Nietzsche für Ethik

8/7/2019 Nietzsche fr Ethik

1/35

NIETZSCHES CRITICISM ON MORALITY AND THE MORALITY OF HIS CRITICISM

_____________

A Term Paper

Presented to the Faculty

of the Department of Philosophy

College of Arts and Sciences

University of San Carlos

Cebu City, Philippines

_____________

In Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements for the Course

General Ethics

_____________

by

GLENN REY DISMAS ANINO

March 2011

1


2/35

INTRODUCTIONEthics as it has been commonly defined as a branch of philosophy deals on the inquiry on

how to live a good life and how should human beings act in such a way that they might acquire a

life being lived well. The term good life refers to the quality of life that the individual strives to

achieve. To be clear, there is a need to differentiate between the concept and the conceptions of

good life. The concept refers to the general structure that is applicable to all while conception is

the personal understanding of the general structure. Thus, the question concerning what is a

good life is the concept but the question on how to have a good life is the conception. This is the

reason why every philosopher has its own conception of what is the good life. With this in mind,

the researcher is going to present the conception of a particular philosopher who belongs to the

life philosophy movement. Friedrich Nietzsche devotedly contributed dedication to his

philosophical pursuit and his capability of dark, passionate, and serious suggestion about life. In

this paper, the researcher would try to clarify some questions such as: What is the good life

according to Nietzsche? What is the ground of his criticism on morality? What is the moral

implication of his criticism?

WILL TO POWER

At the center of Nietzsches thought, there is the most basic value that we cannot reject and

this value is life itself. It is the main value by which all valuations come to be. What then is life

for Nietzsche? Life itself is will to power. 1 Two words need to be cleared: will and power. The

act of willing seems ambiguous in Nietzsches unsystematic thoughts but he commonly refers to

it as something consist of varieties of affects or feelings. He argues in the following:

Willing-seems ambiguous to me to be above all something complicated,something that is a unity only in one name let us say that in all willing there isfirstly a plurality of sensations, namely, the sensation of condition away fromwhich we go; the sensation of the condition towards which we go; the sensation

1 Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, tr. by Marie Cowan. Henceforth referred to as BGE.(Chicago: Henry Regney Company, 1996), 13.

2


3/35

of this from and towards itself, and then besides, and accompanying muscular sensation, which commences its action by force of habit. 2

The first component of will being recognized is feelings; however, behind the willing is the

thought that commands.3

In this case, to will is to be aware of a certain command that comesfrom the within of a person who wills. The person who expresses his will commands himself to

do what he wills from himself. Thus, Nietzsche asserts, In all willing it is absolutely a question

of commanding and obeying. 4 Power is another term that needs to be explicated. This is a term

by which many political leaders misunderstood Nietzsche. 5 Despite this misunderstanding,

power is not associated to a direct physical force over the other. He uses the German word

Macht not Kraft. 6 I think Nietzsche does not also refer to politics or state but rather he is against

the state in the sense that the concern is collective and not on the individual.

Nietzsche does not mean power as the ability of the individual to compel obedience but it

is the power of the individual over oneself. Thus, will and power are nothing else but one and the

same. Every willing is a manifestation of power and the latter is the inner strength of the will.

Will itself is the will to power and this is concretized in the act of overcoming oneself. Will to

power is that which moves life to its own growth by the movement of going beyond what life is

at present. Life is a tremendous shaping that starts from within and exploits or utilizes outside

circumstances in the environment. As a principle of life, it is the will to stand oneself and to

become stronger. This does not mean that life is just a whole matter of preservation as Darwinproposes, but rather it is the accumulation of forces and appropriation of what affirms life. In this

case, life is not fixated but is always in the process of becoming. In Darwins perspective, life

involves evolution and survival to the fittest. Nietzsche only argues on the kind of survival which

is not directed towards the species but on the survival of the superior type of human being which

he calls the Ubermensch. His notion of the will to power is not only limited to life but also

extended to the whole universe. Thus, he points out that this world as will to power and

2

Ibid. , 19.3

In every act of will there is a ruling thought (BGE, 19).4

BGE, 19.5

Nietzsche was made guilty by association when he was regarded as the spiritual father of Nazism. Thismisinterpretation took Nietzsches work unheard in the Anglo-Saxon world.

6

The former is brutal violence while the latter is a mental creative power.3


4/35

nothing besides. 7 This means that will to power, as the basic human drives, has no limit, no

boundaries, and even to break some laws as obstacles which hinder its expression. The concept

of the will to power as life-affirmation shapes Nietzsches thought.

CRITIQUE ON MORALITY

Nietzsche has a critical and paradigmatic view about existing values he sees around in his

time. His main criticism centers on the unchallenged conception of morality as something

absolute, immutable, and eternal by claiming that morality is relative in the situation in which

man finds himself. His moral principle explicitly means that man is the sole originator and

determiner of values that best suited to his own way of life. There is no such thing as moral

phenomena, but only a moral interpretation of phenomena. 8 Everyone has his own morality and

therefore there is no absolute standard on our judgments of what is right and what is wrong.Despite that Nietzsche attacks morality, he does not completely reject all morality because it

presupposes that when one attacks a certain kind of morality a person has a suggestion of

replacing it. What he criticizes is the kind of morality which has a metaphysical foundation

which claims to be the Morality. 9 This type of morality claims to be the standard of all moralities

and it results to become misdirected due to its principles, ideas, and motives they provoke.

Nietzsches ethics has a dual aim namely a) the criticism of existing morality through his idea of

reevaluation of all values b) the morality of his criticism which is based on achieving human

excellence as the meaning for having a good quality of life. In this way, Nietzsches ethical

philosophy can be best understood as the criticism on morality and the morality of his criticism.

7

Friedrich Nietzsche, Will to Power, tr. by Walter Kaufmann. Henceforth referred to as WP. (New York:Random House, 1967), 1067.

8 BGE, 108.9

There is a difference between morality with capital letter M and with small m. The latter refers to thepluralities of moral embraced by people in different cultures. In this case, every individual has its own kind of morality. On the other hand, the former is kind of morality that is singular and objective. Thereby its judgment isnonnegotiable by the individual valuation. Thus, people would state: Morality says that this is act is right or Morality dictates that this act is wrong. The former is the subject of Nietzsche criticism.

4


5/35

Nietzsches Critique and Revaluation of Truth and its Value

One can never delve on ethics without centering on the idea of truth and its value for it is

generally considered that what is true is good. Value and truth is closely related because no

person acts and dies on his belief if he conceives it as false. Value lies on ones conviction that

what he believes will lead him to something better. The idea of truth is shaken and is approached

differently by Nietzsche. The opening line of Beyond Good and Evil states: Supposing truth is a

woman- what then? 10 If truth were a woman, then Nietzsche wants to know the nature of both

truth and woman. In the old configuration about women, they are commonly viewed as

inconsistent, subtle, and not fixated. Their decision is not so fixed and there is a kind of

flexibility. Whenever a woman decides, it takes much time that she will come up with a final

decision even to the point of arriving at the contrary to her first choice. Let us take for example

on the case of suicide. Many women try to commit suicide but most of them do not succeed andonly men succeed in the end. They are inconsistent with their own decision. What they believe in

a particular time may change in an hour or even in a minute. Their thought is too subtle to grasp.

In the case of the dogmatic philosophers, Nietzsche says that they were not able to understand

woman in their search for truth because they tend to explain truth objectively, absolutely, and

legitimately. Thereby it has the authority over individual such as the claim of the truthfulness of

God-given rubrics of laws in the field of ethics. Truth as a woman can be both interpreted as

paradoxical and it is approached through perspective where it depends on how he interprets it.

