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Introduction to A Critique of Friedrich Nietzsche's Concept of Morality
Nietzsche view on morality
Persuasive comparison and contrast
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In his argument, Nietzsche uses comparison to argue against the concept of romantic love, stating that love is not a moral good but an animal instinct. He does this by discussing the similarities between greed and love, using them to claim they are the same impulse but classified different ways. "Our love of our neighbors—is it not a craving for new property? And likewise our love of knowledge, of truth, and altogether any craving for what is new?" Nietzsche argues, drawing a comparison between greed and love, pointing out what is similar about them to argue that they are the same thing and not two moral opposites. Elsewhere, Nietzsche writes about how the only difference between impulses called 'good' or 'wrong' is the viewpoint of the examiner, …show more content…
Nietzsche compares greed and love to show how similar they are, and argues that love, like greed, is not a moral good. Conversely, Machiavelli compares love and greed in terms of which sentiment is more reliable among men, and uses comparison to argue that because greed is more reliable than love, it is better to be feared than loved. He supports his comparison by writing that men are "thankless, fickle, false, studious to avoid danger, greedy of gain," emphasizing the selfishness of men, and also emphasizes the fickleness of love, writing that it is "broken on every whisper of private interest." In this way, he presents one concept in a more positive light than the other to persuade, another common comparison strategy. Nietzsche uses comparison to state that love and greed are not moral opposites but essentially the same, whereas Machiavelli uses comparison to emphasize one thing over the other, in this case, that greed is a more effective motivation than …show more content…
Comparison is a way to emphasize the concept at hand to be most persuasive to one's argument. Comparison is also an effective way to introduce a new concept when one knows their audience already has knowledge of another; as an example, Nietzsche wants to introduce his audience to love, an abstract concept not everyone agrees upon or has the same understanding of. He draws comparisons to another, easier to understand concept, greed, which is something everyone has felt, and the definition of which isn't hotly debated. The selective emphasis of the concepts' qualities also come into play as a persuasive tactic here, as Nietzsche brings up the similar qualities between love and greed, drawing the conclusion that they are essentially the same. However, comparison has its limits: the audience must understand at least one of the concepts being compares against, or have an opinion on it, or else the argument will be meaningless. In his argument in favor of governance by fear, Machiavelli emphasizes the fickleness of love and the constancy of selfishness and greed. This comparison serves his argument by showing how fear is more reliable than love. His intended audience, statesmen and men seeking to increase their political power, were likely to agree that selfishness and greed are
As well, metaphors exists everywhere. They influence the way we process information in our minds. Without the idea of comparison in order to achieve a better understanding of material, everything would be abstract and the way we perceive the information would be completely
In the many sections Niccolo Machiavelli writes he constantly compares to extreme qualities, one of which is ideal, the other real. These extremes include love(ideal) vs fear, clemency(ideal) vs cruelty, generous(ideal) vs stingy, and integrity(ideal) vs lying. In comparing these different traits Machiavelli highlights the merits of opposing characteristics and (specifically)when it is effective to act in certain ways. He argues that a balance of both are vital as to prevent a prince from dipping too far into a pool of inescapable extremism. The following excerpts display the author’s contrast-centered style: “ Thus, it's much wiser to put up with the reputation of being a miser, which brings you shame without hate, than to be forced—just
Although similarities between Machiavelli and Lao-Tzu may be difficult to detect, their views are both very extreme. Machiavelli believes that the prince should have total control and do anything to gain power; however, Lao-Tzu desires a political system in which everything runs its own course.
Nietzsche thought nobility was to see one’s self as the center and origin of value. He believed that people in power force common people into bidding their will, and those in charge are separated based on good or bad measures of their value. The rulers, or people in charge have master morality, the people who do their bidding have slave morality. Slave morality is how common people make their lives more bearable by using Christian ethics such as kindness and sympathy.
The system of justice that Nietzsche employs although somewhat cynical has a substantial amount of merit as a form of justice, which is present in our society. This is demonstrated through the depiction of the creditor/debtor relationship that exists in our democratic societies, and the equalization process that occurs, and furthermore that Nietzsche is correct to assess justice as such a principle. The issue is most obvious in the penal system; however it is also prevalent in personal day-to-day relationships as well as political structures.
This piece of work will try to find the answer to the question ‘In Nietzsche’s first essay in the Genealogy of Morals, does he give a clear idea of what good and bad truly are and what his opinion of those ideas is’. It will give a brief overview of his first essay, it will also go into greater detail of what he claims good and bad truly are, and finally look at what he is trying to prove with this argument. It will look at his background in order to see if and how that has influenced his work and opinions.
The purpose of Friedrich Nietzsche's On The Genealogy of Morals (1887) is to answer the following questions, which he clearly lays out in the preface: "under what conditions did man devise these value judgments good and evil? And what value do they themselves possess? Have they hitherto hindered or furthered human prosperity? Are they a sign of distress, of impoverishment, of the degeneration of life? Or is there revealed in them, on the contrary, a plenitude, force, and will of life, its courage, certainty, future?" (17). These questions come about from Nietzsche's rejection of the Darwinian-Spencerian-utilitarian explanation of morality, characterized by his portrayal of the "English psychologist, " and serve as a framework in which he constructs the arguments in his book.
