[Although
I’ve never been a fan of Nietzsche (read my blog The Nietzsche Blues), he did have some interesting thoughts about
morality. Through the course of his writings, he makes a case for extreme moral
relativism and you’ll see what I mean in this examination…]
In The Gay Science, Nietzsche touches upon morality, offering reasons
why we (or some of us) ought not to engage in moral judgement. His reasons begin
to appear early in the
second book when he takes to task the Realist
interpretation of reality as being nothing more concrete than any person’s
particular explanation of reality. Nietzsche remarks that the Realist is just
as full of “prejudice, irrationality, ignorance, fear” (57) as anyone else and as such,
this prevents any true interpretation of
the world. Later, in Section 116, Nietzsche writes that morality is, “the
expression of the needs of a community or herd,” and we can take from this to
mean that as an agent in one of these communities, the agent is not an
impartial evaluator of morals. Nietzsche also sees that individuals within
these communities tend to regard themselves as valuable only insofar as they
serve a function within the herd, a view of one’s self that is antithetical to
Nietzsche’s free-spirit or overman.
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| Nietzsche & his silly mustache. |
Nietzsche’s view of morality begins
to become clearer in Section 301, where he points out that, “Nature is always
worthless,” in the sense that morality is not born of or inherent in the
natural world but that it is man who creates morality. The failure of men to
recognize this creates errors in valuation. In sensing that there is something
defective about current concepts of morality, Nietzsche chides historians of
morality for not coming to a similar conclusion and as such historians are
guilty of not critically evaluating morality. [Their lack of insight perhaps
due to acquiescing to tradition or plain and common prejudices.] Nietzsche
calls these historians childish, for when they think they are evaluating
morality they are actually evaluating people. Thus, it should not be the job of
historians to evaluate morality.
Scientists are likewise not to be
arbiters of meaning in the world. It is the scientists’ view of the world that
would be worst of all in Nietzsche’s opinion, for the scientific view would be
the view most devoid of actual meaning. “An essentially mechanical world would
be an essentially meaningless world,” he writes, adding how worthlessness a
scientific evaluation of music would be (373). To Nietzsche, only a philosopher
could possibly investigate such a human construct as morality.
A more precise formulation of
morality is exactly what Nietzsche presents in On the Genealogy of Morals. In Genealogy,
Nietzsche explains there are two types of morality. [This is not to say there
are only two types, but the two types
obvious within Western civilization.] There is Master morality—morality in
which actions are either good or bad—and Slave morality, which evaluates
actions as being either good or evil.
Master morality is characterized by
a self-affirmation that they, the Master, are good. This, the self, is where
(a) morality begins. If Masters begin by viewing themselves as good, what they
value is likewise good: Nobility, courage, open-mindedness, truthfulness—these
characteristics are helpful to Masters, insofar as they help Masters maintain
their status, and that creates the value of such characteristics. We see then
that Master morality is consequence-based; that which does not promote or
advance their positions as Masters is deemed bad. [There is at least one
notable exception to this rule: Enemies. Enemies are not held in contempt by
Masters because Masters see themselves in the enemy. The enemy is trying to do
the same as any Master—be a
Master—and this, to any Master, should be viewed as honourable.]
Born in response to Master morality
is Slave morality, a morality that holds intentions
to be either good or evil. The Slave morality comes from weakness, out of
being oppressed by Masters and as such does not seek what is good for (strong)
individuals, rather it seeks what is good for the entirety of its community.
The Slave morality holds that the characteristics Slaves do not possess (those
characteristics common to Masters, for example) to be evil since such
characteristic can give rise to injustices such as slavery. Amongst the Slaves then, something such as humility, which would be bad as far as Masters are
concerned, would be called a virtue by Slaves when in fact Slaves are humble
not by choice, but precisely because they do
not have a choice, being at the mercy of Masters. Slave morality is a form
of resentment aimed at those who they cannot be like or whose goals they cannot
assent to. Ironically, Slaves need Masters to define themselves; Masters do not
require Slaves in this way.
To Nietzsche however, these
formulations of morality are simply the inventions of a given society or
culture to advance its own cause. What is good, for example, is merely the
expression of whoever wills that conception. There is no metaphysically true
morality. We can be fooled into thinking there are moral truths though, perhaps
through conditioning or familiarization with the traditional meanings of
morality such as they exist in Western civilization. Nietzsche believes that
Slave morality has become triumphant in Western civilization, first through
Christianity and then through democracy, and this is cause for worry.
Having conceptualized the overman
prior to On the Genealogy of Morals,
it is not difficult to sense why Nietzsche would be opposed to the triumph of
Slave morality. If Slave morality seeks to cast all persons in the same context
with the same values, individuals cannot assert any will to power. The Slave’s
system of morality favours the interests of the largest numbers of persons, not
the few who wish to flourish. An individual cannot create their own values if
conditioned to believe tradition-based interpretations of morality. That said,
we should make note that Master morality is not without fault either. It is as
traditionalist as Slave morality and thus, can be opposed to change and opposed
to (other) free-spirits.
Nietzsche thinks there can be
morality, but it must come from within us as individuals; morality is never
divorced from individual will. Only individual will, the fundamental drive
within us, can assign value to anything. Our will to power is the origin of
morality. However, if we accept beforehand that morality has fixed meaning(s),
we can never aspire to independence and thus, we are surrendering ourselves to
other wills. How would we ascend to the overman then? It will not be possible
for as long as Slave morality remains embedded to reign over the free-spirit. To
Nietzsche, Master mentality is clearly moral and Slave mentality is not because
Nietzsche believes in the importance of individuals over any collective
mentality. We cannot take Nietzsche to task for this view since he is the origin
of morality as much as anyone else.
