Related
Questions:
§ Critically examine the import and utility of Friedrich Nietzsche’s thesis to the pool of ethical doctrines.
THE PHILOSOPHER: FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche 15th October 1844 – 25th august 1990 was a radical German philosopher whose critiques of contemporary culture, religion, and philosophy centered on a basic question surrounding the very foundation of values and morality.
NIETZCHE’S ETHICAL IDEOLOGY
Nietzsche’s ethical aspirations were very radical and extreme. He said a lot in his moral philosophy. But for the sake of explanation, we would highlight his ethical doctrines in the following manner;
§ Barbarianism as the foundation of society
Nietzsche began by explaining the origins of society; he subjectively elaborated the essential characteristics of a healthy society. Nietzsche was very influenced by Darwin, as evolution is in the background of Nietzsche’s ethics. Nietzsche thinks that evolution demonstrates that life is a struggle for existence. According to Nietzsche, all higher civilizations arose from the barbarians, who with their will and desire for power, have preyed upon the weaker, moral and peaceful societies. They were brute and gory, never taking things lightly. They sought out opportunities to plunder, to oppress, and to annihilate any vulnerable party. Thomas Hobbes state of nature closely fits Nietzsche’s description of barbarian society (which for him is the foundation of modern day society). Hence, for Nietzsche, a healthy society does not exist for its own sake, but exists for the sake of a higher type of person; the strong man who possesses “the will to power”. It is a fact of nature that some creatures are naturally more dominant, and that nature rewards those creatures who express that dominance. Thus, nature rewards creatures who express the will to power. According to Nietzsche, there is nothing immoral or moral about this; it is just a fact of life for Nietzsche, so we should not deceive ourselves about this fact or try to sugar-coat it. In his own words “…Here (in this world), we must beware of superficiality and get to the bottom of the matter, resisting all sentimental weakness; life itself is essentially appropriation, injury, overpowering of what is alien and weaker; suppression, hardness, imposition of one’s own forms, incorporation and at least, at its mildest, exploitation ...”
§ The Will to power
Nietzsche states that a resulting consequence of the "Will to Power" is the exploitation of man by man, and this exploitation is the essence of life. For Nietzsche, the Will to Power is the dominant principle of organic (human) function. Without the “Will to Power” being used to exploit the sentimental weaknesses of equality among people, society cannot develop. Like the dialectical materialist principle of the unity and struggle of opposites, it is imperative that for any sort of development to occur, the strong must oppress the weak. Hence, the Will to Power is the Will to Life. "Exploitation" does not belong to a corrupt or imperfect and primitive society; it belongs to the essence of what lives, as a basic organic function. It is a consequence of the will to power, which is after all the will of life. The “superior” people are those who acknowledge and express the will to power. “Expressing the will to power” means taking advantage of your natural gifts (physical strength, intelligence, beauty and so on) to achieve your full potential, which may include achieving dominance over others. Nietzsche says superior people develop their gifts directly and unashamedly. They do not deny their own nature, their own ability. They face the reality of the competitive struggle with their eyes open and their hearts under control. They despise sentimentality and pretence. They resist slave ideologies that try to diminish and impose artificial limits on them.
§ The overman: a creator of values
Nietzsche calls the strong man whom possesses the will to power, the “overman”. He is the noble type of man and a creator of values. He further asserts that the overman is beyond good and evil. What does Nietzsche mean when he says that the noble type of man is "beyond good and evil" and is a creator of values? The "over-man" is not subject to the morality of the lower-type of meek and common people who speak of good and evil in terms of equality. Since the noble type of man is of the higher-type, he is not subject to the morality of the herd. Hence, morality favours mediocrity; standing beyond good and evil is rising above the herd.