The bond of love is one which men, the wretched creatures they are, break when it is to their advantage to do so; ?? fear is held together by a dread of punishment which will never abandon you?(649). Machiavelli suggests that the key to being a good ? prince,? is deception. ? It is necessary to know how to disguise this nature well and to be a great hypocrite and a liar: and men are so simple-minded and so controlled by their present necessities that one who deceives will always find another who will allow himself to be deceived?
However, Nietzsche debunks Edward’s idea of sin, claiming it as a contrivance used to invoke fear in the believers of Christianity and to denote ruling power to the Priest (Nietzsche, Sec. 49). Nietzsche proceeds to deride the value system of Christianity, spelling out what he sees through the will to power as definitions for happiness, good, and bad (Nietzsche, Sec. 2). For Nietzsche, happiness is the feeling bolstered by power: “that a resistanc...
Nietzsche begins his discussion of good and moral with an etymological assessment of the designations of “good” coined in various languages. He “found they all led back to the same conceptual transformation—that everywhere ‘noble,’ ‘aristocratic’ in the social sense, is the basic concept from which ‘good’ in the sense of ‘with aristocratic soul,’… developed…” (Nietzsche 909). Instead of looking forward at the achievement for morality, Nietzsche looks backward, trying to find origins and causes of progression. He ultimately comes to the conclusion that strength implies morality, that superiority implies the good man. The powerful nobles, through pathos of difference, construed plebeians and slaves as bad, because of their inferiority in every sense of the word. From this concept of the pathos of difference was born the priestly morality, wherein the nobles were construed in an altogether different and less favorable light.
For him, “life itself is essentially appropriation, injury, overpowering of what is alien and weaker, suppression, hardness, imposition of one’s own forms, incorporation and at least, at its mildest, exploitation.” That is to say, our desire for power is unavoidable and an inherent part of our nature. On the other hand, the abnegation from “injury, violence, and exploitation and placing one’s will on a par with that of someone else” (instead of propagating one’s own will over others’) is “a will to the denial of life [and] a principle of disintegration and decay.” If one considers life and the act of living itself as the will to power, then master morality’s affinity to honour strength and self-promotion would be the more compelling morality for Nietzsche. This is not precisely the case however, as master morality lacks a certain subtlety as opposed to the act of enslaving oneself, which can be an “indispensable means of spiritual discipline and cultivation.” In any case, Nietzsche’s appreciation of the advantages of master morality is not as intuitive of a sentiment as it is to other modern
Russian realistic literature thrived in the second half of the nineteenth century under the political and social problems that shadowed the country. In the early nineteenth century, Czars had unconditional power and paid no attention to the needs of the people, especially the serfs who were defined and treated as slaves. Revolts began to spread, however, and the serfs were eventually emancipated in 1861. This reform gave the Serfs equal rights and opportunities as free citizens, including the right to marry and own property. With exception to house serfs, all others received a small plot of land from the government. Most were unable to pay the unfair taxes that they were subject to and most ended up renting land from landlords that had once contacted serfs. This issue and many others during the time sparked an arrival of literary works that chronicled the era and emphasized new ideas concerning the meaning of life and happiness. Anton Chekhov, who was the grandson of a serf, and Leo Tolstoy who descended from aristocrats, came from completely opposite backgrounds in Russian society, but expressed similar beliefs in their literary works. “The Bet” and “How Much Land Does A Man Need?” both use character, irony, and symbolism to demonstrate the overall theme of human stupidity.
According to Niccolo Machiavelli “if you have to make a choice, to be feared is much safer than to be loved” (225). Machiavelli was the first philosopher of the Renaissance, and wrote The Prince which argued that leaders must do anything necessary to hold on to power. The main reason it is better to be feared is because men are evil, rotten and will only do things that benefit themselves. Men only think of themselves and it is for this reason fear can control them and keep them loyal to a leader. Since loyalty through love can be easily broken because it involves no punishment, loyalty through fear is the better choice because it involves the “dread of punishment, from which [the subjects] can never escape” (Machiavelli 226). Machiavelli goes on to say that the great leader Hannibal took control of his immense army, because the soldiers saw Hannibal as a fearsome and cruel person, thus, making them loyal to him. Machiavelli in addition gives an example of a leader who chose not to be feared and cruel: “Scipio, an outstanding man not only among those of his own time, but in all recorded history; yet his armies revolted in Spain, for no other reason than his excessive leniency in allowing his soldiers more freedom than military discipline permits”(226). Failure to be cruel and fearsome will cause a leader to lose control of his soldiers, and it will cause the leader’s soldiers to revolt. Hannibal was the better leader; even though he was cruel, he was more merciful in reality than Scipio because he did not allow any disorders to happen.
Nietzsche was a man who questioned the morality of his time. He dug deep in to what good really meant, and if there was a difference between bad and evil. He sought to look at the world by stepping back and looking at it with out the predisposition of what morality was/is. He looked at what he called slave and noble morality. He looked passed what was on the surface, and gave us many things to digest and discuss. In this paper I will discuss how Nietzsche’s writing can be seen as favoritism towards the noble morality by touching on how he believes the noble morality and slave morality came about, then I will talk about his “birds of prey and lambs” example which shows his fondness of the bird of prey, and I will end with my interpretation
He described the agreeable feelings as being “produced by the consciousness of good deeds (the so-called “good conscience” – a psychological state…). They are produced by faith, charity, and hope – the Christian virtues” (para. 24). Within Nietzsche’s “On the Genealogy of Morals” he elaborates on the reputed “Christian virtues” saying: