On Nietzsche's On The Genealogy of Morals Daniel Brownell
i got 22/30 for it. :(
"You will not surely die; for God knows that on the day you eat of it your eyes will
be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and bad" - The snake to Eve
According to Will Durant, the master biographer, Nietzsche "introduced a value hitherto practically unknown in the realms of ethics- namely, aristocracy"; he compelled an honest taking of thought about the ethical implications of Darwinism  (Durant 445).  Those who argue with him must first step up to this 'higher' man's understanding of the human condition.  Once you're on the same page as him, Is Nietzsche's critique of moral ideas and institutions compelling?
Compared to the English psychologists' argument, yes.  And Herbert Spencer's argument, yes.  But perhaps evolutionary psychologists like Robert Wright have offered more rational post-Darwin, post-Nietzsche explanations of the origin and evolution of the moral animal.  The scientists have accumulated substantial evidence showing that moral reasoning is intertwined with the natural sciences (Wilson).  Morality had its origins long before either master or slave morality came about.  There were alpha-males long before there were masters.  So one thing to do is to draw lines around the value of his philological distrinction, and another is to examine the general philosophical problem at hand.  The pulp that's left is the same for Wilson as it is for Nietzsche, who ask the same question "How can the moral instincts be ranked?"  I examine some opinions on these matters, and will likely not make any substantial contribution to the world of philosophy.
To the extent that morality is concerned with fairness, justice and scientific ethics, it doesn't surprise me that the slave revolt in morality has won.  Slave morality, or mob morality, or Judeo-Christianism as Nietzsche describes has indeed domesticated much of the Western world.  Slowly, The Jews and Jesus levelled and assimilated the master moralities with their now common sense peaceful morality.  Socrates and Science and Democracy contributed as well.  Lately with Science and Democracy, you'd think mankind is becoming 'too bright' and 'too contentious' to accept anything less than a democratic process, 'weakening the clash of religions and ideologies' (Wilson).  Surely the new problems we cannot prevent, we'll solve when they hit us.  After all, what is the problem here that we cannot solve?  Who is we�and what is the problem?  In hindsight and foresight, each situation must be looked at individually, in its own context.  When it's your people being oppressed, then we'll see the meaning of 'resentment'.
But was this last paragraph a plebeian attempt at deflecting the issue?  What kind of 'us' would Wilson be talking to?  The same 'higher' men that Nietzsche addresses?  The events of the 21st century have made the world a lot more globalized than it was during Nietzsche's time and the time of the civilizations he discusses.  By the time of the destruction of the second temple in 70CE , it is estimated that "as many as one million Jews had died in the Great Revolt against Rome" (Telushkin).  Was there anything noble in this glorification of Rome?  Sure, if you're a Roman.  Was there anything noble at all about the Holocaust?  Anything justified by the need for lebensraum?  Well if you're a Nazi.  In both these cases, the Jews didn't think so.
We'd like to think that World War 2 made a lasting impression against...  what?  Nazis?  Tyrants?  Anti-Semitism?  Hatred?  Evil?  Whereas in the Judea vs. Rome case, it was Jews and Romans, now it was Allies vs. Axis, and you're likely alive today because the Allies won.  A rose is a rose is a rose.  "Must the ancient fire not some day flare up much more terribly, after much longer preparation?  More: must one not desire it with all one's might? even will it? even promote it?"... "Whoever begins at this point, like my readers, to reflect and pursue his train of thought will not soon come to the end of it" (Ch. 17)
Will Durant says "As for the ethical system of Beyond Good and Evil and The Genealogy of Morals, it is stimulating exaggeration.  We acknowledge the need of asking men to be braver, and harder on themselves, - almost all ethical philosophies have asked that; but there is no urgent necessity for asking people to be crueler and 'more evil'" (p. 442)  Nietzsche has a poetic vagueness in his writing - his mixture of personality and behavioral traits into the discussion of morality seem to add a realm of social philosophy that at times might better be left unexplained, or left to the psychologists.  Do we really need philosophy to enforce the social instincts?  I've never really met a representative member of a master morality.  I've only read about them in this book, and they initially sound like science fiction characters.  In their time and place, they were great in various ways, no doubt.  I admire the Greeks' truthfulness to this-world as much as the next man.
Frank Herbert and Robert Heinlein have contributed their own perspectives and modes of looking at the value of morality.  Heinlein's morality in Starship Troopers is adapted to the situation: "The basis of morality is duty, a concept with the same relation to group as self-interest has to the individual."  This is arguably only applicable when giant bugs are attacking earth and we can shift the focus of war between men, to war against a common foe.  Herbert's works, borrowing from Heidegger, are more philosophically applicable to the real human condition, and to the discussion of the traits of an over-man, in whom the moral instincts are well-ranked.
Frank Herbert's Dune series creates an entire universe of characters, over the span of millennia, to examine values of various moralities.  In Science fiction futures, the use of super-physiological abilities: awareness, self-mastery, control, 'voice', are the repertoire of the various wills to power involved in creating history.  Adaptability is a necessary trait for a moral being.  The spice, a substance that induces prescient abilities, allows Paul Atreides and his lineage a hypothetical look at the future of mankind & the limits of his own power. A horrible futute was out of his control except for one path, wbich his son takes on as his duty of preserving the species, of taking the one golden path.  Great fucking book.
But back on Earth, we cannot put moralities to the prescience test.  Science fiction can only warn and inform us.  In most of the Western World, you'd be put in prison for doing spice.  And that is why we have philosophers like Nietzsche, chopping at the roots of assumption, so that his readers wake up and at least acknowledge to themselves the concept that humans as 'true' animals are "beyond good and evil".  Someone had to pronounce the old God dead and deal with the problems implied.  It just happened to be Zarathustra, who returned in Nietzsche's words, with the goal to lift man above the undercurrent weaknesses and problems of his time.  He is somewhat disgusted by lamb-like Christianity with its pestering bad consciense and world-denying focus on 'sin'...  and just the same by the 'ascetic' modern man, or secularized lamb, who drinks an unfortunate measure of Buddhism and Western Tradition: nihilism.  The ascetic is one who would rather will nothingness than not will.  The hollow men and J. Alfred Prufrocks of the human comedy.
But now we're discussing the profound realm of the nothingness, which resolves to a problem of words and symbols, of a lack of accepting and recognizing opportunities in a socialized world.  The nothingness is not really a problem.  Drugs are the answer for some, and there is much to be said for the various drugs.  In The Doors of Perception, Aldous Huxley describes the effects and limits of mescaline, but concludes that "The full and final solution can be found only by those who are prepared to implement the right kind of Weltanschauung by means of the right kind of behavior and the right kind of constant and unstrained alertness."  As Aldous Huxley recognizes, there is still much room left for pity and charitable souls in this world.  The betterment of humanity is a complex issue, and the Hassidic Jews seem to agree with Nietzsche:  to improve the world, one must start with one's self.  We should also remember that when God supposedly created the universe, and rested, he gave only one commandment, which Adam and Eve disobeyed.  The other 612 (as far as the Jews are concerned) only came about after eating of the fruit of that fateful tree, the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.
Works cited
Durant, Will
The Story of Philosophy,
Published.  Pocket Books, Inc.  June 1955
Huxley, Aldous
The Doors of Perception
http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/lsd/doors.htm
Nietzsche, Friedrich
The Genealogy of Morals
Trans. Walter Kaufman.
Published by the Modern Library
Telushkin, Joseph
The Great Revolt
(http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/Judaism/revolt.html)
Wilson, E.O
The Biological Basis of Morality
http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/98apr/biomoral.htm
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