§ The Master morality
Accordingly, for Nietzsche, the two primary types of morality are master morality and slave morality. He asserts that in higher civilizations and in people, these modes of morality are mixed. Firstly, Master morality is a “radical” attitude which separates "good" and "bad" as equivalent to "noble" and "despicable" respectively. Hence, by clearly separating both, the master man consciously embraces the bad, and thus creates his own values. He does not wait for society to determine what the way to go is. The slave morality is subject to flattery by the master morality; such persons know they do not deserve praise, yet they believe it when they are praised by the master since they have not the abilities to create value. Evolution shows that in every species, some creatures are winners and some are losers in the struggle. Humans are no different. Nietzsche says it is foolish to believe that people are “equal.” Some are naturally more gifted, stronger, and more intelligent and so on; others are less so. Humans, according to Nietzsche, are divided into two groups: a natural aristocratic group and a naturally dependent and inferior one. These two groups will always and inevitably be opposed. Nietzsche notes that some thinkers, like Marx and Engels, believe that as mankind develops, the natural exploitation of the weak by the strong will cease. But, Nietzsche says, this is silly.
§ The Slave morality
On the other hand, Slave morality is a "weak" attitude or “herd morality” which strongly holds to the standard of that which is useful or beneficial to the weak or powerless. The virtues it upholds are sympathy, kindness, meekness, faithfulness, humility and the likes. It outrightly perceives strong and independent individuals as evil beings. Fundamentally, the history of morals is the conflict of these two moral outlooks. The higher type creates his own values out of strength; the meek and powerless begin with resentment. The challenge here is that co-existence of both parties is impossible because the herd (slave morality) seeks to impose its values universally. For Nietzsche, vanity is the hallmark of the meek and powerless; a consequence of inferiority. The herd desire for a good opinion of themselves because they are not able to create or set their own value. For Nietzsche, inferior people, who definitely outnumber the superior ones, use ideologies (“slave moralities”) like Christianity, utilitarianism, and Marxism, to try to deny the will to power. They promulgate silly ideas like equality, and urge silly virtues like humility and pity. But they are trying to live a lie; they are trying to deny obvious facts of nature, and trying to make a virtue of their weakness and cowardice.
§ On religion
Nietzsche said “God is dead,” not in the metaphysical or epistemological sense, but in the sense that the lives of modern people are not God-centered, and our science makes no reference to God. And it is truly a fact that the hypothesis of God is explicitly disallowed in scientific explanation. Hence, Nietzsche welcomes the death of God, because he thinks traditional Western religions have degraded and harmed people. Up till now, religion has served the weak-minded masses as a kind of pillar supporting wasted lives, as a consolation for being lost, confused and exploited (indeed, Nietzsche believes that Christianity has even encouraged weakness, foolishness, and poverty). Moreover, religion has tempted men to reject those values appropriate to this life in favour of those of the next; religion has made men, in effect, long for death. If we cannot enjoy or conquer this life, then why are we here? Religion has lied and robbed men of their courage and has taught them to despise this world.
Thus religion reveals itself in Nietzsche’s ethics, as a denial of the best part of us, as a threat to life, to joy, and to the life-serving spirit. Instead of religion, he proposes a humanistic vision of a race of supermen, who by remaining true to the earth, perfect the resources of spirit and nature, which ages of evolutionary development have stored up in mankind. In each of us, says Nietzsche, is a god waiting to be born. Something new, unique, and creative can be brought forth from us, if only we risk everything during the brief moment we have on earth; if only we have the courage to say that “not God’s purposes, but my own joy, however brief, justifies existence itself”. Christianity (in particular) is an example of what Nietzsche calls a life-denying “slave morality”. In order to truly live and express the will to power, the superior person must reject Christianity as construed by Nietzsche; that is, Christianity exemplifies the ideology of the majority, the herd, the cowardly, the conventional, and the less-than-fully-human.
§ On politics: democracy
Nietzsche thinks slave moralities have pretty much taken over, as the official moralities of the Western world (the ones people pay lip service to). Accordingly, Nietzsche thinks that the promotion of the ideals of equality and democracy in modern times is a great tragedy for humanity. Equality and democracy are for Nietzsche the worst, not the best, values; they are the exact opposite of what humans in their hearts actually value; the opposite of what it is natural to value. Inferior people naturally see the superiority of their “natural” masters; hence by nature, they fear them and feel uncomfortable with them. But, when slave morality is given the chance to take hold, the inferior ones are suddenly given the “moral” license to brainwash and persecute those who try to express the will to power. Therefore, when the standard of equality rules reality, the best of humanity are at risk.
