But Nietzsche, on Richardson's account, also recognizes the value of "the common" (233). But whatever you make of him, he is one of the… Known for his critical writings on religion and morality in modern society, the German philosopher exerted significant influence on future generations of writers and thinkers. Nietzsche sees the morality derived from Christianity as harmful because it is slavish, rooted in weakness, fear, malice, and a desire for punishment of oneself and others. Today, Nietzsche is remembered… But for Nietzsche, this entailed rejection of traditional values, including the Christian religion. Nietzsche’s The Genealogy of Morals is an exercise in ‘animal psychology’, studying (in Nietzsche’s own words) “the physiology and evolutionary history of organisms and concepts.” In a number of other central works Nietzsche embraces science as providing access to what he sees as ‘the real world of … If universally “good” values do not exist and one is free to create one’s own, what is there to keep one from determining that heinous acts—murder, rape, torture, etc.—are justified? that Nietzsche’s values are objects of the same analysis he applies to human values generally. German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche shared Kierkegaard's conviction that philosophy should deeply reflect the personal concerns of individual human beings. Few philosophers in recent years have attempted to refute Friedrich Nietzsche's attack on Christian and other moralities. Nietzsche finds it important to distinguish between the religion of Christianity and the person of Jesus. Nietzsche begins by saying he thinks that humanity doesn’t really know or understand itself. In Chapters 3-4 I examine the … Jason Ticknor-Schwob, "Master and Slave" 2. When Nietzsche observed the death of God, he said that man must become like gods to deserve it. John Richardson here organizes Nietzsche's thinking around the central and unifying concept of values. As humans we create our own values, morals and truths. Nietzsche’s critique of Judeo-Christian values As perhaps one of the most important pieces of work written by Nietzsche, “On the Genealogy of Morality” contains some of his most complex and provocative thoughts on the nature of morality and its origins. INDEX WORDS: Nietzsche, Future, Value, Decadence, Symptom, Morality, Leiter, The slave morality is sour grapes made into a values system. VIRTUES AND AFFIRMATIVE VALUES IN NIETZSCHE Nietzsche envisages an end to the morality of good and evil. While Nietzsche denounces Christianity, his critique is not necessarily a denunciation of the religion unconditionally. He was influenced by Schopenhauer, Plato and Kant. The approach Nietzsche wants us to take is to handle the contradictions using active forgetfulness to take only what we need and thus create our own Nietzsche along with our own values. Nietzsche attacked the Christian religion, as represented by churches and institutions, for what he called its "transvaluation" of healthy instinctive values. However, values-discourse militates against the search for a common good or goods, against universal principles and against the universal provision of public services. A central strand in Nietzsche's thinking makes this out to be an antagonistic relation, in which the individual struggles to preserve her individuality in the face of pressures from the community (214). Nietzsche was well-aware of this possibility and even predicted that his ideas would be used as justification for various atrocities. 4. The cost of not doing so is vitiating our deepest aims and precluding a central form of happiness. Nietzsche on values. These are values Nietzsche never treats as arbitrary and which he assumes his men of the future will vindicate (GM ii.24; cf. Nietzsche is an entertaining but challenging writer. In that sense, the revaluation of values involves not value creation, but merely the old rhetorical strategy that Quintilian termed the paradiastolic redescription of virtues as vices and vices as virtues-a redescription, moreover, which by Nietzsche's lights is just the reversal of a previous redescription along these same lines. [John Richardson] -- The book gives a uniquely comprehensive philosophical analysis of Nietzsche's thinking. Instead the values of comfort and contentment so, cherished by the herd, will be worshipped as the supreme values, and as a result the herd will engulf all of mankind and “existence [will] be deprived of its great character” . Traditional morality, according to Nietzsche, is rooted in Christian morality. "Does Nietzsche Believe in Morality?" The influential German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1990) had his views on religion and Christianity, and was arguably the most abrupt and abrasive atheistic thinkers of his time.In his book The Gay Science (1882), Nietzsche declared that “God is dead” which, essentially, was his way of saying that belief in the Christian conception of God had become unbelievable (1). For Nietzsche, I argue, valuing is a conative attitude which institutes values, rather than tracking what is independently of value. Friedrich Nietzsche. These classic values — originating in ancient Greece and embraced by the Romans — emphasized strength, robustness, nobility, self-determination, and