Origin Of Morality Vs Nietzsche

Nietzsche develops this idea in his first essay of The Genealogy of Morals. In section 4 of the first essay, he explains that the moral value of good was derived originally from the noble, aristocrats and that in contrast, the moral value of bad was based of the lowly, common plebeians. This is apparent in the etymology of words such as the German word for bad, schlecht. Similar words such as schlechtweg [plainy], and schlechterdings [simply] show that the “bad” was referring the plain, simple, common man. This conclusion is obvious for Nietzsche but he criticizes the “retarding influence exercised by the democratic prejudice in the modern world toward all questions of origin” for the late arrival of his insight (Nietzsche 28).

In his Genealogy of Morals, Friedrich Nietzsche examines the origins of the pervading moral system of his time to Christian values, which elevate restraint and self-denial. In his writings, Marx attributes societal ills to capitalism and the exploitation of the working class.

Exegesis and Critique of Nietzsche’s Conception of Guilt In The Second Essay of On the Genealogy of Morality

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.

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).

On the Genealogy of Morals by Friedrich Nietzsche is typically listed as one of the most important philosophical works of the modern era. It is only modern, of course, to philosophical standards, being a mere 129 years old. It is also one of the most controversial works of its time, having the dubious distinction of being connected to Nazi ideology; it also has a not very subtle racist, sexist, and Darwinist bent that is a reflection of Nietzsche himself. That being said, I think that it is also serially misunderstood. Nietzsche directly mentions the role of interpretation in ethical discourse in the Genealogy, and the interpretive element factors heavily into one’s understanding of the polemic and by extension, ethics philosophy as a whole. Throughout the book, Nietzsche uses interpretation as a tool in itself to make a constructivist and existentialist argument about the history of ethics as whole. His idea that man has used interpretation throughout history, and the interpretive elements in Genealogy outside of the historical analysis, seem to say that almost all ethics are derived from interpretation and therefore constructivist in nature, which is a heavily existentialist argument. For example, the entirety of the first essay is based heavily upon the role of interpretation in the development of the early ethical systems that Nietzsche argues are built on the

There is only a strong man in his eyes that the society has progressed from. In Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche says that to keep our society, only powerful people should join together because respecting the weak causes the powerful to become weak, and will result in a weak society. In order to live, the strong crushes the weak to stay dominant because in history the strong are the ones that always win. One of Nietzsche moralities was slave, which was the term that identified the weak individuals. In Nietzsche eyes, people with power exploit the weak, and if the strong honors the weak then the strong will get weaker and destroy the society. Friedrich supported the master morality, stating that dominating people defines good in a person, and that you are masters of other people. He only helped others to better himself, not because he has sympathy on the weak. Nietzsche is just making claims and giving no proof. He assumes the strong makes a better society. He wanted us to look to the past and see the strong always win, and we should not look at the future, at things that will destroy society. Nietzsche believed, only show respect to the strong. He contradicts himself saying there are no standards but creates standards by saying, strong should get their way. He has no logic, just

Friedrich Nietzsche’s “On the Genealogy of Morality” includes his theory on man’s development of “bad conscience.” Nietzsche believes that when transitioning from a free-roaming individual to a member of a community, man had to suppress his “will to power,” his natural “instinct of freedom”(59). The governing community threatened its members with punishment for violation of its laws, its “morality of customs,” thereby creating a uniform and predictable man (36). With fear of punishment curtailing his behavior, man was no longer allowed the freedom to indulge his every instinct. He turned his aggressive focus inward, became ashamed of his natural animal instincts, judged himself as inherently evil, and developed a bad conscience (46).

In contemplating my own beliefs of what is sought as “good” and what is “bad,” I chose to expand my ideas and compare them to Friedrich Nietzsche’s first essay in “On the Genealogy of Morals.” Nietzsche first debunks the ideas of Nietzsche sees two types of morality at play creating these original definitions of good bad and evil, master morality and slave morality. I will also use Nietzsche’s concept of “will to power” to evaluate each of these ideas. Nietzsche believes that the will to power is the force that pushes humankind. To clarify for my readers, I’m looking to separate deontology from virtue ethics to improve my own understanding of good and bad not as what is right or wrong.

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,’

Because we are so keen on learning, we are disengaged from our experiences, and therefore are not in the right place to understand ourselves (3). The words that are used to define any given concept are not to be taken at face value since the judgment of our moral values depends on their respective time periods and cultural influences, which are subject to change as everything else does. In other words, they are products of the moral projections of people’s values, which often have a multitude of dimensions that surpass the shallow fields of initial interpretation. Consequently, we need to look beyond the surface interpretation of these words by re-interpreting their meanings many times to be able to judge what we believe. As we change with time, our interpretations are subject to change, and our value systems evolve, both preventing us from establishing absolute meaning regarding anything. As a result, we cannot truly understand concepts unless we remove several historical layers from them. Many times throughout his polemic, Nietzsche hints at the necessity of asking a question from “various perspectives” (41). “Understanding the demonstrated purpose or utility of a thing, its form, its organization” is not

Most of the times Nietzsche understands and uses the word morality as the set of values and ideals typical of Christian western society. In this sense, it is safe to say that Nietzsche opposes morality and that genealogy serves the ultimate goal of undermining it. However, genealogy has of course a scope for application beyond the particular morality of 19th century Germans. Accordingly, my claim is that in Nietzsche Christian-western morality represents a particular instance of a more general concept of what morality is. So for example, in the preface to On the Genealogy of Morals Nietzsche claims that the object of the book is the value of morality, or, of ‘[…] all that has hitherto been celebrated on earth as morality […].’(GM P:3)

When reading Nietzsche, we can pick up from him that he was very educated and often picked apart philosophers opinions. Although he had a very poor outlook on his culture and everyday society, he had very strong opinions when it came to humans and their actions. He made strong assumptions whether people agreed with him or not. One of Nietzsche’s main goal during the Geology of Morals, is to show the difference between slave and master morality. What caused the master morality to have hate for the slave morality and how did it affect a person.

As Nietzsche begins the preface on the Genalogy of Morals, it seems he saying philosophers are not men of knowledge. However, their job is to find knowledge. Nietzsche states he has pondered for a long period of time over the ideas of “good” and “evil” and “good” and “bad.” With this, he recalls back when was thirteen years of age where his philosophical research first began. Then he found the origin of evil being God. Following this idea he began asking how humans differentiated between “good”, “evil”, and “bad.”

From the master’s view point, the good are the noble with power. The noble view themselves as the determining factor for the deciding what is good and what is not. Masters believe they are good because they have managed to be successful. As well as, think they have rightfully gained their power because of their higher positions. So, the good comes from what they say is good. The bad are lowly and despicable, usually describing those who are petty. These “bad” people are typically concerned with what is useful rather than what is great. The masters view slaves as bad because they can not defend themselves nor can they revolt against them. Good and bad in this sense refer to the people, not the actual actions. From the point of view from the slaves, they think they are good because they are modest and innocent. They view their masters as evil because they are using them for their own purposes and are taking advantage of them due to their low societal status. Therefore, the master’s “good” is the slave’s “evil” because if the slave is good, then the master must be the opposite of them. So, instead of slave morality and master morality simply just viewing something as good and non-good, they view it as “good and evil” and “good and bad” respectively. The masters put themselves on a pedestal because they have the authority to requite. Slaves do not have this opportunity a lot of the time so they view themselves as taking some kind of high-road. With this, the slaves vilify the power of the authority which leads to the outcome of evil instead of