He further adds about women:

But she does not want truth- what does woman care for truth? From the very first,nothing is more foreign, more repugnant, or more hostile to woman than truth- her great art is falsehood, her chief concern is appearance and beauty. 11

Woman does not want truth if that truth is insofar the truth according to the seduction of

dogmatic philosophers: that truth is somewhere there as a thing or an object to be found and the

philosophers as the seeker of it are the subjects. In the words of Luce Irigaray, any theory of the

subject has always been appropriated by the masculine. 12 Nietzsche is arguing that truth is not

10

BGE, Preface.11

Ibid. , 232.12

Atkins Kim, Self and Subjectivity (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell Publishing, 2005), p.271.5


6/35

something to be found in the world as objective that will serve as the basis of ones action. He

criticizes the dogmatic Platonism in Europeas the worst, the most tiresome, and the most

dangerous of errors hitherto has been a dogmatist error- namely, Platos invention of Pure Spirit

and the Good in Itself. 13 According to Plato, it is not only enough to say that truth can be

found but it can be found not in this world but to the world of Ideas. This is the beginning of the

condemnation of the entire world of becoming as illusion, and an invention of a true world that

lies beyond. 14 This is what Nietzsche mainly attacks because it tends to escape or to despise this

world, the apparent world, and also its affairs. Platos ethics is other-worldly. It is as if a person

must act in accordance to the attainment of such metaphysical truth to the point of sacrificing his

immanent life for after all this world is just an illusion. Nietzsche does remind us to be faithful to

this earth. Remain faithful to the earth and do not believe those who speak to you of

extraterrestrial hope. 15 He is critical about all the existing moral claims about truth at his timebecause the nineteenth century Europe has perfectly deified the concept of truth that has been

started by Plato as it is the absolute source of all claims.

Nietzsche also attacks Kants categorical imperative in its claim on the universal truth

that is something to be found among reasonable man. The categorical imperative is the residue of

Kants synthetic a priori. It is a morality of reason as if everyone is bound to follow as long as

he is rational. This law is extrinsic that is externally given value system. He rejects this kind of

morality for it is the law that binds to every action. These are samples of his attack:

The former reality, namely Kants, demanded of the individual actions whichone desired of all men: that was a very nave thing; as if everyone knew withoutfurther ado what mode of action would benefit the whole of mankind, that is,what actions at all are desirable. 16

13

BGE, 3.14

Karl Jaspers, Nietzsche: An Introduction to the Understanding of His Philosophical Activity (Tucson:

Arizona University Press, 1965), p. 245.15

Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None, tr. by Adrian del Caro, ed. byAdrian del Caro and Robert Pippin. Henceforth referred to as TSZ. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006),Zarathustras Prologue, 3.

16

Friedrich Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human: A Book for Free Spirits, tr. by R. J. Hollingdale. Henceforthreferred to as HAH. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 25

6


7/35

It is absolutely not desirable that all men should act in the same way, but rather that in the interest of ecunumical goals whole track of mankind ought to have aspecial, perhaps under certain circumstances even evil tasks imposed uponthem. 17

Nietzsches main critique to all system moral is this: all systems of morals are just personal

confession of every moralist.

It has gradually become clear to me what every great philosophy up till now hasconsisted of namely, the confession of its originator, and a species of involuntaryand unconscious auto biography; and moreover that the moral (or immoral)purpose in every philosophy has constituted the true vital germ out of which theentire plant has always grown. 18

In this case, there is no standard of which morality should be followed in the sense that everyone

can have the confession of his own morality. What is good for me may not be good for the

person. I think Nietzsche is arguing for the diversity we find in human beings. If moral principle

is just a confession of a certain individual then it will not be good if it tries to encourage

everybody to follow it. Attacking Kant, he said like this, there is a categorical imperative in us,

one can always ask: What does such an assertion indicate about him who makes it. 19 In

attacking moral claims, Nietzsche also look at the character of the one who claims it such as the

philosopher behind the doctrine. In the case of Kant, Nietzsche criticizes him because of the

belief in the power of human reason and goal of enlightenment. The latter also tries to preserve

his own pietism by proposing that every human being has an equal dignity and must be treated

equally. So, act as to treat humanity, whether in your own person or in that of any other, always

at the same time as an end, and never merely as a means. 20 It seems that Nietzsche falls into a

logical fallacy of argumentum ad hominem just as his view on Plato as a coward. Plato is a

17

Ibid.18

BGE, 6.19

Ibid., 187.20

Quoted in: Frederick Copleston, History of Philosophy, vol. 6. (New York: Doubleday, 1994), p. 328.

7


8/35

coward in the face of reality consequently he flees into the ideal. 21 But I think that he is not

using the rules of logic and indeed it was he who said that logic is just human constructs of

ordering the world. He attacks the person because a philosopher must be an example of his own

philosophy and a confession of his own personality. An idea is embodied on the one who

professes it. We have to look for the inner pathos and the moral intentions of the philosopher in

order to understand his thinking. 22

Plato is a coward in the sense that his philosophy on the world of Forms is an escape to

the reality he found in the world of the senses. He invents another reality which he considers as

the true reality that an individual must strive to achieve and must be given priority. In summary,

systems of morals are only a sign- language of the emotions. 23 Philosophers have their own

motives on the ideas they have as their means to exploit the other just like the slave morals which

will be discussed later in this paper.There are systems of morals which are meant to justify their author in the eyes of other people; other systems of morals are meant to tranquilize him, and make himself- satisfied; with other systems he wants to crucify and humbles himself, withothers he wishes to take revenge, with others to conceal himself, with others toglorify himself and gave superiority and distinction. 24

In this manner, a doubt may arise about the truthfulness of truth itself whether it is a value in

itself or a means to the attainment of something and other people even use it for selfish end. For

instance, a misfortunate person uses the truth of the teachings of his own religion to encourageother people to be generous at him. This person can use the truth claims as a means of his own

interest. If this is the case, every person will have to make truth claim to advance his personal

desire. So, truth is pragmatic in the sense that it is something to be made by ourselves through

our way of interpretation. Truth has no ontological value but only a grammatical one. Every

language use eventually changes the moral action of a person. Though a person does not

21

Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols, tr. by Walter Kaufmann. Henceforth referred to as TI. (NewYork: Viking Press, 1968), What I Owe to the Ancients, 2.

22

Keith Ansell Pearson ed., A Companion to Nietzsche, (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2005), p. 389.23

BGE, 187.24

Ibid.8


9/35

recognize consciously, it slowly develops and the person is shaped by it as if it becomes a

framework or scheme of thought in ones life.

Truth as the mobile army of metaphors, metonyms, andanthropomorphism- in short, a sum of human relations, which we have enhanced,

transposed, and embellished poetically and rhetorically, and which after long useseem firm, canonical, and obligatory to people: truths are illusions about whichone has forgotten that this is what they are; metaphors which are worn andwithout sensuous power; coins which have lost their pictures and now matter onlyas metal, no longer as coins. 25

This would mean that truth as something to be of objective existence is a lie. What is considered

to be true is just a human construct and is always being repeated. Let us take for example the

experience of telling a lie accompanied with conviction, then, always repeat it to people and it

becomes true not only for the audience but also to the person who lies. As long as there is a

constant remembrance of what has been told and being used to hear about it then, that will be

elevated as the truth. This is only a matter of convention through frequent linguistic practice and

it will be no longer an illusion. Since that truth has no objective firmness, the truthfulness or the

falseness of an opinion will not matter but what matters most is how it is self- preserving. This

sounds pragmatic. In Nietzsches thought, people make such truth because they are in the

society. They create something through convention to make society in order. They are all lies but

in a non moral sense, that is, to recognize untruth as a condition of life. 26 The object of the

mans intellect and logic as its tool is not truth but only a servant on self- preservation.

we are fundamentally inclined to maintain that the falsest opinions (to which thesynthetic judgments a priori belong), are the most indispensable to us, thatwithout a recognition of logical fictions, without a comparison of reality with thepurely imagined world of the absolute and immutable, without a constantcounterfeiting of the world by means of numbers, man could not livethat therenunciation of false opinions would be a renunciation of life, a negation of life. 27

Nietzsche disputes the claims by modern science that it reveals the truth about the world through

the formulations of laws such as the gravity of Newton. This law is just a human construct as a

25 Friedrich Nietzsche, On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense , in The Portable Nietzsche, tr. Walter Kaufmann. (New York: Viking Press, 1968), p. 46.

26

BGE ., 4.27

Ibid.9


10/35

product of mans thinking and even if it is not really found in reality, yet it serves as a guide on

human conduct. If those laws are just human construct it follows that those laws are not really

outside objectively. And so it is false and a lie but if we disregard such laws there will be no

order and harmony in our daily life.