CRITIQUE OF NIETSZCHE ETHICAL THESIS
§ An attack of Nietzsche
Like most ethical concepts, the ideas of human “superiority” and “inferiority” are not exactly self-evident. Claiming that a person is superior or inferior requires thorough argument. If the claim of superiority or inferiority is truly intended as a factual statement, then the argument should show publicly observable facts. Sometimes this is possible. For example, I can say with some assurance that Lionel Messi is superior to me as regards football playing. This is because there is agreement about what constitutes a good football player. But, is there a corresponding agreement about what constitutes superior humanity in general i.e. the agreement about what makes a superior or inferior human being? Well, Nietzsche seems to think so (by saying superior humans inspire fear and so on). Nevertheless, there are a couple of problems with this;
i. Nietzsche’s depiction of the superior person seems sentimental and incomplete. Nietzsche seems to emphasize only the virtues of a certain time of life (one’s prime) and a certain sex (male). But human life is also the life of the very young and very old; the weak, the needy, the powerless, the unable to give back, the unequal in power, the traditional realm of women, whom Nietzsche appears to despise.
ii. As long as there has been a general consensus amongst “wise persons” about which attributes constitute superior humanity, Nietzsche cannot subjectively pick out what he feels is right or wrong. Most religions, for example, both Western and non-Western see humility of self (not glorification of self) as key to both virtue and personal happiness. Hence, it is clear that Nietzsche does not seem to understand or acknowledge the possibility of benevolence and generosity of spirit that extends to all, whether deserving or not.
§ A Defence of Nietzsche
Nietzsche’s defenders argue that he revolutionized philosophy because he saw more clearly than any previous thinker, the implications of modernism. It was clear to Nietzsche that dualism was faulty, so Christianity had to die a well-deserved death. The God of science is as dead as the God of religion, according to Nietzsche. In any case, Nietzsche’s defenders say the “master-slave” stuff is not necessarily a proposal of innate human types. Rather, Nietzsche is issuing an existential challenge, as anyone can choose to be a master moralist or a slave moralist. Furthermore, if God is dead, then nothing is “objectively” right or wrong. So you do not have to live any particular sort of life, and moreover, certainly not a life ruled by desire for other people’s approval. Hence, Nietzsche’s message is to live life fully, satisfactorily and authentically.
§ Critically examine the import and utility of Friedrich Nietzsche’s thesis to the pool of ethical doctrines.
THE PHILOSOPHER: FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche 15th October 1844 – 25th august 1990 was a radical German philosopher whose critiques of contemporary culture, religion, and philosophy centered on a basic question surrounding the very foundation of values and morality.
NIETZCHE’S ETHICAL IDEOLOGY
Nietzsche’s ethical aspirations were very radical and extreme. He said a lot in his moral philosophy. But for the sake of explanation, we would highlight his ethical doctrines in the following manner;
§ Barbarianism as the foundation of society
Nietzsche began by explaining the origins of society; he subjectively elaborated the essential characteristics of a healthy society. Nietzsche was very influenced by Darwin, as evolution is in the background of Nietzsche’s ethics. Nietzsche thinks that evolution demonstrates that life is a struggle for existence. According to Nietzsche, all higher civilizations arose from the barbarians, who with their will and desire for power, have preyed upon the weaker, moral and peaceful societies. They were brute and gory, never taking things lightly. They sought out opportunities to plunder, to oppress, and to annihilate any vulnerable party. Thomas Hobbes state of nature closely fits Nietzsche’s description of barbarian society (which for him is the foundation of modern day society). Hence, for Nietzsche, a healthy society does not exist for its own sake, but exists for the sake of a higher type of person; the strong man who possesses “the will to power”. It is a fact of nature that some creatures are naturally more dominant, and that nature rewards those creatures who express that dominance. Thus, nature rewards creatures who express the will to power. According to Nietzsche, there is nothing immoral or moral about this; it is just a fact of life for Nietzsche, so we should not deceive ourselves about this fact or try to sugar-coat it. In his own words “…Here (in this world), we must beware of superficiality and get to the bottom of the matter, resisting all sentimental weakness; life itself is essentially appropriation, injury, overpowering of what is alien and weaker; suppression, hardness, imposition of one’s own forms, incorporation and at least, at its mildest, exploitation ...”
