Human Being Existence

Since long before Plato philosophers have attempted to accurately describe the ways human being exist in relation to the world around them. Many different systems and meta-narratives were created by numerous philosophers as they used reason to determine what it meant to exist and how knowledge was possible. Most philosophers were acutely aware their philosophical arguments that provided either metaphysical or epistemological descriptive claims would necessarily lay the foundation for normative ethical positions. Peoples accepted metaphysical and epistemological philosophical positions implicitly affect the type and strength of ethical arguments. It especially becomes ethically problematic if one embraces the existentialist understanding of existence and attempts to provide normative guidance or establish a sound moral argument. In particular the combination of Friedrich Nietzsche’s ethical, metaphysical, and epistemological beliefs become highly problematic when attempting to apply them to an ethical framework which would provide normative claims. Therefore, if one were to accept Nietzsche’s existential philosophical descriptive claims, it is impossible to establish a functioning ethical system that would not lead to catastrophic social, economic, environmental, and political problems.

Although it is likely Nietzsche would argue that his claims concerning reason, knowledge, and morality were merely descriptive truth claims which accurately portrayed the world the only way we could accurately understand it, it opens the door for human actions which have ethical repercussions. Even Nietzsche’s normative claims concerning a healthy will to power fail to adequately address any ethical problems inherent in his ideas. However, it wou...

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...f-affirmation. However, this would create a world in which the concerns of suffering, justice, and personal freedoms were an afterthought, and it is hard to see how civilization could flourish in any modern conception of the idea. While these moral ideas may be empty creations to Nietzsche, they often times allow the condition for the possibility of happiness and self-affirmation.

A final problem with Nietzsche’s views in their application is they treat the individual as a completely autonomous being driven by only a “will to power”. This idea seems to run contrary to the very conditions which make life possible. People are not created as autonomous beings from conception. Existential existence is only possible through the assistance of other individuals, and any ethical system, even if it is only an implied ethical system, which ignores others is deeply flawed.