In this case, there are supposedly truths of the individual but not the Truth in itself. Truth

has only been a product of more than two thousand years of promise in the Greek civilization

taken only as a means to dominate, exploit, and rule the other culture. Such truth is a claim of

power over the other. If all systems of morals were just a sign language of emotions and a

personal confession with moral intentions, Nietzsche proclaims that all that has been learned is a

lie. According to Nietzsche, God is a sacred lie. 28 The God of religion who, from many centuries,

had ordered men not to lie is a lie itself. This proclamation really changes the ethical perception

of man when all that has been taught by people about the commandments of God becomessuperfluous. In the perspective of the believer, all the received commandments are true only if

God is the truth. 29

But in the reality the God of the faithful turns out to be the imaginary outcome of what

Nietzsche calls vanity such as the experience of an ascetic priest who starves himself 30 which

result into charity in sacrificing one-self in behalf for others; lust for power such as the

experience of the prophets in the holy tradition as they are the instruments who proclaim Gods

28

Gott ist ein heiligen Luge. In The Gay Science Nietzsche asks: "But what if this [sic, the idea that truth isdivine] became more and more incredible, if nothing should prove to be divine any more unless it were error,blindness, the lie if God himself should prove to be our most enduring lie?- Friedrich Nietzsche, The GayScience , in The Portable Nietzsche, tr. Walter Kaufmann. Henceforth referred as GS. (New York: Random House,1976), 344.

29

In Daybreak, Nietzsche writes : What is truth? -- Who will not be pleased with the conclusions which thefaithful take such delight in coming to? -- "Science cannot be true for it denies God; and consequently it cannot betrue, -- for God is truth." It is not the deduction but the premise which is fallacious. What if God just were not truth,and if it were exactly that which was proven? if he were instead man's vanity, lust for power, the ambitions, the fear and the enraptured and terrified folly of mankind? Friedrich Nietzsche, Daybreak: Thoughts on the Prejudices of Morality, tr. by R. J. Hollingdale. Henceforth referred as D. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 93.

30

This shattering of oneself, this scorn for ones own nature which religions have made so much out of, isactually a high degree of vanity.- HAH, 137.

10


11/35

word to the people; 31 and the heavenly delusion of men as projection of the enjoyment in the

otherworldly which he does not find here.

Nietzsche on Surpassing Mediocrities

Before the establishment of true science by the modern age, nature was not very kind to

people and it seemed that nature was threatening. Some people are inclined to superstitions in the

sense that they cannot dominate the power of nature. Nietzsche however believes that life is

primarily a manifestation of will to power seen by its multiplicity of forces, bundles of drives,

and affects of feeling. With these forces, every living being creates a being on its own by

exploiting external things. Man uses science as a tool and its corresponding laws to arrest the

danger of becoming thereby construct a reality which man can master. Knowledge is only an

interpretation to appropriate ones power. The desire to shape life tremendously by workingwithin man himself and exploiting and utilizing outside circumstances is essentially the life of

appropriation. Life itself is essentially appropriation, injury, conquest of the strange and weak,

suppression, severity, obtrusion or peculiar forms, incorporation, and at the least, putting it

mildest, exploitation. 32 Weakness is not needed for the enhancement of life. This kind of

weakness is manifested in various ways. Nietzsche rejects the notion of will as being free or not

free but what he believes is that there is only strong and weak will. Weakness arises from the

weakness of man to will something. The measure of ones power and weakness is through his

will. One manifestation of weakness is to be at home at ones cherished beliefs without

subjecting them into criticisms. This is indeed true. To criticize ethical beliefs of others is not

much heavy on putting our beloved ideas into question and for self criticism. Many people feel

safe about their own certitude and others take refuge and hide themselves in the dogmas of

reason and of the church and other systems which are founded on unquestioned premises. What

Nietzsche praises more is on the reflective attack on our set of principles and the truth we believe

rather than on its establishments. No table of values serves to fix moral valuation. This weakness

is observable in the crowd. The individual joins in a group to identify himself from the tenets of

31

As the faithful believes that God will help and deliver them from the sufferings they endured, God willcomply with their human interests. That is why many prophets would say: God says that this and this and this.Nietzsche observes that the motives are based on the lust for power and there is nothing transcendence on it.

32

BGE, 259.11


12/35


13/35

in our thoughts and being responsible in its consequences. Here, Nietzsche is attacking the

morality of his time, as what he observes, for some people resort to an easy pursuit of pleasure

and also of the herd fashion of action.

A traveler who had seen many countries and people and severalcontinents was asked what human traits he had found everywhere; and heanswered: men are inclined to lazinessThey hide behind customs andopinions When a great thinker despises men, it is their laziness that hedespises. 35

The image of the traveler and of the thinker is Nietzsche himself. Laziness as a result of the

weakness of will breeds a lower type of human being. To belong in the higher type by which

Nietzsche praises does not just happen easily because it needs more hard work in creating

oneself. The task is existential which is to carve our own self as a masterpiece and so a

philosophy with a hammer is needed. 36 Every philosopher must have a hammer as an

instrument such as the hammer of critique against the existing values. This is not an easy task

and it needs more effort. That is why Romualdo Abulad, in his commentary on Nietzsche, said

that it is not enough to live. The task is to surmount our mediocrities in order to make dent in

this competitive game of life. 37 An easy pursuit of what is pleasurable is just an animal instinct

and we are more than animals. Human reality can go beyond the animal dichotomy of pleasure

and pain in having a good life.

On the Discipline of Suffering

Nietzsche knows some of the ethical theories of Kant but there is no exact information of

how much is his knowledge of him. Kant argues that we have the duty to develop our human

35

Walter Kaufmann, Existentialism: From Dostoevsky to Sartre (New York: Meredian, Penguin, 1989),p.101-2.

36

Nietzsche is known as the philosopher with a hammer because his writing especially Twilight of the Idolsis alluded as How One Philosophizes with a Hammer.

37

Romualdo Abulad, Options for Filipino Philosophy, Karunungan, (Manila: De La Salle University,1984), 77-30.

13


14/35

potentialities. The main question is how much is needed. In ethics there are two perspectives.

These are minimal ethics and maximal ethics. The former is based or focused on the avoidance

of anything that is not good to oneself. This means to refrain from evil and so this is passive. The

latter is active in a sense that one is going to assert his own values and ideals that a person has

according to what he believes. If achievement of excellence is needed, Nietzsches ethics is

related to maximal ethics in order to achieve human development. This task can be done through

a passionate commitment to ones own task guided with self- discipline, even the discipline of

suffering. Sometimes suffering is needed to live the life we want to the fullest. Similarly,

Nietzsche knows what suffering means to us humans. The discipline of suffering, of great

sufferingknows you not that it is only this discipline that has produced all the elevations of

humanity hitherto? 38 The experience of human suffering is not something to be avoided in life

but it is a discipline that is necessary in aiming a well lived life. Only few men succeed in lifebecause they are the type of person who understands the beauty that is to be found in suffering.

We find Nietzsche in his work on The Birth of Tragedy where he associates suffering to aesthetic

as he asserts: Only in aesthetic phenomenon that the world is eternally justified. 39 He tries to

aestheticize suffering through life affirmation despite the tragedies that are happening to life

without the consolation of the otherworldly metaphysics. The only way to affirm the life of

tragedies is to reverse our view or attitude towards suffering. In this view, he shares the Stoic

who once suggested that we do not have a full control of nature but only on our personal

emotions toward on it. The stoic is the philosophy of self-control as a way of approaching nature.

This is what also Nietzsche believes in The Birth of Tragedy when the Dionysian knows the

insight into the horrible truth. 40 This means that tragedies and sufferings in life are inseparable.

Life without suffering is impossible. Nietzsche makes a strong assertion when he says: Whatever

does not destroy me makes me stronger. 41 This would mean that anything that a person

encounters in his life as a suffering or even flagellating himself as long as it cannot end his life, it

will do him something good and that something is valuable. Through the experience of human

38 BGE, 225.39

Friedrich Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy , tr. by Ian C. Johnston. Henceforth referred as BT. (Canada:Malaspina University Press, 2000), 6.

40

Ibid. , 7.41

TI, Maxims and Arrows, 8.14


15/35

suffering, the will as it endures suffering is strengthened and it is in this experience that both life

and spirit is affirmed thereby an understanding of what life is deepened.

