Nietzsche on Slave Morality Essay

Slave as defined by the dictionary means that a slave is a person who is the property of and wholly subject to another; a bond servant. So why is it that every time you go and visit a historical place like the Hampton-Preston mansion in Columbia South Carolina, the Lowell Factory where the mill girls work in Massachusetts or the Old town of Williamsburg Virginia they only talk about the good things that happened at these place, like such things as who owned them, who worked them, how they were financed and what life was like for the owners. They never talk about the background information of the lower level people like the slaves or servants who helped take care and run these places behind the scenes.

During the 1840s, America saw increasingly attractive settlements forming between the North and the South. The government tried to keep the industrial north and the agricultural south happy, but eventually the issue of slavery became too big to handle, no matter how many treaties or compromises were formed. Slavery was a huge issue that unraveled throughout many years of American history and was one of the biggest contributors leading up to the Civil War (notes, Fall 2015). Many books have been written over the years about slavery and the brutality of the life that many people endured. In “A Slave No More”, David Blight tells the story about two men, John M. Washington (1838-1918) and Wallace Turnage (1846-1916), struggling during American slavery. Their escape to freedom happened during America’s bloodiest war among many political conflicts, which had been splitting the country apart for many decades. As Blight (2007) describes, “Throughout the Civil War, in thousands of different circumstances, under changing policies and redefinitions of their status, and in the face of social chaos…four million slaves helped to decide what time it would be in American History” (p. 5). Whether it was freedom from a master or overseer, freedom from living as both property and the object of another person’s will, or even freedom to make their own decisions and control their own life, slaves wanted a sense of independence. According to Blight (2007), “The war and the presence of Union armies

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

Prior to the publication of any slave narrative, African Americans had been represented by early historians’ interpretations of their race, culture, and situation along with contemporary authors’ fictionalized depictions. Their persona was often “characterized as infantile, incompetent, and...incapable of achievement” (Hunter-Willis 11) while the actions of slaveholders were justified with the arguments that slavery would maintain a cheap labor force and a guarantee that their suffering did not differ to the toils of the rest of the “struggling world” (Hunter-Willis 12). The emergence of the slave narratives created a new voice that discredited all former allegations of inferiority and produced a new perception of resilience and ingenuity.

Nietzsche introduces the differences between what he names later in his first essay the "master morality" and "slave morality." The first master morality is the ideas of the nobles, including solders and other ruling classes. This he

The slave mortality presented by Nietzsche in his Genealogy of Morals is prevalent within modern literature. The dark effects of this morality have crept far beyond the general view of the elite class and into our writing. This is not much of a surprise since literature reflects the world and our view of the world within it. Unfortunately, its impact on our society is shown by its prevalence within modern writing. This morality allows the author to focus on the “evil enemy” (Nietzsche 39) instead of the good within humanity. This obsession with the negativity within the world has become a theme within humanities writing. Every good story must have some conflict some evil that is tearing at the good and often innocent. And it is true, that

Imagine, if you will, rising earlier than the sun, eating a mere “snack”- lacking essentially all nutritional value - and trekking miles to toil in the unforgiving climate of the southern states, and laboring until the sun once again slipped under the horizon. Clad only in the rags your master provided (perhaps years ago), you begin walking in the dark the miles to your “home.” As described by the writers Jacob Stroyer and Josiah Henson, this “home” was actually a mere thatched roof, that you built with your own hands, held up by pathetic walls, over a dirt floor and you shared this tiny space with another family. Upon return to “home,” once again you eat the meager rations you were provided, and fall into bed

In “Beyond Good and Evil”, Nietzsche reveals the two primary forms of morality, this would be the master morality and slave morality. In the lecture we discussed Nietzche’s fatalism he believed that events people are fated, so each individual is fated to either have a master or slave type morality. The master morality is the morality of the people, who are strong willed people. The ‘good’ is the strong, powerful and the noble, whereas the ‘evil’ is the cowardly, powerless and meek. The essence of the master morality is dignity, bravery, honesty and sense of self-worth. That is to say that it takes the good and the bad are equivalent to nobility and shame. Master morality is the essentially the affirming morality. The Master morality affirms life, it is the here and now, and it is like nature and instincts.

