Nietzsche

Nietzsche was a revolutionary author and philosopher who has had a tremendous impact on German culture up through the twentieth century and even today. Nietzsche's views were very unlike the popular and conventional beliefs and practices of his time and nearly all of his published works were, and still are, rather controversial, especially in On the Genealogy of Morals. His philosophies are more than just controversial and unconventional viewpoints, however; they are absolutely extreme and dangerous if taken out of context or misinterpreted. After Nietzsche's death it took very little for his sister to make some slight alterations to his works to go along with Nazi ideology.

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.

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).

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).

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.

Nietzsche first introduces the concept of slave and master morality in the chapter about “Good, bad and evil”. He explains it as a society which is split into two, where a “militarily and politically dominant group of ‘masters’ exercises absolute control over a completely subordinate group of ‘slaves” (xx). Thus, the slaves become the abused, oppressed, and weak- what he refers to as slave morality. Meanwhile, the masters are the noble human beings who determine what is good and bad based on their own values- which he defines as master morality. This group of people do not set values and morals, but create them. They use the term “good” when referring to themselves, and use the term “bad” when referring to the “slaves”, “who by virtue are of their weakness are not capable of living the life of self-affirming physical exuberance” (Nietzsche 1884). Correspondingly, the slaves end up developing hatred for their masters and

In Nietzsche’s aphorisms 90-95 and 146-162 he attacks what he believes to be the fundamental basis of the “slave” morality prevalent in the Judeo-Christian tradition as well as other religions and societies. From the beginning, he distinguishes the two different types of moralities he believes to exist: the “master morality”, created by rulers of societies, and the “slave” morality, created by the lowest people in societies. The former stresses virtues of the strong and noble while looking down upon the weak and cowardly. This type of morality, however, is not as widespread as the “slave morality” that has been adopted by so many religions. Nietzsche looks through the psychology and logic of

Throughout Twilight of the Idols, it is apparent that Nietzsche felt that when the weakest portions of society band together, perverting and distorting the natural order, the situation becomes nihilism. Christianity is a symptom of this tendency, but in the example of Socrates we have the typical model of the slave revolt against master morality and the most significant aspect of modern nihilism. The most important thing to know about Socrates, according to Nietzsche, is that he was ugly. This physiological fact accounts for his entire orientation towards life in the Greek Polis. He sought to take revenge upon the beautiful culture of the Greeks, and in a "masterful" departure from nature, he developed the art of logical arguments. It was in the practice of logic and argumentation that Socrates saw his opportunity to overpower the authority of those around him and to thus secure a position of moral superiority to them. Anyone can learn logic, and since logic is directly opposed to unsubstantiated appeals to authority, Socrates and his followers were advocates of a kind of a type of nihilism which invited

Nietzsche uses acceptance of fate, its obstacles, adversity and also its divinity to become the Dionysian Overman. He believes by affirming life in both its cruelty and beauty that we can achieve joy in the present without the need for beliefs in an afterlife or future existences. Nietzsche states the Overman holds a love for natural life, with no grudges or sense of resentment whilst others hold spitefulness despite their religious beliefs and hence they cannot enjoy life

Nietzsche and Aristotle were two of the most significant philosopher of not only their time but their works has lasted throughout the centuries to influence even some today’s greatest minds. Their works however could not be any separated, Aristotle is a prominent figure in ancient Greek philosophy, making contributions to logic, metaphysics, mathematics, physics, biology, botany, ethics, politics, agriculture, medicine, dance and theatre. He was a student of great thinkers such as Plato and Socrates. He believes that ethics is a process to finding the final end or the highest good. He states that although there are many “ends” in life those are usually only means to further ends, our ambitions and wants must have some final purpose. Aristotle believes that this highest end is that of Happiness. He introduces the concept moral virtue which is the ability to properly control desires to follow bad actions, and is the focus of morality. Centered on the core of Aristotle 's account of moral virtue is his doctrine of the mean. According to this doctrine, moral virtues are character traits which are at in-between more extreme character traits. While Nietzsche a German philosopher, essayist, and cultural critic. He believes that "Good" is originally designated only the right of those individuals with social and political power to live their lives by sheer force of will. But a "priestly" caste, motivated by their resentment of their natural superiors, generated a corrupt

Nietzsche claims that the Christian religion has, for a very long time, been used as a means to confuse and dismiss reality. Instead, priests have been suggesting vague concepts such as “judgement”, “salvation”, “faith”, “sin”, etc. in order to freely command whatever values they see fit. The priests, in Nietzsche’s view, have been using the transcendental and unfalsifiable realm of the religious in order to create selfishly motivated lies for the gain of power. The poor masses have been following this bunch of lies because that they are deceived in thinking that they will themselves gain more power by the way of God offering equality and eternal life. However, in all actuality, the world is not equal and these masses are being made to suffer an even greater deal than necessary for the sake of a filthy religious lie. Nietzsche suggests that we, instead, abandon these lies and leave the “will of God” in the past for a more happy future. Instead, Nietzsche offers, we can come to terms with reality and authentically seek to fulfill our deepest desires; i.e. the natural values attributed to our psyche by the way of the process of

Nietzsche begins his discussion of good and moral with an etymological assessment of the designations of “good” coined in various languages. He “found they all led back to the same conceptual transformation—that everywhere ‘noble,’

Nietzsche’s View on Morality In this paper I will argue that Friedrich Nietzsche does not account for moral progress due to his view on declining effect of improving human virtue as a result of slave morality. Moral progress is the objective standard of goodness/value.

Another philosophy of Nietzsche was related to the notion of ressentiment. Defined, ressentiment is any cautious, defeatist, or cynical attitude based on the belief that the individual and human institutions exist in a hostile or indifferent universe or society and an oppressive awareness of the futility of trying to improve one's status in life or in society (dictionary.com). In the work, On the Genealogy of Morals, ressentiment is illustrated in the way the Jewish clerics act in response to the authority of the Romans. Nietzsche states, “the Jews, that priestly people, who in opposing their enemies and conquerors were ultimately satisfied with nothing less than a radical revaluation of their enemies’ values, that is to say, an act of the most spiritual revenge. For this alone was appropriate to a priestly people, the people embodying the most deeply repressed priestly vengefulness.” The feeling of ressentiment is subconscious and communicates Nietzsche’s analysis of

3). In his most basic claims, Nietzsche implicitly negates the possibility of a “disinterested” or “objective” truth. He would not urge so definitively for an affirmation of reality, if he held out for the possibility of fantasy or god. The ‘innocence of becoming’ is a clear example of how Nietzsche, for all intents and purposes, “debunk[‘s]” the relevance of claims made by traditional authorities. In essence, Nietzsche basically nullifies the relevance of societal hierarchy. Not only this, but the further claims made by such a society regarding morality and philosophical thinking, are seen to be – at best – gullible and naïve. The ‘innocence of becoming’ refers to even the lowest classes of society finding power in their status. In lieu of accepting that we are completely alone in the world, Nietzsche asserts that we have a constant need to blame others for our state. It is simply much easier to do than to accept that everything we do has no genuine or reaching consequences. While the ‘innocence of becoming’ is not necessarily an innocent process as those we choose to blame are usually blameless, it is fair to say that we are innocent of it; much like the ‘will to power’ it also works through self-deception. Evidently we are able to commit to life affirmation by essentially taking no responsibility for our weakness. Christianity itself is closely connected with the ‘becoming’ process as in its