Criticism against Altruism

According to Nietzsche, morality is misguided as it encourages holding the ethical

doctrine of altruism. Altruism refers to any attitude or position that favors benevolence, it

applies to any system that reduces morality to love of neighbor, makes the quest of happiness of

ones fellow man the basic moral value, and defines the good simply as whatever furthers the

well-being of others. 42 In short, morality as altruism emphasizes more on the duty to other

people while disregarding the duties to one self. Nietzsche rejects the positivism and altruism

suggested by August Comte. Comte writes:social point of view cannot tolerated the notion of rights, for such notion reston individualism. We are both under a load of obligations of every kind to our predecessors, to our successors, to our contemporaries. After our birth thoseobligation increase or accumulate, for it is some time before we can return to anyservice This [live for others], the definition formula of human morality, givesa direct sanction exclusively to our instincts of benevolence, the common sourceof happiness and duty. [Man must serve] Humanity is who we are entirely. 43

Comtes positivism has left the individual less duty to decide what he needs to do for himself.

With regard to his altruism, every individual has the duty to serve others even to the point of sacrificing oneself. The other people are given much priority and value rather than oneself. This

moral belief is example of Nietzsches criticism because it ignores and devalues self-reverence

and makes the individual not able to develop his own ability, excellence, and personal self-

development. The idea of sacrificing oneself for the sake of other people will just end up a

person into a kind of martyrdom and leave the person no accomplishment being done by him

except of giving life itself.

As Nietzsche attacks altruisms idea of being at service to other people without the

expectation of return, he arrives at attacking also the Christian notion of love of neighbor. Judeo-

42

G. J. Dalcourt, Altruism in New Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 1. Most Rev. William J. McDonald (editor in chief). (Washington: The Catholic University of America, 1967), pp. 355-356.

43

August Comte, Catechism of Positivism, tr. by R. Congreve. (London: Kegan Paul, 1891), p. 332.15


16/35

Christian religion is a religion of servitude that teaches people to turn the other cheek, to take

care of the needy, and to be humble. In sum: to love thy neighbor. This teaching is designed to

keep every individual to remain in its place and to settle limit on personal development by means

of other-directedness. Your love of the neighbor is your bad love of yourselves.you flee to

your neighbor to escape yourself and you want to make virtue of it: but I see through your

selflessness. 44 The love of neighbor is a kind of misguided passion of the individual in loving

himself. It is a means of escaping oneself in confronting himself in his own situation. In the

person of Zarathustra, Nietzsche comes to suspect selflessness as the virtue on loving ones

neighbor because when a person loves his neighbor he actually loves himself as the agent of the

act. Moreover, Christian believes in the reward that is attainable in the other world and it would

seem that a believer is driven only by a selfish ends. The motives are either for the award or for

fear of losing it. In every action that a person does towards his neighbor, egoism is still there.The worse is that such egoism needs other people who seemed to be helpless to say that the

former is a good person. You invite witness when you want someone to speak well of you; and

when you have seduced him into thinking well of you, you then think well of yourselves. 45 The

motive in doing the act is to reciprocate the initial desire to love oneself through the recognition

made by others. Nietzsches contempt for fleeing to the neighbor, or rushing to love ones

neighbor, is not merely a desire to live in solitude and love ourselves. Rather it is a call to do

something for the impossible. 46 The impossible is referred as going beyond on the confinement

of comfort. Nietzsches criticism reminds that loving ones neighbor is a kind of covetousness

and a desire to posses more and more. Our love of our neighbors- is it not craving for new

property? 47 A neighbor is considered as a property in the sense that we know something of his

personal identity. That is why it is easy to manipulate him through the art of seduction of our

actions thereby the attention is captured and glorification of the giver follows.

When we help someone suffering, we like to use this opportunity to takepossession of him; that is for example what those who become his benefactors44

TSZ, On Love of the Neighbor.45

Ibid.46

Ananda Abeysekara, The Politics of Postsecular Religion: Mourning Secular Future (New York:Columbia University Press, 2008), p. 66.

47

GS, 14.16


17/35

and those who have compassion for him do, and they call the lust for newpossession that is awakened in them love, and their delight is like that arousedby the prospect of a new conquest. 48

The desire to help others is founded merely on self-interest to conquest, a greed for power over

the other, and a kind of avarice yet it is concealed in the subtle word love. Let us say some

generous men who are benefactors in the some institution such as the Church. They try to help

by appearing to be selfless but are they not wanting for an extensive power that will enable them

to gain more influence? In some cases, it is. A person shows generosity to the people but it turns

out later that he will be going to run for a certain position in the government. So, the people who

are benefited from that generosity will be obligated to vote for him. This is what common in the

Philippine system of politics. As a response to this situation, the best way is to harden our hearts

at first when someone tries to give something to us and at the same time to ask the motivesbehind the person who gives.

In summary of Nietzsches attack to altruism, there are three propositions come up: a)

altruism gives much priority over other people while disregarding oneself, b) egoism belongs to

the essence of a noble soul 49 which is expressed in the discharge of ones will to power, c) it is

only in fleeing away with the burden of obligations with our neighbors concern that one can live

in solitude, love of himself and pursue ones own future project of excellence- Ubermesch. Thus,

Nietzsche advocates loving thyself over loving ones neighbor which calls the individual on the

priority self-elevation. I think this is similar with the saying that we cannot give what we do not

have. The first thing to consider is to develop first ourselves before helping others to develop too

but not out of pity.

On Nietzsches Critique of Pity

With his view on human suffering, Nietzsche is justifying himself from his objection of

pity as a sign of weakness. One of his criticisms on the morality is the problem it faces namely,

pity. The problem of the value of pity and of the morality of pity 50 is what he attacks. This

48

Ibid .49

BGE, 265.50

Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals, tr. by Walter Kaufmann and R. J. Hollingdale.Henceforth referred as OGM. (New York: Random House, 1967), Preface 6.

17


18/35

critique of pity already begins in his earlier work in Daybreak where he pointed it out that pity

is a weakness It increases the amount of suffering in the world: if suffering is here and there

indirectly reduced or removed as a consequence of pity. 51 Nietzsche understands that suffering

is inseparable from our lives and it even molds us into a better person. Being pitied is the most

shameful and profoundest humiliation 52 as if a person can do nothing about himself and there is

the feeling of self-gratification to pity others. Nietzsche denounces the virtue of pity because the

motive behind the act can be put into suspicion. To pity other people is a kind of selfishness to

appropriate oneself to the other and thereby a person who shows pity feels good about himself.

To act on behalf of pity does not help in encouraging the sufferer to grow in strength out from

the experience of human suffering. Moreover, the person who is pitied turns out to be a

dependent individual by not asserting his own strength and capacity in facing the suffering and

even not making the most of himself that is in line with excellence. Let us elaborate theexperience of pity in the ethics of education. Suppose that I have a friend who has difficulty in

his logic class. Out of pity, I help him to do his assignment. In the long run, I am not actually

helping that person because I am the one making it for myself and that friend of mine will not try

to do the best that he can since he can rely always on me. Pity shows weakness because every

moment that my friend will ask for help, I will always help because I pity him. In that situation,

my friend will not learn and excel. He let others to do a task for him. This is similar to the

teachers also. Some teachers give a passing grade to the undeserving student only out of pity.

The student has passed but he does not learn from the class.

The task is not to expect any help from others. If they try to help, it is fine as long as you

know the motivation and no condition is given as an exchange. Simon May agrees with

Nietzsche as he argues: Thus, pity is bad when inertia alia ,53 it has the insane aim of

abolishing suffering- insane because suffering is inseparable from living, because suffering is, in

large part, both cause and effect of our growth in power and creativity and sovereignty, and

because the state of undisturbed well-being which such pity seeks makes man ridiculous and

51

D, 134.52

Ibid., 135.53

Pity is bad or a sign of weakness when inner strength of a person is considered. The person who showspity presupposes that he has understood the suffering of the pitied which is impossible.

18


19/35

contemptible. 54 The act of showing pity, sympathy, or being compassionate to other people

makes both the actor and the one pitied forget their goal of a higher disciplined excellence.