§ The Will to power
Nietzsche states that a resulting consequence of the "Will to Power" is the exploitation of man by man, and this exploitation is the essence of life. For Nietzsche, the Will to Power is the dominant principle of organic (human) function. Without the “Will to Power” being used to exploit the sentimental weaknesses of equality among people, society cannot develop. Like the dialectical materialist principle of the unity and struggle of opposites, it is imperative that for any sort of development to occur, the strong must oppress the weak. Hence, the Will to Power is the Will to Life. "Exploitation" does not belong to a corrupt or imperfect and primitive society; it belongs to the essence of what lives, as a basic organic function. It is a consequence of the will to power, which is after all the will of life. The “superior” people are those who acknowledge and express the will to power. “Expressing the will to power” means taking advantage of your natural gifts (physical strength, intelligence, beauty and so on) to achieve your full potential, which may include achieving dominance over others. Nietzsche says superior people develop their gifts directly and unashamedly. They do not deny their own nature, their own ability. They face the reality of the competitive struggle with their eyes open and their hearts under control. They despise sentimentality and pretence. They resist slave ideologies that try to diminish and impose artificial limits on them.
§ The overman: a creator of values
Nietzsche calls the strong man whom possesses the will to power, the “overman”. He is the noble type of man and a creator of values. He further asserts that the overman is beyond good and evil. What does Nietzsche mean when he says that the noble type of man is "beyond good and evil" and is a creator of values? The "over-man" is not subject to the morality of the lower-type of meek and common people who speak of good and evil in terms of equality. Since the noble type of man is of the higher-type, he is not subject to the morality of the herd. Hence, morality favours mediocrity; standing beyond good and evil is rising above the herd.
§ The Master morality
Accordingly, for Nietzsche, the two primary types of morality are master morality and slave morality. He asserts that in higher civilizations and in people, these modes of morality are mixed. Firstly, Master morality is a “radical” attitude which separates "good" and "bad" as equivalent to "noble" and "despicable" respectively. Hence, by clearly separating both, the master man consciously embraces the bad, and thus creates his own values. He does not wait for society to determine what the way to go is. The slave morality is subject to flattery by the master morality; such persons know they do not deserve praise, yet they believe it when they are praised by the master since they have not the abilities to create value. Evolution shows that in every species, some creatures are winners and some are losers in the struggle. Humans are no different. Nietzsche says it is foolish to believe that people are “equal.” Some are naturally more gifted, stronger, and more intelligent and so on; others are less so. Humans, according to Nietzsche, are divided into two groups: a natural aristocratic group and a naturally dependent and inferior one. These two groups will always and inevitably be opposed. Nietzsche notes that some thinkers, like Marx and Engels, believe that as mankind develops, the natural exploitation of the weak by the strong will cease. But, Nietzsche says, this is silly.
§ The Slave morality
On the other hand, Slave morality is a "weak" attitude or “herd morality” which strongly holds to the standard of that which is useful or beneficial to the weak or powerless. The virtues it upholds are sympathy, kindness, meekness, faithfulness, humility and the likes. It outrightly perceives strong and independent individuals as evil beings. Fundamentally, the history of morals is the conflict of these two moral outlooks. The higher type creates his own values out of strength; the meek and powerless begin with resentment. The challenge here is that co-existence of both parties is impossible because the herd (slave morality) seeks to impose its values universally. For Nietzsche, vanity is the hallmark of the meek and powerless; a consequence of inferiority. The herd desire for a good opinion of themselves because they are not able to create or set their own value. For Nietzsche, inferior people, who definitely outnumber the superior ones, use ideologies (“slave moralities”) like Christianity, utilitarianism, and Marxism, to try to deny the will to power. They promulgate silly ideas like equality, and urge silly virtues like humility and pity. But they are trying to live a lie; they are trying to deny obvious facts of nature, and trying to make a virtue of their weakness and cowardice.
§ On religion
Nietzsche said “God is dead,” not in the metaphysical or epistemological sense, but in the sense that the lives of modern people are not God-centered, and our science makes no reference to God. And it is truly a fact that the hypothesis of God is explicitly disallowed in scientific explanation. Hence, Nietzsche welcomes the death of God, because he thinks traditional Western religions have degraded and harmed people. Up till now, religion has served the weak-minded masses as a kind of pillar supporting wasted lives, as a consolation for being lost, confused and exploited (indeed, Nietzsche believes that Christianity has even encouraged weakness, foolishness, and poverty). Moreover, religion has tempted men to reject those values appropriate to this life in favour of those of the next; religion has made men, in effect, long for death. If we cannot enjoy or conquer this life, then why are we here? Religion has lied and robbed men of their courage and has taught them to despise this world.
