Being a slave isn't so bad; in fact, it's not bad at all! It simply can't be. When reading Nietzsche, I think it's important that we remind ourselves of his nihilistic position. The passage from The Gay Science that Dr. Johnson read in class is the position I have in mind. There seems to be a tendency to believe that Nietzsche advocates a sort of master morality over a slave morality (and he may in fact do so), but advocating one over the other may raise some inconsistencies with his position.
Let's familiarize ourselves with Nietzsche's nihilist stance. In the passage from The Gay Science, Nietzsche describes the world not as an organism but as chaos with only necessities. This implies then that our aesthetic and moral perspectives cannot apply to the world and are merely anthropomorphisms. This is a big implication! It follows then that there is no reason for me that is inherent in the cosmos for me to subscribe to one morality system over another. As far as the universe is concerned (which sounds silly to say since the universe can't be concerned), I should be a deontologist as much as I should be a utilitarian. There's no universal standard.
But Nietzsche's language as he describes the two moralities in Beyond Good and Evil suggests that the master morality should be preferred over the slave morality -- and this seems certainly so in the depiction of the overman in Thus Spoke Zarathustra. We use terms like life-affirming, noble, and powerful to describe the good in the master morality, and slave morality (the name itself a degrading term and derived from master morality) can only be defined in contrast to the master morality, implying a sort of hierarchy between the two systems. It appears that Nietzsche thinks that the master morality is better, but is he right to do so if he is to stay true to his nihilism? For nothing can truly be better or worse in a universe where such categories do not truly exist. Nietzsche simply cannot appeal to any standard, so he seems to lack justification.
I will conclude with a possible response to this apparent inconsistency. Perhaps it is true that the universe itself does not hold categories of good, bad, evil, etc., but it does not follow that humans cannot have a mutual understanding of how to apply these categories. In light of this, it seems possible that Nietzsche can in fact say that one morality is greater than the other, especially since Nietzsche's approach is naturalistic and best understood in human terms. Nietzsche can argue for the superiority of the master morality, but it can never be irreproachable and we certainly do not have to buy into it. I myself am perfectly content with showing care for those in need and calling it good.
whatever helps the slave sleep at night
ReplyDeleteWell said Ben, but seriously, an uncaring universe with necessity only dismisses traditional notions of morality, typically those involving iron age deities. In other words, one could still give a descriptive account for why people act the way they do that accounts for some concept of moral categories or axioms. A subjectivist may argue that good and bad/evil get their definitions from society, and people perform within those narratives of good and bad/evil. Desirists would argue that desires are only existing reasons for action, and objective morality should be based on existing reasons for one action over another; therefore, desires are the only basis for objective morality.
ReplyDeleteTo your point about universal standard, I am concerned about how much you care the universe does not care. Why does anyone need to ask the universe for a moral system, it seems so without words or reason as it is. It would be like asking your soup what your fortune is.
As to inconsistencies of Nietzsche between his books, Nietzsche does change hi
s positions from one point in his life to another, so trying to make it out that one book will have to match the statements from another is folly.
To agree with you at some point I do think its ok for a slave morality to exist; and niether is better then the other; there has to be some kind of difference humanbeings always create differences among themselves. And it doesn't really matter to have one or the other because in reality they won and the winners tell history and their ideas not the losers. So we have a slave morality; and the majority is always right. If 99% of the people on earth believe killing is bad, then guess what, its bad becasue it has been sanctioned as such.
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