Nietzsche accepted both the contrasting claims about man- of his animality and of his

subjectivity. He asserts: In man creator and creature are united: in man there is not only matter,

shred, excess, clay, mire, folly, chaos; but there is also the creator, the sculptor, the hardness of

the hammer, the divinity of the spectator, and the seventh day. 55 The object of pity is on the

animal side of man aims is to alleviate the suffering but undermining his full potential for

greatness. Pity is only a concern for the creature in man applies to that which has to be

fashioned, bruised, forged, stretched, roasted, annealed, refined- to that which necessarily suffer,

and is meant to suffer. 56 It is an instinctual drive to help the pain of others.

In particular, Nietzsche attacks Christian pity because it presupposes that each person

must help each other as a response to the situation that this world is a world of evil and sufferingas if this world is an asylum of great sufferers and each is to become a nurse to each other. In this

case, pity degrades oneself to elevate oneself from his own suffering. To pity a friend or

someone is to feel sorry for him. Let us say that I have a good friend whose feet are badly injured

in a basketball game. This friend has to do adjustment in his lifestyle to a new situation such as

he cannot go to the mall anymore. When I am with that friend, the good thing to do is not to offer

a favor by stating my feeling of how sorry I am for him and what a horrible accident befalls him

because if I say so I put him down by degrading his situation and at the same time I am raising

myself to a higher position more than him. Further, I equate his whole being to the misfortune he

has and thereby pity paralyzes him to feel good about himself. In this case, to pity someone is not

just to pity him on that particular situation but could also mean that his whole life is wretched

and pitiable. This is what happened to the Christian perception of the world of suffering that a

person is pitiable, that all lives here are wretched. What Nietzsche proposes is the higher type of

being in man which is the creator in him who has the vitality to explore and to pursue a unified

project towards a movement of growth as an expression of the will to power. So Nietzsche

argues: What is good? Whatever augments the feeling of power, the will to power, power

54

Simon May, Nietzsches Ethics and his War on Morality (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), p. 37.55

BGE, 225.56

Ibid.19


20/35

itself, in man. What is evil- Whatever springs from weakness. 57 This antithesis is Nietzsches

differentiation between the two types of morality which he discusses in the Genealogy.

The Purpose of Genealogy

Nietzsche approaches moral ideals through a genealogical treatment. This is a reproach to

the unchallenged moral purity of an idea of guilt, good, evil, and bad by looking at them at the

historical perspective in such a way that it shows how these concepts arise in history. This

perspective already presupposes that those concepts abovementioned are neither originating from

a transcendent source such God nor they are eternal but rather a human, all too human constructs

that have been produced in the different moments in history in a particular culture. The moral

ideals of loving thy neighbor, generosity, and compassion can even be put into a suspicion as the

motives of the action are examined. Nietzsche observes that every ones motive especially inearlier history is having the pathos of distance 58 which could mean that of having a hierarchical

domination over the other. In other words, all men compete for power in order to survive and to

gain a certain status of respect, opportunities, and privileges in the society. Nietzsche observes

that the kind of morality in his time especially Christian morality that has been regarded as the

morality of the age is just a particular kind of morality in relation to the other. In the desire to

compete for power, moral distinctions are based in two unequal sides- the morality of the ruler

and the morality of the ruled. So Nietzsche acknowledges two types of morality. There is

master morality and slave morality The distinctions of moral values have either originated in a

ruling caste, pleasantly conscious of being different from the ruled- or among the ruled class, the

slaves and the dependents of all sorts. 59

In the genealogy, he distinguishes between master and slave morality according to their

own set of perspectives: good and bad in master morality, and good and evil in slave morality.

The present moral valuations are not entirely the same when they are compared to its origin in

the historical account of morals. The concept good has been sought and established in the

wrong place: the concept good did not originate with those to whom goodness was shown! 60

57 AC, 2.58

BGE, 257.59

BGE, 260.60

OGM, First Essay, 2.20


21/35

The concept of what is good was first experienced by those people who are in power who find

pleasure and joy in all their actions and achievements. These people are belonging to the

knightly- aristocratic class whose power, wealth, and victory by which they can afford to have

are the basis of goodness. These people are their own legislators of their own actions and

deliberately decide for themselves on what they are going to do with their lives. They have all

what they needed in elevating themselves above the common people. Whatever they do which

increases the possession of power such as courage, conquest and command over the other are

considered as good. Exploitation is just natural and no feeling of guilt has been practiced yet.

That is why in the ancient Greeks owning a slave is natural. People belonging in this type

proclaim themselves with exaltation that they are good even without the need of being affirmed

by the others. They are active and powerful. The character deemed to be bad are those characters

born out of weakness that is coming from the slaves. The slaves are bad as the master maintainsthe status of separating the powerless from himself. There is an order of rank between them.

Gilles Delueze interprets that the master would argue something like this I am good therefore

they are bad while the slave would say the masters are evil therefore I am the only good. The

masters at first feel themselves of their goodness according to their capability and this goodness

is the criterion of judging the opposite side who are the slaves. The slaves on the other hand are

reactive to the masters thereby condemning their act as evil and only after the reaction that they

can feel good about themselves. The main point here, as Nietzsche noted, is that the concept of

good and bad according to the master type of morality is not absolute. The antithesis is biased in

favor to the master and the noble types never consider it to be deemed as absolute. The antithesis

of good and bad is only seen as a social status of every individual living in the society. Hence,

there is no slavish moral content.

The conception of a universal moral principle was only started by a slave moral revolt

that was born out of reaction or resentment. The slave revolt in morality begins with resentment

itself and becomes creative and gives birth to values. 61 Slave revolt began from the people

belonging to priestly caste started by the Jews and arrived at its crowning achievement in

Christianity. 62 The slaves react to the characters of their masters for the reason that they are not

capable of what their masters enjoyed. They do not like the exaltation and pride dispositions of 61 Ibid., First Essay, 10.62

Many interpreters suggest that the reason behind why Nazi accept Nietzsche as their spiritual father because of his indirect attack to the Jews.

21


22/35

their masters but they do not have the power and capacity to stop from what they are doing nor

cant they convince them by appearing to be weak. The slave revolt begins trough an imaginary

revenge. These people overturned the tables of values. What the master calls bad is considered

good by the slave, and what the master calls good is considered not just bad by the slaves but

out of unsatisfied hatred against their masters, the slave put more filthy identity by calling them

evil. Here there are two different set of estimation, that is, bad and evil that opposes to the

same concept of good. The social status antithesis of good and bad according to the masters

perspective is changed into a moral dimension not only of good and bad but out of hatred call it

good and evil. The latter antithesis becomes the heart of religious moral system. After the said

revolt and the turning of the table of values, the slaves create their own value and these values

are the following:

the wretched alone are the good; the poor, the impotent, lowly alone areblessed by God, blessedness is for them alone- and you, the powerful and noble,are on the contrary the devil, the cruel, the lustful, the insatiable, the godless to alleternity; and you shall be in all eternity the unblessed , accursed, and damned! 63

This was only a standpoint of the oppressed slaves. They invented an imaginary existence of an

eternal and divine being as an armor of defense. Since they are not capable of overthrowing their

conquerors, they invent a lofty- seducing idea in order to capture the minds of their masters by

introducing a feeling of guilt. Their defense is that there is a God who favors the lowly and

punishes all who do wrong and injustice for them. They resort to the imaginary power of eternity

that poisons their masters. This is exactly what happened to the medieval time where the state

has no power over the church for it is the latter that will decide on the issue concerning whether a

person will go into hell or into heaven. Let us use the analogy between lambs and birds of prey.

The lambs are easily wounded and come to hate the birds of prey. The lambs would say: Birds of

prey are always attacking us. Why cant the birds of prey be more like us? Why cant they gentle

and not feed on little lambs? The lambs decided that the birds of prey are evil for their act of

killing them and consider themselves as the only good because they do not kill others. The lambsdo not hunt not because they observe certain ground of goodness but they are incapacitated to do

the hunting. Likewise, the slaves condemned the act of their masters as evil not because they are

basing it from a certain moral and transcendental grounds but they just create their own moral

63

OGM, First Essay, 7.22


23/35

standard because they are not capable of what the masters are doing. The slaves who do not have

the courage to have a character like that of their masters seek revenge, out of their callous hatred,

against their cruel masters but not on the basis on the here and now but on the other world

accompanied with the concept that there is a powerful God who would inflict vengeance on their

behalf. This moral is born out of resentment or hatred of the slaves from their masters.

