there was the Christianization of slaves and punishment for practicing other religions. Then there was the matter of masters breeding with slave women producing mulatto children like Douglass. If blacks were beasts, then why were the offspring offensive to the mistress of the property. Slavery subverted the natural goodness of blacks by brutalizing them, as well as white slave holders and other whites affected by this institution. An example of this is Douglass’s mistress in Baltimore who at first was goodness personified, but soon after a scolding from her husband of her kind treatment she became harsh and cruel (p.62). To Douglass this was as injurious to the mistress as it was to the

The slaves are at the complete mercy of their master and are often treated as chattel. A cause for further condemnation is that not only did slavery turn sound men into merciless monsters, but whipping also satisfied a sadistic pleasure that slave-owners had seemed to develop. The US was built on the deprived rights of others. Furthermore, the US firmly believed in the three inalienable rights, one of which is freedom. Therefore, there is a natural condemnation to slavery, which Douglas describes in depth. Slave owners undergo a metamorphosis that leaves them changed, feeling no remorse for actions against slaves. Douglass is also confronted with the same situation when he is later transferred to Baltimore, where he witnesses the slave-owners progression from good to evil. The condemnation of slavery is evident. However, Douglass must embark on a journey to figure out how to make a slave owner perceive his slaves as humans not subordinate laboring

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

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

Douglass also emphasizes that the evil power of slavery will turn a good, kind heart, stone cold as it did with his master's wife, Mrs. Auld. She was once loving to him and wanted to educate him, and felt uncomfortable around his servility. But as time went on and she listened to her husband's demands to keep Frederick uneducated, the power she had over him turned her into a cruel master as well. Douglass believes that if a master isn't at the start cruel and mean, the power he or she has over another person will corrupt them and turn them so. The evil of slavery affects not just the slaves who suffer under it's weight but it makes the slave owner cold and cruel. So slavery could not be quelled with kinder masters because in time they would become just as harsh as any other.

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,

In the narrative, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Douglass recounts his childhood as a slave. Life as a slave is depressing and dehumanizing to say the least. Slaves live their whole lives oppressed by overseers, slaveholders, and society as a whole. Although, contrary to popular belief, slaveholders were also negatively affected by slavery. Not only did slavery change the way they viewed others, it perverted their morals as well. Essentially, any sane person given absolute power over another person has the potential to be cruel and treat others as less than human. The oppressive system of slavery harms not only the slaves, but the slaveholders as well as it morally corrupts the slaveholders by granting them absolute power over other human beings.