Nietzsche began his career as a philologist (student of ancient text and languages) and developed an overriding interest in the Ancient Greeks, who he thought represented the peak of Western civilization before the onset of ‘slave’ or ‘herd’ morality which culminated in Christian, Utilitarian and Kantian systems of ethics (among others). Like Callicles, Nietzsche argued that morality was something developed by ‘weak’ people in order to defend themselves from the ‘strong’.
At this point, we might recall the elitism of Aristotle’s ethics, where moral excellence is only available to the nobility. However, Nietzsche has something rather different in mind. One of the main themes in Nietzsche’s work is that ancient Roman society was grounded in master morality, and that this morality disappeared as the slave morality of Christianity spread through ancient Rome. Nietzsche was concerned with the state of European culture during his lifetime and therefore focused much of his analysis on the history of master and slave morality within Europe (partly through the rise of ‘slave’ religion like Christianity.
The superior person looks with profound suspicion on values such as compassion, pity, and selflessness, as well as on the ideal of equality of all persons. Superior people, in expressing the will to power, embody completely natural human functioning; they live the most completely actualized human lives, and as such, are happy, energetic, and optimistic about the human condition.
Slave morality, by contrast, is pessimistic and fearful. Slaves are victims (the “abused, oppressed, suffering, unemancipated, the weary and those uncertain of themselves”; but according to Nietzsche, most slaves choose to be victims. Slave morality is timid, and favours a limited existence; it “makes the best of a bad situation.” It promotes the virtues that “serve to ease existence for those who suffer: here pity, the complaisant and obliging hand, the warm heart, patience, industry, humility, and friendliness are honored — for here these are the most useful qualities and almost the only means for enduring the pressure of existence. Slave morality is essentially a morality of utility,” i.e., a morality that values the mediocre group over the superior individual.
In slave morality, “good” means “tending to ease suffering” and “evil” means “tending to inspire fear.” (In master morality, by contrast, it’s good to inspire fear.) Nietzsche believes that slave morality is expressed in the standard moral systems (particularly Christianity and utilitarianism). That is, Christianity and utilitarianism both exemplify the same ideology: the ideology of the majority, the herd, the cowardly, the conventional, the less-than-fully-human. Inferior people, who 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 “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. In so doing, they develop artificial boundaries that constrain the strong from reaching their full potential.
Nietzsche thinks slave moralities have pretty much taken over as the official moralities of the Western world; unlike most philosophers, he thinks the triumph of ideals like 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. When slave morality takes hold, the inferior ones are suddenly given “moral” license to brainwash and persecute those who try to express the will to power. Thus when the ideal of equality rules, the best specimens of humanity are at risk. Nietzsche would like to revert to an ancient “classical” time when the “natural aristocrats” (those who expressed the will to power) actually ruled.
For Nietzsche, any feelings of guilt are simply the ‘bad conscience’ of unhealthy Christian morality, which ‘turns a blind eye’ to our natural inclinations. He is not critical of all morality, however: he appeals to the ‘higher morality’ that informs the actions of the ‘great man’. What these might specifically be is not explained in detail (for the ‘great man’ creates his own morality) these would be morals which are in some sense ‘life-affirming’.
Under Nietzsche’s interpretation, moral values are symptoms or signs of a deeper physiological condition, psychological state, or attitude toward life. Nietzsche uses various terms to describe the antithesis between two radically opposed attitudes toward life exhibited by moral values in general. ‘Moral’ values are those of denial, sickness, metaphysics, of the reactionary and the plebiscite. The kind of life that Nietzsche thinks is not like this. Instead, a noble life is affirmative, creative, healthy, egoistic and brimming over with vitality. Such a person, for Nietzsche, sees that moral philosophy belongs to slave morality.
So, for Nietzsche, the response to the skeptical question of ‘why should I be moral?’ becomes ‘what kind of life puts value on morality?’. Nietzsche thought that attempts to find a universal, rational morality were simply expressions of the denial of life and the denial of the ‘will to power’.