Resentment itself becomes creative and gives birth to values. 64 Slave morality in particular the

Christian or herd morality regarded everyone as equal which becomes poisonous to the

exceptional man. The herd morality only promotes the average type of human being, in a word,

mediocrity. They promote the morality of loving ones neighbor but only to the point of

developing the virtue of quiet and calm resignation to furnish an exceptional breed of human

being. Nietzsche argues that the desire to love ones neighbor is just secondary manifestation of

our fear of our neighbor and the only way is through leveling all people.Let us be different from evil, namely the good! And he is good who does

not outrage, who harms nobody, who does not attack, who does not requite, wholeaves revenge to God, who keeps himself hidden as we do, who avoids evil anddesire little from life, like us, the patient, humble, and just. 65

We weak ones are, after all, weak; it would be good if we did nothing for whichwe are not strong enough. 66

Slave morality is that everything that elevates an individual above the herd andintimidate the neighbor is henceforth called evil; and the fair, modest, submissiveconforming mentality, the mediocrity of desires attains moral designations andhonors. 67

In a nutshell, the slaves would just beat their breast and concludes that they must remain as what

they are now for there is nothing to do about the matter; they just cultivate their own norms.

The Successful Slave Revolt

Nietzsche argues that the Judeo-Christian, as a religious system, was the one who

introduces the concept of guilt in a moral sense. The origin of guilt was only in the social

64 Ibid., First Essay, 10.65

Ibid., First Essay, 13.66

Ibid.67

BGE, 201.23


24/35

relationship between the debtor and its creditor. The debtor is accountable for his debt while the

creditor has the power to execute punishment toward the debtor whenever he is not going to pay

in the sphere of legal obligation. Punishment is done because of indebtedness and it was not yet

associated with the sense of guilt. The Jewish people belonging to a priestly nation render all

men and their actions accountable to God who deemed all men equal in His eyes. The concept of

guilt and duty are put into a religious set of principles which is the involvement of the bad

conscience with the concept of god. 68 This religious presupposition is only a chief trick used by

the ascetic priest in convincing the violent soul of their master into a heart-rending. The priestly

caste uses the concept of transcendent idea to exploit the masters, the exploitation of the sense

of guilt. 69 They use persuasion by telling them that there is a life beyond this world. The masters

are made to feel guilt out of their act. As a result, the power of guilt has effected on them by their

tendencies to despise their unruly and previous behavior as they consider the plight of the poor and the oppressed to the point of realizing that the masters or the nobles will no longer do

whatever they want. And so the revolt was indeed successful. Nietzsche once wrote that with

the Jews there begins the slave revolt in morality: that revolt which has a history of two thousand

years behind it and which we no longer see because it has been victorious. 70

Assessing Master and Slave Morality

Both master and slave conceptions of what is good are based on limited and biased

perspective. What are deemed to be good and bad by the masters are only fitting for them while

the slaves view in an opposite way. In the pursuit for having power, the masters compete for it

without thinking the benefit of happiness or pleasure because it is already assured but they

compete for victory. On the other hand, the slaves compete for power by using some means such

as altruism, the idea which encourage individual to benefit another person without getting

anything in return. The motive behind this moral principle is exploitation. It is a moral means

used by the powerless to exploit the powerful. The giver or the benefactors are praised when they

give without any expectation of return and the people who can afford to become a benefactor and

68

Ibid., Second Essay, 21.69

Ibid., Third Essay, 20.70

Ibid., First Essay, 7.24


25/35

who do not want of any return are only those people belonging to a powerful class. Granted that

both cases are bias then everyone may choose whatever he likes. A person either chooses to

belong to the master morality or to the slave morality. In the case of Nietzsche, he will prefer the

master type if one wants excellence on life. According to Nietzsche, the concerns of the

powerless are only the struggle to alleviate the sufferings in life while the powerful are always in

want to have more and are always creative with their lives by living dangerously. Nietzsche

envisages the genuine type of being as the goal of our existence. He introduces the humanistic-

existential process of enhancing life and calls the type of person who achieves it as the

Ubermensch.

Ethical Argument against Religion

Nietzsches atheism is a type of anti- theism, the view that the belief in God is

debilitating to human excellence. Many believers resort to religion and blindly surrender their

future to God and leaving behind their responsibility to achieve what they want. What they

cannot do for themselves, they leave it to God. Like Feuerbach and Marx before him, Nietzsche

agrees that the religion is the opium which console humanitys problem and results in not facing

them. However, Feuerbach and Marx approach religion in social and psychological context.

Nietzsche adds one that is the belief in God is spiritually debilitating. Let us say the Filipino

culture of Bahala Na as an exact example. The phrase Bahala Na has its origin in the expression

Bathala Na which means leaving it to God what one is not capable of doing. This has both

positive and negative value. It is good if it indicates courage and risk-taking in doing a task

without the expectation of being helped by other. It becomes bad if one is expressing it as a sign

of resignation as a result of the fatalism of belief in the will of God. People are often inclined not

to do the best in themselves since the belief that God will provide everything is still present. The

negative side is more common to people. Many still believe in the superstition of luck and fate

(malas, swerte, kapalaran sa kinabuhi ). This ethical belief leads every Filipino to social

indifference and paralysis. As a sign of resignation, one is not concern on the national concern

and even it is hopeless to help in solving the country problem since all is already fated. With

25


26/35

this in mind, a person is paralyzed to act for the country. This belief is destructive to a person

which will result to the impossibility of achieving excellence.

Nietzsche also attacks the establishment of religion because it tries to establish a rigid

moral system of what is good and evil. Religion prescribes an easy way to solve moral problem

just by consulting the rubrics or the letters of the law. What is good and what is evil is

determined through rules and a norm set up by all too human institution thereby it is legalistic.

For Nietzsche, this system of morals is only fitted for the herd mentality which does not enable

the common to think for themselves on what is good for them. A person is good if one is not

contradicting the rules prescribed by the institution such as religion. Morality for Nietzsche is

never a set of rational principles embraced by enlightened minds, or a set of rules burned into

stone by some deity. 71 He rejects God-given morality not because of his own atheism or

criticism he had against Judeo- Christian morality but it is because of the idea of externally givenvalue system as unnatural, that is, coming from a transcendent source thereby it is handed down

from God above. Since the type of morality introduces by religion is the morality which is anti-

nature, it is unhealthy. All healthy morality is dominated by an instinct of life. 72

When religion is established, it encourages people into subjection. Believing that each

individual is driven by the desire for power, Nietzsche has a suspicion to the motives of religious

leaders in their preaching of submission and humility in front of the Church and its authority.

People who are in the religious authority claim for the truthfulness of their doctrines as if they

are all coming from a transcendent source, but they are only from their personal interest and

needs to dominate. That is why they have doctrines, laws, rights, and even dogmas of any kind as

an attempt to level all men and to suppress their own desires. Even some of them manipulate its

doctrines as a means of controlling the daily lives of the believers. Let us say confession which

was not only used by Spanish friars before but even until now and also evangelizing others so

that people of other culture will be converted and will later on become a member of the religious

group. In order to compel obedience, religion imposes punishments that are based on some

assumption such as the necessity of the existence of God, of the antithesis between heaven and

hell, purgatory, sin, redemption, and the belief in the final judgment. The concept of reward and

punishment too is despised by Nietzsche because this must not be the basis of ones action. All71 Douglas Mann, Structural Idealism : A Theory of Social and Historical Explanation, (Canada: Wilfrid

Laurier University Press, 2002), p. 141.72

TI, Morality as Anti- Nature.26


27/35

those otherworldly concepts according to Nietzsche are imaginary and there is nothing that so

much touches on reality. 73

Under Christianity neither morality nor religion has any point of contactwith actuality. It offers purely imaginary causes (God, soul, ego, spirit,

free-will, -- or even unfree), and purely imaginary effects (sin, salvation,grace, punishment, forgiveness of sins). Intercourse between imaginarybeings (God, spirit, souls); an imaginary natural history (anthropocentric; atotal denial of the concept of natural causes); an imaginary psychology(misunderstandings of self, misinterpretations of agreeable or disagreeablegeneral feelingsrepentance, pangs of conscience, temptation by the devil,the presence of God); an imaginary teleology (the kingdom of God, the lastjudgment, eternal life).This purely fictitious world, greatly to itsdisadvantage, is to be differentiated from the world of dreams; the latter at leastreflects reality, whereas the former falsifies it, cheapens it and denies it. 74

In general, Nietzsche attacks religion as it tries to implement its own dogmas of metaphysics. AsNietzsche attacks Platos metaphysics of the otherworldly, it extends into Christian religion

because it is the Platonism for the people 75 and Christian religion can never be a religion or it

cannot stand as a religion without the need of metaphysics.