However Aristotle's good life could not appeal to Nietzsche because it is too entangled with the reflective or rational activity of the soul Aristotle's view of the moral life must be rejected by Nietzsche. Indeed, Nietzsche, who rejects this view of the human as an essentially rational being, would certainly resist such a view of morality in which an individual moderates his or her own flourishing by using practical reason to establish the mean in every course of action. Nietzsche on the other hand offers the concept two different concepts that of master morality which is the morality of the masters, the nobles, the warriors, who see themselves and their actions as good. Thus, strength, power, health, wealth, and happiness are all considered "good." These masters then perceive what Nietzsche calls a pathos of distance between themselves and those who are poor, unhealthy, weak, or impotent. These are all undesirable qualities, and so the masters dub them as "bad." This is the contrast between "good" and "bad" that defines master morality. Those opposed to the masters develop slave morality. In this passage, Nietzsche identifies slave morality with a priestly caste, though he identifies it elsewhere with the slave and the lower class . These people are the poor, the unhealthy, the weak, and

The dynamic of the relationships between slaves and their master was one which was designed to undermine and demean the slave. The master exercised complete authority and dominion over his slaves and

Nietzsche argued that a distinction existed between the morality of master and those of their slaves, or those who are poor and powerless compared to the masters. Master morality is attitude where good and bad are equivalent to noble and despicable respectively. The master creates value and it defined as good by the master, because of the power they have. The masters look at the slaves and see that the slaves characterized by the opposite of what characterizes them as master, and thus think that the slaves are bad. So, master’s morality defined by the identity of the masters. In the other hand, slave morality, is something that is developed by the slaves, or those who are poor, powerless and weak compared to the master’s morality. They resent

Masters are totally free. They do what they want, to whom that want, and whatever they want. How it is such a person in such a situation begin to think about morality. Nietzsche proposes a person in such a situation would begin by saying that whatever it is the approval of our desire is good. We can imagin such a list of thing such a master might approve of . he will no doubt desire to show off his courage during battle to keep power over his slaves and it demonstrates his honour in front of his fellow master. Goodness in master morality is

To begin, Nietzsche starts with the story of the Farmer and the Blond beasts. It leads with a normal farming town, sufficiently living quietly on its own. At this point, you may enter the Blond beasts. These are the new, stronger, ‘better’ humans. They insert themselves into the lives of the farmers and immediately take control. Being weaker, the farmers have no choice but to bow down and obey. This new regime looks down upon the ‘slaves’ and decide that they themselves must be the good kind of humans- after all, they are more powerful. These slaves are pitiful, weak, and unable to protect themselves, therefore they must aspire to be like the masters, right? While this idea of being better is developing within the masters, the slaves are brooding over their own forming judgments. They reminisce over the life that once was- before the beasts. At this point, all the slaves know is that these powerful beings have ruined their lives and turned them into desolate beings. This feeling is what breeds this heady combination of envy, hatred, and powerlessness. In this position, the only thing the slaves are able to do is to imagine the demise of these masters. The slaves come to the realization that, even though the masters believe them to be the ‘good’ ones, they are in fact the ones perpetuating this oppression, therefore they must be the bad, or evil, ones. Here is where we see the development of Nietzsche’s two types of morality- master morality and slave morality. Master

The idea of the master and the slave morality came because Nietzsche would look at the ethical system. He examined the idea of the good and bad in the Greek world, and he showed how the terms have evolved in society. Nietzsche believed that the mind is no longer passive interrupters of the external world. The moralities are the distinction between right and wrong, or good behavior and bad behavior. Nietzsche’s described two different moralities, master morality and slave morality. Master morality is for the so called strong willed and strong men that are above the rest. This is the ability to have an open mind, courage, honesty. These people are concerned with ethics and emphasizes virtue and strength. Slave morality focuses on the weak and those that have been abused or

According to Nietzsche genealogy of Christian morality has become a tale of shame – wherein the weak promote the propagation of a lie and foster a mistaken explanation for suffering. By overlooking the will to power that occurs naturally in all the people, Christianity cages, and dulls the will preventing it from expressing itself. This in turn creates problems by removing the individual’s ability to master their own life – turning them into puppets under the guidance of the government. From the Christian perspective, nihilistic views empower the people – giving them hope and a belief in internal strength. From Nietzsche’s view point Christianity and its by-product – democracy - in fact remove any sense of power or self from the realm of the weak. There is no room for advancement until death. Nietzsche points to alternative sources of suffering and punishment – noting a sadistic expression of will to power that in some ways is reminiscent of sociopathic tendencies. The best human life uses will to power as a motivator. The weak and the strong seek to fulfill their desires and the expression as such can be varied. It can be the source of punishment as expressed in the past and modernity. According to Nietzsche, man should murder and taunt to fulfill his needs. This all became restricted with the advent of modern society creating only a space for internal suffering and anger. In moments of public suffering, will to power is expressed – but is still primarily constrained by