Filed under: Ethics, Indirect Responses, Nietzsche, Philosophy | 6 Comments
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I have little faith in my ability at philosophy and so what I write may be completely wrong but I’ll go for it anyway. Kierkegaard and Nietzsche seem to be very similar in what they are generally saying, the ‘power of the will’ and where religion stands. I fear I am greatly simplifying things but this fits in very nicely with Aristotle. This in turn fits in very nicely with John Stuart Mills’ ‘On Liberty’ for if we take an individual to be in a position to pursue their aspirations as long as they do not ‘harm’ anyone else in the process they should have no restrictions upon them. This seems to me to be a very optimistic position to hold. Is there anything wrong with it?
Matthew I think you are mistaken in one area. While John Stuart Mill at times exemplifies the individual as superior to the society in much the same way that Ayn Rand valued the individual Nietzsche differed on quite a major note. In the case of Rand she said that the best society is one where the individual follows their own objective self interest so long as it does not directly harm others, the liberal Mill as you stated had a similar value. Nietzsche on the other hand does not have this caveat. He says the individual ought pursue their own self interest, goals, and ambitions without consideration for others. That people ought not be considered equals, and that the naturally strong ought rule society, and even if they choose to do so oppress the weak, or exploit them to meet their own goals. There is none of this do as you wish so long as it doesn’t harm anyone, Nietzsche for all intents and purposes said do as you wish, be human, peruse your own will to power in whatever form it manifests, and do not hold back for only then can one reach their full potential. A comparable philosophy would be social Darwinism. For Nietzsche superiority is not about birthright, it is about ones own will to succeed, and their end results. Thus those who are strong, deserve power while those who are weak also deserve their station.
Matthew and Michael, I think both have a wrong interpertation of Nietzsches morality. First I apologize for my english, I’m mexican.
Matthew, Nietzsche and Mill have very few things in common, the only thing that is the same is there valuation of the individual over the masses. The difrence is in that Mill is a utilitarist, a philosophy Nietzsche disspised, you say “if we take an individual to be in a position to pursue their aspirations as long as they do not ‘harm’ anyone else in the process they should have no restrictions upon them”, Nietzsche would agree, in the individual part, except that he doesn’t care if society resticts o doesn’t restrict an action, nor if one get’s in the way, one should dance over any law or slave morality, second, Mill would see an individuals aspiration as pleasure, while Nietzsche would go along and say “only the englishman seeks happiness”, that is to say, an individual doesn’t always seek pleasure or utility.
Michael, Nietzsche would laugh at the simple mention of an OBJECTIVE self intrest, it doesn’t make any sense. Nietzscheanism isn’t the same as social darwinism, while the latter justifies that “strong” individuals take power in institutions, business, political parties, etc, Nieztsches concept of power is more complex and vital, it’s about feeling life, affirming it, feeling the power of life, the contruction of a world, feeling you dominate the world (understanding it with ones truth), that you expand, that’s will to power, not the survival of the fittest, but expantion of life.
Antony, soy absolomente en acuerdo con tu. Entiendes bien la filosofia de Nietzsche. Nietzsche no iguala Social Darwinism (ni Darwin!) Nietzsche no dijo de mate los infermos. Leyeste bien sos obros.
Max
No sir, that’s what Nietzsche would call a perversion of the will. Imposing your will, especially to the point of oppression or exploitation of others is contrary to the will to power.
I am the less capable person to talk about philosophy without bias opinion, because I live in it. A Chinese saying: The person soaks into the situation, won’t be able to see the situation clearly.
It is interesting to see different people talking about the same thing, and yet, the facet is many. I prefer Anthony and his interpretation of Nietzsche’s concept of power……”it’s about feeling life, affirming it, feeling the power of life, the contruction of a world, feeling you dominate the world (understanding it with ones truth), that you expand, that’s will to power, not the survival of the fittest, but expantion of life.”
However, I would like to emphasize that, the “world” has different interpretation too. When we are in the realm of philosophy, i believe the world we are talking about is our inner-self world, which we need to dominate, not the physical world that will be War!