The death of God

Nietzsches atheism does not proclaim that God does not exist but God is dead. As he

attacks Platos metaphysics, he is also attacking God as the source of all valuations of the true,

the good and the beautiful. The death of God is never intended only for intellectual statement but

a wide cultural event that shaken the foundation of all disciplines. The greatest recent event-

that God is dead; that the belief in the Christian God has become unbelievable- is already

starting to cast its first shadow over Europe. 76 This proclamation is indeed become true at the

time when Nietzsche died. Humanity has changed its lifestyle and even radically changes the

discipline of ethics concerning what is good and evil esp. situational ethics, political and social

73

AC, 39.74

Ibid., 15.75

BGE, Preface.76

GS, 343.27


28/35

theory, psychology, anthropology, philosophy, etc. After the death of God, humanity is facing

nihilism, the belief that the highest value devaluate themselves. 77 This cultural phenomenon

portrays that the whole existence is meaningless and nothing valuable on it. Nietzsches

proclamation of the death of God when applied into ethical perspective implies that there is no

longer a divine Being that will give the basis of a moral code of our conduct. There will be

pluralisms of moral principle. For the believers the death of God would be the monstrous logic

of horror 78 but the case is not the same in Nietzsche. For him, the death of God let man to attain

the highest possibility of enhancing life. Man will be able to realize what he is to become in the

future. Man cannot be while God lives. He cannot be the self he would create, or the self he

knows he actually is, while God remains significant in the world where autonomous man

dwells. 79 I think that Nietzsche is arguing like Sartre that the best way to live as human being or

as a consistent existentialist respectively is to be an atheist because God will crush mansfreedom of creating himself. If man and God have a connection before and the proclamation that

God is dead then, that connection is no longer tenable. Nietzsche does not also want that the idea

of God to be abolished but also that of man. According to Allain Badiou, God must die, and

Man must be overcome. 80 If God is dead, then, man who has a relation to God before his death

must also be dead. Indeed, this was Nietzsche original ethical plan- the vision of a higher breed

of humanity embodied in his idea of the Ubermensch.

The Ubermensch or Overman as the Goal

Nietzsche was not afraid of the consequences after the death of God but he is overjoyed

about it. Christian morality as anti-nature will be destroyed and the only criterion that man must

value is only the concern of this-worldly quality of life and nothing eternal.

The most immediate consequences of this event- the consequences for ourselves,are the opposite of what one might expect- not at all sad and gloomy, but muchmore like a new and barely describable type of light, happiness, relief,

77

WP, 2.78

GS, 343.79

Gabriel Vahanian, The Death of God: The Culture of Our Post-Christian Era (New York: GeorgeBraziller, 1961), p. xvii.

80

Alain Badiou, The Century , (USA: Polity, 2007), p. 168.28


29/35

amusement, encouragement, dawn; . Finally the horizon seems clear again,even not bright the sea, our sea, lies open again. 81

Man is now free to create his own meaning and standard of values and accepts the world of

immanence as it is without the need for consolation of metaphysics that is to be found in religion.After the death of God, the concept of meaning is not something to be found, ready- made, or

given but it is something to be created through actions. The redemption of life after the death of

God can be done through achieving greatness or the realization of human excellence through a

multi-dimensional perspective of life and course of action. Nietzsches highest virtue as attaining

human excellence is inseparable from the idea of will to power and overcoming. To achieve

greatness in life one must have the power to take risks and be responsible for its consequences.

Moreover, what an individual achieves as of now is not enough. One must overcome what he is

at the present and in the process attains maturity. To achieve this goal one must appropriate all

his revitalizing strength, passion, sublimation of ones drive, and self-discipline. In the task of

attaining self-development, Nietzsche is inviting individuals to become godlike and to realize the

greatest potentials that one has. An authentic person is the one who carved out the best in him.

From TSZ Nietzsche notes, Away with such a god! Rather no god, rather meet destiny on ones

own, rather be a fool, rather be a god oneself. 82 What Nietzsche is trying to envision is the

creator in us and not the contented animal. Thus, he calls for self- perfection which he calls in

Human, All Too Human as the free spirit, in Beyond Good and Evil as the New Philosopher,and in Thus Spoke Zarathustra as the Ubermensch .

I teach you the Superman. Man is something that is to besurpassed. What have you done to surpass man? The Superman is the meaningof the earth. Let your will say: The Superman shall be the meaning of the earth! Iconjure you, my brethren, remain true to the earth, and believe not those whospeak unto you of otherworldly hopes. 83

The Superman is this-worldly antithesis to God and the one who masters his passion through the

will to power. He faces the godless and harsh world by creating meaning and life promotingvalues. The Superman is the goal and not man for the former accepts the world as it is then loves

81

GS, 343.82

TSZ, Retired.83

Ibid., , Zarathustras Prologue, 3.29


30/35

it and creates meanings on it. He bears the formula of greatness- amor fati. Amor fati is

associated with the idea of becoming who you are and the acceptance of life as having only

counted years to live. Nietzsche argues that one is born with certain talents and abilities to be

realized only in a given span of time. The individual has only limited years to cultivate his own

talents and the best way to develop them is at the present; now is the time to show what one is

capable of doing. With this in mind, Nietzsche is against the practice of procrastination. To be a

higher type of being one is to cultivate ones talents through laborious action for a higher type of

individual is not merely born or simply emerge in just a blink of an eye but it is made.

The Superman is also associated with the concept of eternal recurrence. In GS 343,

Nietzsche presents the dramatic argument of the idea:

The Heaviest Weight. What is someday or night a demon were to steal into your

loneliest loneliness and say to you: This life as you now live it and have lived ityou will have to live once again and innumerable times again; and there will benothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh andeverything unspeakably small or great in your life must return to you, all in thesame succession and sequence and even this moment and I myself. 84

Nietzsche presents the idea as existential which calls the individual to affirm the daily repetition

that one finds in life. Appling this into ethics, the right time of all the repetition to be examined is

the present moment which is the now. Understanding the self- repetition of all our actions, one

must act in such a way that it is worth repeating. If one is engage in a certain task which he does

not like then the moment that he will be given that same task, the result will not be productive.

The individual must choose and act to what he considers as the best of all his choices because

that action is the sum total of his own being and it defines him. By choosing the best actions in a

repetitive time man overcomes himself from himself as time passes on and becomes the

Ubermensch. He is an optimist as he affirms life. When man realizes to become the Ubermensch

through the attainment of excellence, he will not need God but considers Him only as

unnecessary.