Thus religion reveals itself in Nietzsche’s ethics, as a denial of the best part of us, as a threat to life, to joy, and to the life-serving spirit. Instead of religion, he proposes a humanistic vision of a race of supermen, who by remaining true to the earth, perfect the resources of spirit and nature, which ages of evolutionary development have stored up in mankind. In each of us, says Nietzsche, is a god waiting to be born. Something new, unique, and creative can be brought forth from us, if only we risk everything during the brief moment we have on earth; if only we have the courage to say that “not God’s purposes, but my own joy, however brief, justifies existence itself”. Christianity (in particular) is an example of what Nietzsche calls a life-denying “slave morality”. In order to truly live and express the will to power, the superior person must reject Christianity as construed by Nietzsche; that is, Christianity exemplifies the ideology of the majority, the herd, the cowardly, the conventional, and the less-than-fully-human.
§ On politics: democracy
Nietzsche thinks slave moralities have pretty much taken over, as the official moralities of the Western world (the ones people pay lip service to). Accordingly, Nietzsche thinks that the promotion of the ideals of equality and democracy in modern times is a great tragedy for humanity. Equality and democracy are for Nietzsche the worst, not the best, values; they are the exact opposite of what humans in their hearts actually value; the opposite of what it is natural to value. Inferior people naturally see the superiority of their “natural” masters; hence by nature, they fear them and feel uncomfortable with them. But, when slave morality is given the chance to take hold, the inferior ones are suddenly given the “moral” license to brainwash and persecute those who try to express the will to power. Therefore, when the standard of equality rules reality, the best of humanity are at risk.
CRITIQUE OF NIETSZCHE ETHICAL THESIS
§ An attack of Nietzsche
Like most ethical concepts, the ideas of human “superiority” and “inferiority” are not exactly self-evident. Claiming that a person is superior or inferior requires thorough argument. If the claim of superiority or inferiority is truly intended as a factual statement, then the argument should show publicly observable facts. Sometimes this is possible. For example, I can say with some assurance that Lionel Messi is superior to me as regards football playing. This is because there is agreement about what constitutes a good football player. But, is there a corresponding agreement about what constitutes superior humanity in general i.e. the agreement about what makes a superior or inferior human being? Well, Nietzsche seems to think so (by saying superior humans inspire fear and so on). Nevertheless, there are a couple of problems with this;
i. Nietzsche’s depiction of the superior person seems sentimental and incomplete. Nietzsche seems to emphasize only the virtues of a certain time of life (one’s prime) and a certain sex (male). But human life is also the life of the very young and very old; the weak, the needy, the powerless, the unable to give back, the unequal in power, the traditional realm of women, whom Nietzsche appears to despise.
ii. As long as there has been a general consensus amongst “wise persons” about which attributes constitute superior humanity, Nietzsche cannot subjectively pick out what he feels is right or wrong. Most religions, for example, both Western and non-Western see humility of self (not glorification of self) as key to both virtue and personal happiness. Hence, it is clear that Nietzsche does not seem to understand or acknowledge the possibility of benevolence and generosity of spirit that extends to all, whether deserving or not.
§ A Defence of Nietzsche
Nietzsche’s defenders argue that he revolutionized philosophy because he saw more clearly than any previous thinker, the implications of modernism. It was clear to Nietzsche that dualism was faulty, so Christianity had to die a well-deserved death. The God of science is as dead as the God of religion, according to Nietzsche. In any case, Nietzsche’s defenders say the “master-slave” stuff is not necessarily a proposal of innate human types. Rather, Nietzsche is issuing an existential challenge, as anyone can choose to be a master moralist or a slave moralist. Furthermore, if God is dead, then nothing is “objectively” right or wrong. So you do not have to live any particular sort of life, and moreover, certainly not a life ruled by desire for other people’s approval. Hence, Nietzsche’s message is to live life fully, satisfactorily and authentically.
No comments:
Post a Comment