personal excellence. Archived. He wants to know if conventional ideas about what’s “good” and “evil” in 19th-century Europe (or “modern” Europe, as he calls it) help humanity thrive and flourish. He wants to explore the history of morals, to see where they come from and how they evolve. Because of his sister, he became associated with Nazism and fascism. He distinguishes the morality of good and evil from the morality of good and bad, for example On the Genealogy of Morality (Nietzsche 1989), ‘Essay I’ 17; but he also suggests that morality can be displaced by a philosophy of life, for example Daybreak (Nietzsche 1997), Preface 4. BGE 44, 203). Nietzsche’s arguments against egalitarianism from a perspective that is friendly to Nietzsche’s: one which allows that a scepticism about the value of our values is necessary; but which argues that pace Nietzsche, moral egalitarianism survives such a searching examina-tion. Diana Hsieh, "'Birds of Prey': Freedom of the Will and the Value of Genealogy" 3. Nietzsche on the Inherently Subjective Nature of Values Nietzsche boldly asserted that all values arise from evaluation: "nothing is … Nietzsche’s perspectivism becomes integral to his critique of traditional morality. from Nietzsche's Daybreak, s. 468, R.J. Hollingdale transl It is, indeed, a fact that, in the midst of society and sociability every evil inclination has to place itself under such great restraint, don so many masks, lay itself so often on the procrustean bed of virtue, that one could well speak of a martyrdom of the evil man. Nietzsche's Values book. Perhaps these, then, might form at least the core or the basis of a morality. He worked to call into question some very basic principles and assumptions of western philosophy as it had been practiced up to his time. Übermensch}, Nietzsche supposed Nietzsche (1) comes to deny that science is value-free, so that (2) values are required for understanding the way the world is, and even that (3) values can be veridical and non-veridical. Nietzsche on values. Friedrich Nietzsche was one of the leading classicists of his generation. Friedrich Nietzsche is one of the most famous philosophers of the 19th century. The values Nietzsche endorses, including the valuing of “higher” individuals, are to be understood as symptoms of a particular physiology and its relationship to living. He exclaimed the death of God and the birth of the Overman. Read reviews from world’s largest community for readers. Posted by 9 months ago. Get this from a library! Nietzsche. The first is the valuing Nietzsche attributes to all living things, and to us humans in our bodies; Nietzsche insists that we already value in our drives and affects. It is clear that Nietzsche embraces (1), and I will address (3) below when I examine moral facts. Close. Nietzsche is right, we have a commitment to instituting some set of higher values. Richardson maps in detail Nietzsche's arguments, which crucially distinguish three basic ways of valuing. Nietzsche’s strategy becomes clearer when we examine the connection he makes between values and tastes, and my view has the added interpretive benefit of revealing a motivation for Nietzsche’s untraditional philosophical methodology. Language is central to this story. Nietzsche’s fears of such a world were expounded in a passage from On the Genealogy of Morality: Moreover, asceticism becomes an issue in Nietzsche’s account not only when it is disguised as a religious virtue, but also when it goes against one’s will to power. Such a super-human person {Ger. Nietzsche makes this point using the vocabulary of self-mastery. If truth can be achieved at all, it can come only from an individual who purposefully disregards everything that is traditionally taken to be "important." Essays and Comments on Nietzsche's View of Human Nature and Values: 1. David Potts, "Friedrich Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morals 2nd and 3rd Essays" 4. Slave-morality values sympathy, kindness, and humility and is regarded by Nietzsche as “herd-morality.” The history of society, Nietzsche believes, is the conflict be-tween these two outlooks: the herd attempts to impose its values univer-sally but the noble master transcends their “mediocrity.” 1. Nietzsche describes active forgetting as a “divine ability.” 21 This is characteristically double-edged. The sad state of modern life, he said, is a consequence of the overturning of classical values that occurred in the early post-Christian world. What is characteristic of those acts of willing which institute values is that they are owned or authored. Why then doesn’t Nietzsche defend these “metavalues” explicitly and try … Nietzsche insists that there are no rules for human life, no absolute values, no certainties on which to rely. 6 6. But what did he think man ought to do to become like god? The first is the valuing Nietzsche attributes to all living things, and to us humans in our bodies; Nietzsche insists that we already value in our drives and affects. Nietzsche’s project of reevaluating values. I’ll begin this argument in Section One, by showing that Nietzschean nihilism is the collapse of higher values and explaining what higher values are. Nietzsche's values. 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