Courage as Virtue

84

GS, 343.30


31/35

Nietzsches call for human excellence is reflective to himself. Indeed he argues: I care

for a philosopher only to the extent that he is able to be an example. 85 His care for that

philosopher is applicable to himself because he was able to overcome himself despite all of his

sickness. He is able to reawaken and find his authenticity that which is in him. Nietzsches

account of authenticity is existential which means that each individual self can find the

authenticity he seeks only by himself. This authenticity is manifested in the Ubermensch. The

prefix uber asserts that the individual never stop of what he is at present, in other words, each

person is in the process for the term does not only mean literally as above or over man but it is

also a crossing over and a going under. 86 Nietzsche portrays this in the situation of a tightrope

walker who is always in danger in crossing the rope between two points: mankind is a rope

fastened between animal and overman- a rope over an abyss a dangerous crossing, a

dangerous on-the-way, a dangerous looking back, a dangerous shuddering and standing still. 87

The tightrope walker as it is shown shows courage and seriousness in his task and thereby he is

praiseworthy. He represents the Ubermensch because of his kindred spirit to cross over the rope

which made him above the crowd. Romualdo Abulad applies the dramatic event in the discipline

of ethics by saying that a man or woman of true moral worth is always walking on a tightrope

to be virtuous is a courageous thing. 88 Nietzsches conception of courage is different from the

ordinary because he identifies it with a goal. His ethics is a kind of a goal oriented and its main

virtue is courage. An optimist person has a goal in life which is to attain human excellence that

he is going to pursue but without courage there is less or no possibility of achieving as such. For

Nietzsche, courage entails wisdom for it is not only a mere feeling. In the idea of eternal

recurrence, he calls it as the greatest weight and thought provoking hypothesis where courage is

the main virtue that is required to bear such thought. It seeks a man of courage to understand, to

face and to affirm life despite its endless repetition. Courage. . . is the best slayer. . . for it say,

Was that life? Well then! Once more! 89 Nietzsche asserts that it entails to act what is the best85

Walter Kaufmann, Existentialism: From Dostoevsky to Sartre , p.102.86

TSZ, Zarathustras Prologue, 4.87

Ibid.88

Romualdo Abulad, The Future of Ethics: A Postmodern View, in Two Filipino Thomasian Philosopherson Postmodernism, (Manila: UST Publishing House, 2004), p. 120.

89

31


32/35

and in overcoming what one already is. One needs courage over himself not to fall out of

inauthenticity such that of mediocrity. Also man needs courage so that he might have

experienced the feeling of hardness against slave moral values such as pity and overcomes pain.

The man of virtue, too, helps the unfortunate, but not, or almost not, out of pity, but prompted

by an urge which is begotten by the excess of power. 90

Above all, courage entails spiritedness and a positive attitude in facing difficulties and

pain and the best of them is loneliness. The Ubermensch only comes out after facing

courageously the death of God and nihilism as its consequence. The formation of the

Ubermensch can never be done by always being with the crowd or herd as what Nietzsche calls

it. The herd always wants every individual to act what everybody is doing. In the crowd, one

needs only to appease the other members and says to them, be like us, and you will be safe. 91

In this case, the crowd is a danger for it seduces a happy and safe life that is born out of conformity and a sense of leveling to mass mediocrity. With this in mind, most people who

achieve excellence are those who are able to bear their own solitude in order to think deeply for

themselves. Even in Nietzsches life as a philosopher, solitude constitutes most of his spiritual

maturity and greatness. His boldness to undertake such task is his highest spiritual discipline.

The man is great who knows how to be most solitary, the man who is surrounded by loneliness,

not because he wishes to be alone but he is what he is, and he cannot find his equal. 92 All in all,

courage is required in the transvaluation of all learned values and without that the task will not

be successful. To rethink our learned values is to overcome what is at present and therefore it

aims at improving more which is a call for excellence. Thus, courage is needed in taking the task

deliberately and confronting the expected hardships. Only in this way that excellence is

achieved.

TSZ, On the Vision and the Riddle, 1.90

Philip Stokes, Philosophy: 100 Essential Thinkers, (New York: Enchanted Lion Books, 2003), p. 147.91

Ralph Harper, The Seventh Solitude: Metaphysical Homelessness in Kierkegaard, Dostoevsky, and Nietzsche (Baltimore: John Hopkins Press, 1967), p. 6.

92

Ibid., p. 153.32


33/35

Conclusion

Nietzsches ethics is a call to excellence which is embodied in the Ubermensch.

Excellence refers to realizing all the potentials that an individual is capable of doing. This task is

not easy because it requires us to live dangerously, that is, to take risks in taking our decision in

what we believe as something good for us and at the same time to take responsibility on it. That

is why Nietzsche criticizes all those accepted values that serve as the hindrance for this call and

in putting those values into a critique will somehow lead to the liberation from slavish values and

liberation to realize the desire to excel through the process of self-overcoming. Excellence does

not necessarily mean as going ahead over the other people but to overcome what one is already

achieved at present. Thereby, will to power as power over oneself is necessary for self-overcoming. So, Nietzsches conception of what does it mean to have a good life is to pursue

excellence and this is the meaning why we are motivated to do our tasks even though we are

experiencing sufferings in the process. In this case, a person who desires for excellence must be

his own lawgiver or standard of his own value. Values that serve to threat and to limit the

impulse to cultivate ones potential should be criticized and to be reexamined.

But what is easy is to fall. People are inclined to be complacent with what they already

have by settling on the unquestioned belief. In order to avoid this falleness and to be able to

pursue excellence, one must embrace the morality prescribed by the master morality which has

the great possibility of providing a condition to become the Ubermensch. The Ubermensch is the

higher type of human being who always goes beyond good and evil. He creates his own values

out of strength and so this breed of human being is not subjected to the morality of the herd

which based the concept of good and evil in terms of equality. The herd morality only favors

mediocrity but the Ubermensch goes beyond the binary thinking of good and evil thereby there is

not stagnation of oneself but always a process of betterment.

33


34/35

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Primary Sources:

Nietzsche, Friedrich, Beyond Good and Evil, trans. by Marie Cowan, Chicago: Henry RegneyCompany, 1996.

________________, Will to Power, trans. by Walter Kaufmann, New York: Random House,1967.

________________, Human, All Too Human: A Book for Free Spirits, trans. by R. J.Hollingdale, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986.

________________, Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None, trans. by Adrian delCaro, ed. by Adrian del Caro and Robert Pippin, Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress, 2006.

_______________, Twilight of the Idols, trans. by Walter Kaufmann, New York: Viking Press,1968.

_______________, On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense , in The Portable Nietzsche, trans.Walter Kaufmann, New York: Penguin Books, 1976.

_______________, The Antichrist, in The Portable Nietzsche , trans. by Walter Kaufmann, NewYork: Penguin Books, 1976.

_______________, The Birth of Tragedy, trans. by Ian C. Johnston, Canada: MalaspinaUniversity Press, 2000.

______________, Daybreak: Thoughts on the Prejudices of Morality, trans. by R. J. Hollingdale,Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982.

______________, The Gay Science , in The Portable Nietzsche, trans. Walter Kaufmann, NewYork: Random House, 1976.

_________________, On the Genealogy of Morals, trans. by Walter Kaufmann and R. J.Hollingdale, New York: Random House, 1967.

34


35/35

Secondary Sources:

Abeysekara, Ananda, The Politics of Postsecular Religion: Mourning Secular Future, NewYork: Columbia University Press, 2008.

Abulad, Romualdo, The Future of Ethics: A Postmodern View, in Two Filipino ThomasianPhilosophers on Postmodernism, Manila: UST Publishing House, 2004.

Badiou, Allain, The Century , USA: Polity, 2007.

Comte, Auguste, Catechism of Positivism, trans. by R. Congreve, London: Kegan Paul, 1891.

Copleston, Frederick, History of Philosophy, New York: Doubleday, 1994.

Deleuze, Gilles, Nietzsche and Philosophy, New York: Continuum, 2002.

Harper, Ralph, The Seventh Solitude: Metaphysical Homelessness in Kierkegaard, Dostoevsky,and Nietzsche, Baltimore: John Hopkins Press, 1967.

Jaspers, Karl, Nietzsche : An Introduction to the Understanding of His Philosophical Activity,Tucson: Arizona University Press, 1965.

Kaufmann, Walter, Existentialism: From Dostoevsky to Sartre, New York: Meredian, Penguin,1989.

Kim, Atkins, Self and Subjectivity, Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell Publishing, 2005.

Mann, Douglas, Structural Idealism : A Theory of Social and Historical Explanation, Canada:Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2002.

May, Simon, Nietzsches Ethics and his War on Morality, Oxford: Oxford University Press,1999.

Pearson, Keith Ansell, A Companion to Nietzsche, Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2005.

Stokes, Philip, Philosophy : 100 Essential Thinkers, New York: Enchanted Lion Books, 2003.

Vahanian, Gabriel, The Death of God: The Culture of Our Post-Christian Era, New York:George Braziller, 1961.

Nietzsche für Ethik

Documents

Transcript of Nietzsche für Ethik